Thursday 31 January 2013

{Fabulous Finds: Sleep Training for Toddlers}

Glasgow Mummy

As you may or may not know, I've been having to contend with a toddler who continually gets out of his bed before he goes to sleep, and then who clambers into my bed in the middle of the night when he wakes up. Far from ideal. I've seen me spending two hours at the top of the stairs returning him to bed, over and over....and over!!!

Here he is asleep on my bed!

Well, after discussing with many of my mum friends, I've come up with a a few ideas that I've put into action. I've decided to post them as part of my Fabulous Finds series:

1. Night light

We've had various night lights for my son's bedroom - a jelly mould shaped one that changes colour, fairy lights in blues and greens and the recent addition is a ladybug light that projects the stars onto the ceiling. They seem to have worked for some of my friends at keeping their little ones in bed, or helping settle them in the middle of the night, but for me they haven't been that useful. 

2. Reward chart

This chart arrived this morning from Amazon. We used it tonight for the first time, and my son was in bed at 6.30pm - desperate to get his fifth star before going to bed! Let's see how he gets on during the night...!! I have one friend who has used this and recommended it. She said it took a week to see real improvement, but that it worked a treat.

3. Audio books

Another friend suggested I try letting him listen to an audio book before he goes to sleep. Over the weekend the inexpensive CD boombox that I had ordered from Amazon arrived and yesterday I downloaded a bedtime audio book from iTunes. After the usual bedtime routine, I let him press play on the CD player and then snuggled him up into bed. After 20 minutes, without any movement from his bedroom, I stuck my head around the door and he was fast asleep! Tonight he is listening to some Fireman Sam stories (his favourite), but again he's been in his bed now for 40 minutes and he's not gotten up. I'm so impressed! Usually he'd be jumping around and coming running through to see me.

The new story book that I ordered which was read tonight before bed

Audio book ready to go!

I'll update you tomorrow to let you know how we got on. Fingers crossed!!

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