School me on being a Dad

[killramos]

Define real bed ( just for my own curiosity and benchmarking).

To answer your question, maybe childproof door handles are the right choice? We had these spinny things put on knobs when I was a kid that make the knob very hard to turn.

Not sure how such contraptions fit into fire hazards these days (namely do they work so well you can’t get out in an emergency).

[arcticcat522]

If you figure it out,let me know. Our 4yo starts in his bed, but ends up in ours every night. 2 yo is in his bed all night. Some times yells for mom or dad to come lay with him at 2am, but stays in his bed.

[ExtraSlow]

Couple tips.
1) Never, ever, say a consequence you aren't 100% ready to impose.
2) Getting out of bed is pretty normal, and not really preventable. You need to figure out what the kid is an is not permitted to do when they get out of the bed.
3) if it becomes a safety issue, you can consider locking them into the room somehow. Reversed door handle etc. But that can cause more problems sometimes.

[Tik-Tok]

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If you figure it out,let me know. Our 4yo starts in his bed, but ends up in ours every night. .

Time and multiple conversations about how they need to stay in their own bed. Ours stopped coming into our bed pretty much when she started grade 1.

[ExtraSlow]

Had one kid come to my bed every night. Just didn't let them stay. Still drops by when they are sick for a cuddle. I make them have a drink of water, use the bathroom etc on the way back to thier bed.

[JustinL]

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Put my 3yo (almost 4) daughter into a real bed last week. First couple nights were perfect, went right to sleep and didn't come out of her room til her awake light came on.

ffwd to last night, she went to sleep fine, but spent the hours of 1:45-3:45am getting up every 5-10 min to open her door and check the hallway or play pretend games with imaginary things flying around her room and "letting them out of the door". Anyone have any tips and tricks for getting a kid to stay in their room (short of locking the door from the outside)? I don't really expect her to sleep perfectly all night quite yet, but at least want her to stay in her room. I don't want her waking my 1yo up... or my wife, as she gets miserable when she doesn't sleep.

We've already tried bribing with gifts in the morning if she stays, sticker chart to work towards a big gift, threatening to cancel fun activities the next day. She just dgaf, calls our bluff on everything.

I've been through this too. We started just after she turned 2 because we needed the crib for the next kid. Just be consistent, we call it "the night of 100 walks". Just keep walking her back to bed. I had to post up outside the door for hours at a time at first just to tell her to not come out. We also got a alarm clock light that turns green when she can come out of the room. Try not to get frustrated (ha! easier said than done), just keep walking her back. Don't lock her in, that will hurt your heart.

[ExtraSlow]

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Don't lock her in, that will hurt your heart.

Yeah, if you have options that are safe, don't lock the kid in. Locking them into their room, daytime or nighttime, is really only for cases where there is a safety issue.

[vengie]

Asshole dad here.

Reverse door lock.

Our son now stays in his room and doesn't even check the door.

[90_Shelby]

Likely not a popular option but I know someone who would simply inform the child that leaving their room or bed, implied that they did not want to sleep in their room and the only alternative was the dark and scary spare bedroom in the basement. Once the child was promptly relocated to the basement bedroom which absolutely struck the fear of god in their eyes, they quickly realized that their bedroom was a much nicer and less scary option. The typical response is an initially terrified child, who will more then willingly return to their bedroom under their own power, never to step out of their bed or bedroom ever again.

[killramos]

^I like these two options above

Out of curiosity for those of you who have issues with this…

Did your kids have a history of being in bed with mom and dad when they are younger?

My take, our daughter has never once spent the night in bed with mom and dad so I don’t think the concept would even occur to her. She loves her room lol she begs to go in there at bed time.

[DonJuan]

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...
Did your kids have a history of being in bed with mom and dad when they are younger? ...

This is the question I am asking myself. Our daughter is 14 mo old and still sleeps in our bed, I don't mind it because she sleeps through the night now. But I am wondering if we are setting a precedent that she wont want to sleep in her crib in her room. We were planning on transitioning her to her room after vacation in May, since she will be sleeping with us again there as there is no crib avail where we are going.

[90_Shelby]

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^I like these two options above

Out of curiosity for those of you who have issues with this…

Did your kids have a history of being in bed with mom and dad when they are younger?

My take, our daughter has never once spent the night in bed with mom and dad so I don’t think the concept would even occur to her. She loves her room lol she begs to go in there at bed time.

If you don't want something to be an issue in the future don't enable it to begin with, is my thought process, you are setting precedence and a difficult habit to break. I know someone who had a kid sleep in their bed every night until an unreasonable age, they didn't know how to reverse it as the kid will certainly respond negatively when you try to change the norm.

I didn't want this to be a problem with my kids, so I don't let my kids sleep in my bed. Even if a kid is sick or nightmares, take the kid to a spare bedroom and sleep with them or sleep in their bed but I wouldn't normalize the kid sleeping in my bed.

Alternatively, use drugs. A crumb of melatonin does absolute wonders to put a restless toddler to sleep. "Apparently"

[arcticcat522]

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Time and multiple conversations about how they need to stay in their own bed. Ours stopped coming into our bed pretty much when she started grade 1.

We have had talks, but the wife is a pushover and just blows up and says fine, get into our bed and goto sleep...

She has no follow thorough and can't deal with a little screaming...

Well, alot of screaming........

Also, on the morning clocks. We have one. Absolutely useless for us. First day with it, told out son not to get out of bed until the clock is yellow. 2am, runs into our room, yelling "my clock is yellow, my clock is yellow" dam kid pushed buttons until he figured out how to get the clock yellow.

[bigbadboss101]

One or both of our kids end up in our bed at some point. 7 and 3.5 years old. When it's early, eg. 10pm we would send our 7 year old daughter back. Our son we are more lenient with. If it's later on and we are half asleep they end up staying in our bed. 10% of the time we will wake up with kids in their own rooms. We are too nice!

[bjstare]

Good responses. A couple of answers: @killramos a real bed is... a real bed. Just got a cheap twin from ikea. Gave her crib to Haggis88. @ExtraSlow we enforce consequences. We tell her mom is no longer taking her to the zoo today (and they don't go), she says "that's ok."

We likely won't be locking her in. She's really sensitive to things like that and it takes her weeks/months to get over it. Also, not sure about Calgary/AB fire code, but I did read that it's against code in some places. Moot point for me though, as that's a last last last resort.

She never has and still doesn't spend the night in our bed. On rare occasions (like when she was miserably sick), I'd sleep with her in the spare room. Once last week I went and slept in her bed for half the night; that was the last time.
I sat outside for a couple hours before, and she came out more often to see if I was still there. The path forward now is to tell her where I'm going to be (my bed) and she'll check once or twice to confirm, then drop it.

This is difficult because she isn't really doing anything seriously wrong, not crying (well, very rarely), she's just being a kid that took a 6hr nap then decides to get up and play.

[killramos]

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If you don't want something to be an issue in the future don't enable it to begin with, is my thought process, you are setting precedence and a difficult habit to break. I know someone who had a kid sleep in their bed every night until an unreasonable age, they didn't know how to reverse it as the kid will certainly respond negatively when you try to change the norm.

I didn't want this to be a problem with my kids, so I don't let my kids sleep in my bed. Even if a kid is sick or nightmares, take the kid to a spare bedroom and sleep with them or sleep in their bed but I wouldn't normalize the kid sleeping in my bed.

Alternatively, use drugs. A crumb of melatonin does absolute wonders to put a restless toddler to sleep. "Apparently"

I shit you not my wife’s sister ( half sister from a second marriage ) still to this day climbs into bed with her mom and dad. Shes 18.

They were here visiting a few weeks ago and she pulled that stunt I couldn’t believe it.

Fucking maritimers.

Re the “real bed” comments, I have conversion kits to convert our crib to a gated toddler bed and ultimately to a real bed. I was wondering if you came right from crib to real bed or had an intermediate step.

I was considering converting my 16 month olds crib to the next level toddler bed some time in the next 6 months. I really have no idea timing on that.

I have a friend who did the co sleeping thing from a young age, they are having a nightmare of a time trying to get their kid to even sleep in a crib now.

Practically speaking, what’s the difference between a crib with walls and “locking” the door? To me it’s just about setting firm boundaries.

[ExtraSlow]

If the mom doesn't mind them in the bed, the kid will be in the bed. Sounds like the only problem is the dad.

[Buster]

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1) Never, ever, say a consequence you aren't 100% ready to impose.

This might be the singles best piece of parenting advice available on the internet.

Too bad my wife doesn't get it.

[Tik-Tok]

Have none of you tried beating your kids?

[cet]

^^ +1. I also think the same rule applies to promises. I never promise anything to my daughter that I can't or won't follow through on.