If your toddler is sleeping in a room that she shares with a sibling, it may be a good idea to stagger bedtimes by 30 minutes or so, to give your toddler time to settle down and get to sleep. Otherwise there is the risk that she will use your presence to the bedroom as an excuse to get up again.

After a while, there’s a good chance your toddler will start to understand that when you put her to bed, it’s sleep-time, not play-time!

It’s very important that you are consistent, firm and persistent in enforcing the bedtime routine and rules, to stop the entire thing becoming a game that your child uses to push your boundaries and demand attention the whole time.

That said, you should be sensitive to the fact that sometimes when she calls out, she has a genuine need that you should attend to.If she’s scared of imaginary creatures in the cupboard, you can do a quick “check” to reassure her, but only once, and leave the light out. If she is afraid of the dark, then a plug-in glow nightlight can be a great help. She may also have filled her nappy – in which case, change it as quickly as possible, in low light and keeping very quiet. This might take a bit of getting used to for you, but the sooner you have a bedtime routine mastered, the sooner you will start to get some calm into your life again, so stick at it!

Continuining the earlier post, here are three more tips to get your toddler to sleep without tears:

1. Try to keep the bedtime routine consistent. It has a much higher success rate if it doesn’t vary much from night to night. New events and deviations from the norm can excite your child.

Read more »