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!

What to do if your toddler gets up after bedtime

You may find that your toddler is restless after you have put him to bed, or keeps getting up after “lights out”. This can be very frustrating as just when you think you’ve got some peace and quiet, it’s interrupted.
If this is a problem for you, here are a few things to try:

1. Avoid rough games in the hour before bed. If your child is excited, he won’t settle down very well
2. Keep to a routine at bedtime that is soothing and consistent
3. ake sure that there is nothing that your toddler needs before you leave him, then sooth him as you are leaving and remind him to go to sleep quietly
4. Although it can be very difficult, don’t take notice of calls after you have turned out the lights. Your toddler can be very loud in protesting, but you must resolve to ignore it. Responding will just encourage more protesting and trouble the following night.

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Toddlers tend to sleep better through the night than babies. Once you actually get them to bed, they are less prone to waking up. However, persuading them to get their head down and rest can be very difficult.

Toddlers by their very nature like to test boundaries – it’s part Read more »

Traveling with your toddler can be great fun, or give you a serious case of PTSD. Here are a few tips to stop it being too traumatic:

1. Don’t carry too much with you. If you let your toddler dictate what they want to bring, you’ll need a trailer just to carry their stuff, and they’ll just get it all out on the floor to find the one toy they want, and won’t touch the rest of it. And you can Read more »

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.

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