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Getting your child to go to bed is always a battle. No young child wants to go to bed at the designated time, regardless of how old she is. This battle begins at about the first birthday and lasts for years. It’s a nightly battle that wears on parents. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The first thing you need to do is set the rules. Designate a particular time each night as bed time. As soon as the clock clicks over to nine o’clock, your child then knows that it’s time to go to bed. But then your child always knows that she feels like she’s missing something. You’ll be staying up and doing something that is more exciting than going to sleep, so she won’t want to go to bed. But if you set a certain time every night and stick to it, this rule is easier to follow and get used to over time.
Parents go through many tricks to try and get their children to fall asleep. They’ll sleep with their children, they’ll read to them, nurse them, feed them, sing them, rock them, sit with them, punish them, tell stories and even cuddle with them. Sometimes these tricks work. But many times they don’t.
The best thing to do is to get into the same routine night after night. If the routine is to go to bed and read part of a book and then go to sleep, then stick to that routine every night. It won’t make the process perfect. And it certainly won’t stop your child from wanting to stay up later. But your child will know what the rules are and will know what will happen each night. Over time this will work, because your child knows what to expect and what’s expected of her. You should try different routines out at first to find what might appear to work best for your child, and then stick with that routine.
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