New bedtime routine can help toddler sleep

For the past several weeks, our just-turned 3-year-old has been waking up and coming into our room at all hours of the night with the usual excuses. He’s scared, hungry, thirsty, lonely, can’t sleep, has to use the bathroom, wants a kiss and so on.

He goes to bed at 7:30 if he takes an afternoon nap and 6:30 if he doesn’t. When we take him back to his room, we usually lock the door. The next time he wakes up and discovers he can’t get out, he begins crying and kicking the door, waking our 4-yearold. Should we be patient, hoping this phase will pass quickly, or should we punish?

We are zombies.

It is not at all unusual for a child’s sleep pattern to change around the third birthday. Some children outgrow the need to nap around this time. The fact that your son is on-again, off-again with his afternoon nap tells me he’s going through this transition.

In that event, I encourage you to stop trying to fight city hall. Dispense with the afternoon nap altogether. Put him to bed at 7. Cut his bedroom door in half, just above the knob, then re-hang it and turn the knob around so you can control the lock.

After you put him to bed, close the half-door and lock it. Children don’t like being closed behind a full door because they can’t see out, but they accept the locked half-door fairly readily. Acceptance usually takes about a week.

A second, slightly more painful option is to dispense with his nap, put him to bed at 7, and just wait this out.

Option 3 is to put both children to bed in the same bedroom, at the same time. Close their door and let them play themselves to sleep. Tell them that as long as they’re quiet and don’t come out, they can keep the light on. If they make noise or come out, the lights go out and they have to go to sleep. If you enforce that calmly, you should be over the hump in a week or so, and you can return from the living dead.

Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his website at www.rosemond.com.