From: nsmith@tms390.micro.ti.com (Neal Smith)
Subject: Re: Help getting two year old to sleep
Organization: Texas Instruments, Houston
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 17:21:06 GMT

standeven@adcalc.fnal.gov writes:

>Our son Josh just turned two. Lately, the last month, he has developed
>a real tendancy to fight going to bed at a decent hour. We
>try to let him know that it going to be time for bed soon. We have a
>bath, get a drink and a few crackers and try to rock him,
>which worked until recently. We are trying to get him used to the idea
>that when he is put into bed after a while that its time to
>go to bed, but he always has his own ideas about that. He will get up
>and play with whis toys. We try to read to him while rocking,
>try to read to him in bed, talk to him gently but nothing seams to work.
>He wont give up the fight until about midnight, we try to 
>put him to bed at 8. He gets an hour nap at one in the afternoon but 
>lately he has been fighting that one too. (He informed me
>today that nap was a NoNo.) My wife is halfway along with our second 
>one and tires easily. She is also getting to the point where
>she cant rock him with a bad back or pick him up off the floor when 
>he passes out in his pile of toys in the middle of his room
>after we put him to bed.

>	Getting tired
>	Jack Satndeven

We had (actually, still have) the same problem with our son.  Allen
is a couple months shy of being 3, and never wants to slow down 
his playing long enough to take a nap or go to sleep.  Our "solution",
such as it is, was to make a bedtime routine that is consistent
(i.e., written in stone - we don't change it if we can at all
avoid it).  The routine has to start with something he likes doing;
when we tried having him start to clean up his toys, he rebelled
against that, and of course would not continue along the routine
to going to bed.  Instead, when it is about half an hour before
Allen's bedtime, he gets to feed the fish (he likes this so much
that if we left the fish food out, the fish would be dead from
too much food in the tank), then he takes his vitamin (he likes these
a lot, we have to convince him that they aren't candy and he can't
have more than one a day), he gives his mommy a kiss goodnight (or
me if my wife is putting him to sleep), goes to the bathroom, then
goes to his room and gets his pajamas on, etc.  Then he gets to pick out
3 stories to read, and I read to him; but as I'm picking up the books,
I remind him, "OK, Daddy's reading 3 books to you, then the light is
going off, then you're going nite-nite...  OK, 2 books..." etc.

The point is, that we have a well-defined bedtime sequence that is
kind of long (so that at first, he did not necessarily associate
the first action with going to bed); that the first actions are stuff
he enjoys to do (feeding the fish, etc.); and that we don't change it.
Of course, this doesn't work immediately.  It took about 2 weeks to
experiment with what was good to do before bedtime.  For example,
at first we tried to get him to pick up his toys; that wasn't a good
start, because he didn't enjoy it.  Then, we tried moving it later
in the sequence; he was willing to do it to delay going to bed, but
the problem was that he would get interested in the toys and start
playing again, which would excite him and defeat going to bed
anytime soon.  We finally decided that this was not a bedtime
activity.  Choose what works for you and your child.  After we came
up with a pretty good routine, it took several weeks for him to settle
in to it and accept it.  The important thing was to keep it constant
and not let it slip just because I was tired (this was very hard!).
Even at this age, he's testing his limits constantly to see what he
can do and can't do.

A few more suggestions (you have probably checked all of these,
I'm listing them here just to be complete.)

1)  Look for any reason that he might not like being in his room/bed etc.
With our son, we found that his curtains weren't adequately blocking
our neighbor's outdoor security lights, and the light was bothering him.
When we put darker curtains in, he was upset by the dark; and we added
a small night-light, and he found he could sleep then.

2)  If he's getting enough sleep, then the bedtime may be too early.
We found that our son was getting up well in advance of when he needed
to be up, and decided that we were trying to put him to bed too early
just so that we could have the extra time.  We moved his bedtime back
slightly, and it is now easier to get him to sleep (he ends up falling
asleep at the same time, but there's less time wasted on him fighting
getting there.)

3)  Make it clear that bedtime comes earlier when he delays or breaks
the rules.  Occasionally, our son will just stop the routine, during
the book phase for instance, and decide he wants to get up and leave
or play with his toys.  Our response is "if you're done with your books,
it's time to turn the light out."  We turn the light off (so he can't
really play with his toys, his nightlight isn't that bright), and leave
the room.

4)  Find some of the less important issues that he can decide on.  In
the case of our son, we let him pick out his stories; we allow him to
sleep on the floor with a blanket and a pillow if he prefers that to
his bed; that sort of thing.  He's a little happier if he feels he has
some choice.

Of course, I'm not an expert.  In spite of all this, my son still has
nights that he won't go to sleep no matter what we do, and I'm ready
to tear my hair out.  But these work a lot of the time.

I'm looking forward to seeing other parents' suggestions about getting
kids to sleep, also.  I'm still open to other ideas.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------
From Neal Smith (nsmith@tms390.micro.ti.com)
The expressions opined here are mine.
If you want TI's opinion, you'll have to ask marketing...