How Do You Get Your Child To Sleep ?

My son is 8 years old. He just gets a story and goes right to sleep. My daughter is 14 months old. She still takes a bottle to bed with her, but that is all I have to give her. She just lays down and goes to sleep. I am not much help because my kids have always been easy.

Try this: give your child a quick warm bath before bedtime or massage his/her body using oil infused with chamomile and lavender. Chamomile and lavender are believed to possess calming and soothing properties that may help your child be less restless and more relaxed before going to bed. There are also a number of baby items that contain chamomile and lavender that can help lull children to sleep. sweet dreams!

Just put off all the lights except for the dimlights and pretend that all the members are sleeping and this should work for like 90% of the time I guess.

My daughter is also three years old and she sleeps normally at around 10:00pm. This is the way I make her sleep - feed her, clean/give her a bath, change to sleeping clothes, turn off light, put her night light on and put her sleeping music on. It's been her routine since she's a baby and luckily it is still working. There are also nights that it is really very hard making her sleep especially when there are a lot of people in the house. When that happens, I stay with her and tells her to close her eyes because the sky is asleep (shows her the sky), the trees are asleep (shows her the trees), the dogs are asleep (shows her the dogs) Mr. Sun is already aleep ( tell her the sky is already dark) and Mr. Moon is out already. I also tell her she will grow up faster if she sleeps now. I will keep on telling that until she falls asleep.

Thanks for asking this question, because I have to go back to doing this myself. My daughter is 2 and the way I got her to go to bed was basically tire her out throughout the day. She would take a nap, but after that I would play with her and tire her out. Give her a bath, read her favorite night time book and them tell her 'night night', turn the light out (keep the night light on) and then leave the room. At first she would cry and once she learned how to get out of her bed, she would get out and come back in. When she would get out, I would just take her back to bed and say nothing to her but 'good night.' After a while, she realized that I wasn't going to cave, so she would just lay there until she fell asleep. Since I've had my son 6 months ago, my husband hasn't supported me on this. So when she would wake up in the middle of the night, he would just put her in our bed. Because he did that, now she just goes to bed when we do...in our bed. Needless to say, our little queen sized bed is cramped. So, I really need to get both of my children to sleep in their beds starting tonight! I hope this helped. Good luck!

I face this same problem sometimes. But if she is not allowed to sleep during the day and has had a lot of outdoor sports, she gets tired and sleeps at 10. Try to identify, why she is not tired? Does she sleep during the day? Try giving her dinner early. This will make her use up her energy and go to sleep faster. My daughter is also 3. She never used to sleep continuously till the age of 2. I suffered a lot.Now she gets tired while playing in kindergarten and sleeps by 11.

I'm not sure how this works yet as my son is only 4 months old, but I would turn on some soft music, turn the lights off (use a nightlight if she is scared) and close the door and tell her to sleep, as I have said I don't know how it works out heh.

I have found that having a good routine is the key thing to an easy bedtime, mine have a bath at 6pm they then get dried and dressed and sit down with a snack and a drink then keep them calm letting them run around or be hyper wont get a calm child and certainly wont get them to bed.The at 7pm we take them upstairs they clean their teeth eldest uses the toilet then its into the bedroom for a story, I kiss them both give a cuddle turn out the light say night night and shut the door. If a child knows what is happening they are more likely to do what is needed but keeping things calm and the same every night its what works for us they know its bedtime they know mummy wont come back to begs of more stories or drinks of milk as they are just delaying tactics which at three she is old enough to understand and use them to delay bedtime, they know i wont come back unless something serious so they go to sleep, they sleep 11-12 hours every night

I believe that many children go through something like what you have described. The dreaded bedtime routine fiascoes. It might be a question of being thirsty. It might be a need for a bite to eat before going to bed. My daughter sometimes pretends to be scared of her room or complains that she can't sleep because my wife is talking to visitors, on the phone, or watching TV. In her case, she might have some anxiety at being put in her room for the night. She is, after all, an only child and gets a fair share of attention from me. It must be such a different sensation for the 10 hours of sleep. So, perhaps it isn't entirely fair for me to declare my daughter is 'pretending.' However, for the most part I see it as a ploy to delay bedtime. We have a practice of not giving the child anything to drink after 6pm or so. This makes it easier for them to go through the night without having to get up to go to the bathroom. Just setting this limit would help to eliminate a request for 'another' glass of milk or 'another' drink of water. You even have a reason to back up the rule. As to stories and wanting to hear them over and over, that is defeated by a time for bed when stories end. If the child wanted to hear more stories, you explain, they needed to get ready for bed sooner. There is nothing wrong with reading many stories to a child, but it can't delay their bedtime. I have had to resort to cuddling with my daughter for a few moments to settle her down. I have laid a pillow on the floor next to her bed and laid down for a few minutes. The nanny person on TV had some routines, too. Most seem to involve being present but ignoring the child so as not to provide positive reinforcement of attention-getting and sleep-delaying behaviors. Once or twice, I have even gone into the bedroom with my daughter to describe counting sheep or other techniques for drifting off to dreamland. I can tell stories, so it is possible.. for example.. for me to describe one scene which transforms into another. This can help the child to fall asleep. An example of that kind of story would be that she's going for a walk and she has a red balloon. A bird comes down an startles her, so she lets the balloon go. Then I describe the balloon flying over the trees, perhaps getting tangled in a tree limb. Maybe a squirrel comes to chew on the string so it can fly away again. Then the wind might send it under a bridge so that it skims along over the stream, sunlight reflecting off the water and dancing on the balloon's surface. A bear might find the balloon in the woods and bring it to his bear-cottage.

Sorry you're having a hard time getting your daughter to sleep at night. I have a 3 yr old as well, and Zak likes to be up late as well, but that has been my schedule also for I'm a homemaker and we can generally make our own hours. I have needed him to get to bed early once in a while, for us to make morning appointmets, and found that a bath works well. I am sure this with many other phases it shall pass. good luck to you!