Toddler Acts Up At Bedtime! - Q&A With Dana

Описание: Dana Obleman (http://www.sleepsense.net) shares advice on toddlers who act up at bedtime by taking off their pajamas.

Transcript:
Dana Obleman: Hi, I'm Dana Obleman, creator of the Sleep Sense Program. Today's question comes from Tina. She's wondering, "I have an 18 month old and she's been going to sleep wonderfully for the last two months. All of a sudden, she is in her crib, fooling around, and ends up taking her pajamas off.

"What can I do to stop this behavior?"

That is actually much more common than you would even imagine. I hear that from a lot of people. There's a few reasons why toddlers are doing it. I'm going to share with you two reasons why and two tips to help prevent that.

One of the reasons why toddlers do this is simply for attention. We know toddlers. They love attention. They love all kinds of attention. It doesn't really matter if it's positive or negative. It's still all attention.

She's taking off her pajamas because it gets you into the room. It gets you engaged with her. You might even be getting a little upset with her or cross with her. She's getting a lot of extra attention from you where she didn't get that before. She was going to sleep wonderfully and you didn't have to intervene at all.

Another thing toddlers will do will not stop at their jammies. They'll go so far as to take their diaper off, too. That can cause a whole bunch of other issues and problems.

One of the two or both are very, very common with this age group. You need to be careful about how you respond to it.

Another reason why toddlers will do this is because they're not tired enough. Have a look at the daytime schedule. It may mean that her nap is lasting too long and you're trying to put her to bed a bit too early. It could mean that it's not dark enough in the room so her melatonin levels aren't high enough that she's sleepy.

Have a look at that. First of all, the schedule and then the darkness. The darker it is in her room, the better. First of all, she'll be less able to see her jammies to get them off. It will also help release melatonin, get her feeling nice and sleepy so she's not as tempted to do this.

Two tips for solving the problem. Number one is my very favorite tip. I suggest it to everybody that's having this problem. Get a sleep sack, obviously one that's age appropriate, and put it on backwards.

When you think about it, this makes getting out of your pajamas a lot more difficult because there's a zipper and it's way at the back. It's really tough for a toddler to figure out how to get that off. That could put a stop to this right away.

There are actually some pajamas that you can buy that are escape proof. Inventors have thought of a clever way to keep the jammies on. They often hide the zippers or the buttons are so difficult to maneuver with little fingers that they just simply can't do it.

If those aren't options for you and your child is repeatedly doing this, then it is the attention that she's after. My advice around that is to just stop giving attention around it. It doesn't really matter if her pajamas are off. It does if her diaper is coming off. You can just duct tape the diaper. That's a quick problem solver right there.

If it stops getting attention, she will stop doing it. It's really that simple. If she has to sleep a couple of nights in just her diaper, that's OK. You can go in after she's asleep and cover her up or do whatever you want to keep her warm but this will teach her that there's really no point in taking them off because it gets nothing.

Thanks so much for that question. Sleep well.