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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Toddlerhood Bedtime

…. is a nightmare! Bedtime routine takes longer and longer. When he was younger, it took about 15 min to put him down. We read stories in his room and said our good nights. He usually went to bed around 7:30-8 pm.

Ever since he turned 2.5, everything changed. It takes about 45 min and sometimes an hour to put the little guy to sleep. One story after another and another, never ending. He insists that he is not tired and not ready for bed. And when we finally put him down and turn the lights off, he screams he wants to use the potty. After several nights of pulling the potty trick, we finally had it enough. John warned him that he must really be using the potty, and if he doesn’t, we would ignore his cries next time. So he got scared and force himself to poop. He would declare with pride when he actually pooped. Most of the time, he did poop but very small amount. When brushing his teeth, we also let him know that this is the time to use the potty if he needs to. If he doesn’t want to use the potty then, we wouldn’t take him if he wants to go after the lights out. After a few nights pulling the potty trick, he stopped.

Thankfully he is still in his crib, which restricts his freedom of climbing out and getting out of the room. We are trying to keep him in his crib as long as we can just for this reason.

He goes to bed around 8:30-9 pm now. We’re hoping he will be back to his old schedule of 8 pm now that summer is over. Daylight is shorter; hopefully this can help with an earlier bedtime too.

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