The nighttime bed escapee - UPDATE

He didn't get up ONCE last night!!!  Woooo Hoooo!


For original post click here.

The nighttime bed escapee

Not too long before my son Luke turned 3, he discovered he could leave him bedroom at any given moment.  He has been in a 'big boy bed' since a little after he turned 1, so considering how long it took for him to figure this out...we SHOULD count our blessings.

NOW, the occurrences of getting out of bed have increased to an epic magnitude.  He was getting up as many as 15+ times in a night (all within an hour or two period before he finally would fall asleep).  We were frazzled.  We tried the "Super Nanny" advice of no talking and putting him back in bed.  We did this for 3 weeks.  Initially the instances dwindled, but soon came back in full force.

We tried threatening, explaining, lighting up the room (so he would no longer be frightened of the dark), cajoling...NOTHING seemed to be working.

My older sister, Cherie, recommended giving him a 'special book time' before bed.  He gets to look at special books, in his bed, for 15 minutes before lights out.  Once the alarm goes off and the 15 minutes is up, it's lights out. 

At the same time we eliminated nap time as we were discovering that he wasn't really tired at bedtime due to his long nap in the afternoon.  I started a 'quiet time' (which has had it's own folly if you read here).  This seemed to ensure he is at least not WIDE awake come bed time.

Night #1 - He only got up 1 time that night!  YAY!
Night #2 - He got up twice...still an improvement so...YAY!
Night #3 (last night) - He got up three times (is anyone else seeing a pattern here?).  I had to remind him that only BIG boys get special book time and if he keeps getting up, he will be acting like a baby and will no longer be able to have the privilege.  It seemed to work.

I DO have to admit I am nervous about tonight though...if we keep climbing one occurrence per night we will soon be right back to where we started. 

Any suggestions, empathy, stories???

HELP!!!

Look Mommy!!

This week we are implementing 'quiet time' for Luke instead of nap time.  Today was the trial run.  I bought him special toys he ONLY gets to play with during quiet time and I gave him some special books to look at.

All was going well for the first 15 minutes.  I didn't hear a peep.  This should have clued me in to my motherly intuition...but it didn't.  At around minute 16 I hear, "Look Mommy!".  I hesitate, as I don't want to start going in to his room during quiet time.  The point is for me to get some things done.  But his tone was insistent so I thought I had better go look.

When I got to his room, I didn't know what to say.  His 10 gallon fish tank was FULL of floating fish food.  Over 2.5 ounces of it.  If you don't think 2.5 ounces of fish flakes is alot of pickin' fish flakes...you might want to take a trip to your local Wal-Mart or Target and check it out for yourself.  The container he emptied into his fish tank is about 4 inches tall and about 2.5 inches in diameter.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.

I did my best to get as much out as I could with the small fish net we have for catching the fish.  The filter is going to be working overtime for the next 12-24 hours.  I just hope it can filter all that stuff out before the fish get sick!

Oh my, *sigh* well, I CAN say one thing...he WAS quiet!  LOL!