Dana Obleman: Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. Welcome to this week’s video chat.
Today, our question comes from Nancy, and she writes, “My 27‑month‑old is now taking her pajamas off at bedtime instead of going to sleep. I think it’s just a phase because she’s always slept well, 12 hours a night. But now, she’s in there for half an hour to an hour fooling around and trying to get her pajamas off. What can I do?”
Nancy, I know this sounds funny, but this is a really common problem. You’d be surprised how many [laughs] questions I get around this very thing. Taking off jammies, and taking off the diaper even, is a very common stall tactic of a toddler. There are a couple of things I want you to have a look at. I’ve got about three pieces of advice around this.
First, is to look at the daytime nap. Now, you’ve mentioned she’s 27 months, there is a potential here that she is ready to give up her afternoon nap. I know. That’s a sad day. I remember it well. If she’s taking an afternoon nap and you’re still putting her down at her normal bedtime, then she might just not be fatigued enough to go to sleep quickly.
When a toddler’s not fatigued enough, they usually get into some mischief. That can be taking off the jammies or the diaper, look at the daytime nap. This next thing you want to do is look at darkness. If it’s not dark enough in her bedroom, then melatonin doesn’t get a chance to start running through her system and making her feel sleepy.
Especially in the spring and summer months, the sun stays up longer. If you’re putting her down for her bed around 07:00 PM, it’s most likely still light out, wherever you live. You really want to make sure that the room is nice and dark.
Get some blackout blinds, I’ve even suggested to people just to take garbage bags over the window to keep the light out. That’ll definitely help. If it’s darker in there, it’s not as easy for her to see her pajamas and get them off. That will definitely help.
My third tip is to get a sleep sack. You can find them online. Really easy to find, they come in all shapes and sizes. There’s no worry that she’s too big for them. Put it on backwards because it’s really hard to get the zipper when it’s on backwards. She’ll have a terrible time figuring that one out. It’s a really quick fix, it works all the time.
The combination of those three things should really solve the problem, but you’re right when you say it’s a phase. It really is. I find that around this age group there’s just so much going on cognitively that they’re singing, chatting, or experimenting with their jammies because they have some free time. They have time to talk, and sing, and explore and try to figure things out. It’s totally normal.
You don’t want to give it a whole lot of attention. You don’t want to go in there every 10 minutes and scold her for taking them off, or put them back on, and really get invested in this. You want to try to ignore it the best you can. It will blow over, I promise.
We love to hear from you. If you have some questions, or you have a really clever tip you want to share about how you stopped this behavior, please put it in the comments section. Thanks so much for watching. Sleep well.
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Dana: If you are looking for even more advice on your baby’s sleep, head over to sleepsense.net to answer five easy questions. Get a free sleep evaluation for your child.
Transcription by CastingWords
