Dana Obleman: Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. Welcome to this week’s video chat. Today I have a question from Deanna, and she’s asking, “How can I get my toddler to go to bed without resistance?” Well, I love this question because most people find that somewhere in the toddler years, you’re going to get some push back from your toddler. It’s the nature of toddlers, there’s nothing special about yours, it’s what toddlers do.
I’m going to give you some tips here today to help streamline this a bit and get your toddler to bed as stress free as possible. The first thing you want to do is set a timer. Toddlers respond really well to timers, because they understand that “It’s the timer’s fault, not mommy’s, if I have to get out of the bath.” Bath tends to be a place where a lot of toddlers stall, or protest.
Set a timer for ten minutes. Tell your toddler that when the timer goes she has to get out of the tub. That’s just the rule. This might mean that the first couple of times the timer goes she puts up a fuss, and you have to haul her out of the bathtub. As this goes on and she understands that there’s really no way around this, as soon as the timer goes she’s going to happily get out of the bath and move on to the next step.
Another thing to do with toddlers is give them some choice, but very limited. Toddlers love to feel like they have a little bit of authority, a little bit of control over things, but if you give away too much control, that’s not good either. For example, when they go in to the room say, “Here are two pairs of pajamas. Which one would you like to wear tonight?” Give them a little bit of controlled choice.
Same with book time, “Here are two stories. Which one would you like tonight?” Or “Out of these three, which two would you pick?” Give a little bit of control over that. You can also set a timer if you find that the whole thing gets stalled out and you lose momentum with bedtime. You can set a timer for the whole routine. So, 20 minutes on the timer. If she can’t get everything done in 20 minutes, then she misses story.
That is a very effective way to keep things on track especially if your toddler enjoys story time. And yes, this might mean that on occasion, she’s going to miss her story and she’s going to probably have a little bit of a fit over that. The more this occurs with consistency every time, eventually she’ll understand that this is business and, “If I can’t get these things done in 20 minutes I’m going to miss my story, and I don’t like that.”
That is going to help her stay on course, help you stay on course, and keep the whole thing moving really positively. One last tip. If you’re really struggling, you could try a little bit of a reward incentive. If every night is just this big fight, lots of tears, you could try giving away a reward for this.
You would say, “If we can get all our things done by the time the timer goes, and you do it cooperatively, then when you get into bed you can put a sticker on the chart, you can get a little toy out of a toy chest,” some sort of little reward incentive to help motivate this and keep it positive. I hope you found that helpful. Thanks so much. Sleep well.
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Transcription by CastingWords