Child refuses to sleep in his bed.

martyeds

Looking for some help or advice here. Our son who will be 3 in August will not sleep in his own bed. When he was younger we never really had any problems with him sleeping in his own room, apart from a few times when he was sick, we let him sleep in our bed. He played up for a few nights when he went back to his cot but we never really had a major problem.

When he moved into his own bed, the move went ok, he has Toy Story bed covers and seemed to like it.
He then had a nightmare of some sort and he would not go to bed alone and always asked to check that there were no monsters or giants in his room.
We would reassure that there were nothing to be afraid of, and the only things in his room were his toys and teddy bears who were his friends.
But to no avail, He would scream and cry when put into his bed in fact he would make himself sick from crying.
We tried the Super Nanny technique of lifting him back into his bed and not making eye contact with him but when you have to change blankets and bed clothes twice inside 10 mins it becomes very frustrating.
We both work long hours and my wife is heavily pregnant, so we took the easy way out and let him fall asleep in our bed and carry him into his own bed when he fell asleep. One of us had to sleep beside him in our own bed until he fell asleep.
Now we realise that we have to act now before the 2nd baby comes along. We used to say things like "you are a big boy, you are not a baby any more" but looking back this may not have helped matters as he often tells us that he is a baby. I am wondering is this because he feels threatened about the arrival of the new baby. We often talk to him about the new baby coming and he seems ok with it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kaybe

re: the monsters and being scared....

One concept that works really well in our house is that we have a "love bubble" completly surrounding our house and no monsters or nasties or anything scary can come inside it because we all love each other so much. In fact, this is a very handy little love bubble;) , as it travels with us i.e. if we are in the car, or if we stay in visitors houses... anywhere there is lots of love, there is a love bubble to protect us.
My 4.5 yr old son used to love talking about the love bubble and how the monsters would come flying down at night time (from where, I dunno!) and would bounce off the love bubble and fly off into space. Lots of dramatic stories that involved the monsters/scaries bouncing and going splat against one another..... Maybe something similar would work for your little one?

No real advice for you on the main issue of getting him out of your bed... we have a 3 yr old as well and we ended up getting a 6 ft bed last summer as more often then not there would be 4 of us in the bed when we woke up!

But, all I can say is that over time, the 4 yr old is spending less and less nights in our bed. He will still come in and join us some times in the middle of the night, but mostly sleeps in his own bed. Maybe your little lad will start growing out of it too?