Once upon a time, Charlie’s bedtime routine took 30-45 minutes and all was right with the world. We would give him a bath, change him into his sleep sack, read him some books, and put him in his crib awake.  Then we’d leave the room and he’d put himself to sleep.  I completely took it for granted at the time, but it was wonderful.

Then in January of this past year, that wonderful bedtime routine fell apart when Charlie turned 25 months. Here’s a boards post from Mrs. Bee from that time:

The past week it has taken Mr. Bee hours to get Charlie to go to bed. We were truly spoiled by 21 months of sleeping through the night. Now I think he’s too smart and says he wants milk, to read more books, that he pooped, that he wants to take off his sleep sack. We’ve had to let him cry a couple of nights, and a couple of nights Mr. Bee fell asleep holding his hand through the crib slats.

One night when he wasn’t wearing his sleep sack, he nearly climbed out of his crib until Mr. Bee stopped him. (He doesn’t want to wear his sleep sack anymore!)

That whole month was difficult.  Many a night, I found myself lying next to Charlie’s crib holding his hand through the crib slats… and even falling asleep while waiting for him to drift off. I thought I was the only sap in the world that did this, but then I discovered there’s a whole world of ashamed parents that end up falling asleep next to their kid’s crib!  None of them had any idea what to do either…

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Our immediate concern was Charlie’s safety: he might climb out of the crib even with his sleep sack on. So we started to think about transitioning Charlie to a toddler bed. But what if Charlie started wandering the halls at night, possibly hurting himself in the process?  I wasn’t sure how to deal with that, so at the end of January, we posted to the boards again asking if anyone had considered some sort of lock on the nursery door:

Charlie is so crazy mobile that we will definitely be putting a lock on his door eventually! Otherwise, he does crazy things like climb bookcases and turn on the oven… oh my!

Does anyone have experience with locks on a nursery or LO’s bedroom? Someone mentioned that a lock can be bad in an emergency… the thing is, I don’t think Charlie could somehow save himself in the case of an emergency. He can’t even open the front door…

If your LO sleeps in a toddler bed, would you consider locking their door from the outside?

We got a healthy amount of pushback around the idea. To paraphrase the feedback: locks may be against the fire code, many parents aren’t comfortable with locking or imprisoning their child in a room, and there are safety concerns about if your LO would be trapped in the event of a fire.

After reading the comments on the boards thread, we decided not to use a lock and to explore other alternatives. But Charlie’s bedtime routine continued to get worse and worse. In February, Charlie learned how to climb out of his crib when he wasn’t wearing a sleep sack. Then in April, Charlie learned how to climb out of his crib even while wearing a sleep sack, and once he figured out he could, he wouldn’t stop! We were forced to make the transition to a toddler bed ASAP because the sleep sack that had been keeping him in his crib for the past three months now made him more likely to fall while climbing out of his crib, since it limited his mobility. In fact he was about to fall flat on his face once, had I not been there to catch him with my leg just in the nick of time.

That night we ordered this door lock that could lock the nursery door from the outside; it’s purposefully very flimsy and we could easily kick it in if we had to (to be honest, Charlie could probably jostle it open if he really tried.)  We had it installed a couple weeks later, but didn’t use it.

That was April 3rd. It’s now July, 3 months later… and Bee and I have suffered for the entire three months. Every single night, one of us has laid next to him in his floor bed as he used all of the tricks in his little book to extend his bedtime.  One week, he pooped after story time every single night!  Impressive, right?  The end result was that we often fell asleep while putting Charlie down, which resulted in us spending the entire night sleeping with Charlie in his toddler bed. This was not good for our relationship or our sleep.

Finally one night this month, I decided to try something new. After reading books, I walked out the door and used the nursery door lock for the first time to latch the door from the outside. Charlie then turned on his bedroom light and tried to open his door. When he couldn’t, he called out for Daddy for a little while. Then he put on his shoes (??), walked around the room, and started playing with his toys. Then the oddest thing happened. He just lay down and fell asleep. I guess once he realized I wasn’t going to come back, he decided to just fall asleep. It was truly a miracle!

Another night after story time, I told Charlie that I was going to be right back. He said ok, and this time he just stayed in bed. I had planned on coming back, but he fell asleep on his own shortly afterwards while he was waiting. Apparently this is a trick many parents use to transition away from laying next to their child until they fall asleep!

It’s been a week or two since that night, but Charlie now truly understands that bedtime means bedtime. One of us will change him into his pajamas, snuggle up and read him a few books, let him know that the next book will be the last one, and then we’ll give him a kiss and say good night. Then we leave. Two nights out of the last two weeks, he’s cried for one minute before falling right asleep. Most nights though, he doesn’t even call out or check the door knob. If he did, we would know since we sleep next to a video monitor of his room, with the audio turned up quite a bit.

IT’S TRULY BEEN A MIRACLE!! After 6 months of laying next to Charlie, he is now finally falling asleep on his own again. He is getting a lot more sleep, and Bee and I have our evenings back. Charlie doesn’t even try to open the door anymore since he knows it’s locked, but we always unlock the door after he falls asleep. If it continues to go well, we’ll stop locking his door very soon.

If you’re considering trying something like this, here’s what worked for us:

  • Get a good (but not too good) latch to lock the door from the outside. Here’s the one that we got.
  • Be extremely consistent with the bedtime ritual. Read the same number of books every night, and let your LO know when the last book is starting.  It also helps to regularly remind him or her as you read the last book that storytime is coming to a close.
  • Kiss your LO and say the exact same thing every time you leave. I’ve been saying, “I love you so so much Charlie, and I will see you soon!”
  • Charlie has fallen asleep with the flashlight on a couple of times (he can turn it on and off himself), so we just ordered the Cloud B Constellation Turtle Night Light to make it a part of our night time ritual, and because so many parents swear by it.
  • Before you leave, make sure the video monitor is on and has a good view of the room.
  • Then slip out of the door, and lock it. You can watch your LO from the monitor until he or she falls asleep. Our video monitor has probably been more useful for our toddler than our baby!

This whole experience has taught me a few things.

First of all, there’s a lot of parents who struggle with longer bedtime rituals right around when their LO turns two. It helped us so much to realize that we weren’t alone!

Second of all, putting a lock on the outside of the nursery door may be controversial, but there are so many ways to mitigate those concerns (i.e. using a video monitor, unlocking the door after he’s asleep, using a flimsy lock that can be easily kicked open in an emergency). I regret having dismissed the option so quickly earlier.

And finally, it is just really difficult to balance life, work and family if you don’t have your evenings free. Being chained to the floor of Charlie’s room for six months really took a toll on me and put an unnecessary stress on our relationship. I didn’t realize just how much I missed the evenings until suddenly they were free again. Bee and I can spend time together, or just be in the same room together without having the kids underfoot. I forgot how much I missed that, until it was back in my life.

Have you wrestled with bedtime routines getting longer and longer as your LO got older? How did you deal with it?

Toddler Sleep part 2 of 3

1. 30 Tips to Help Your Toddler & Preschooler Sleep by Mrs. Bee
2. How to avoid laying next to your child until they fall asleep by Mr. Bee
3. Thoughts on Sleep (and the lack thereof) by Mrs. Superhero