Apparently that is the secret combination to getting back on the bedtime track. After last week's multiple fiascos, I hit up the Google search engine looking for tips on bedtime. I came across many suggestions, some of them good, and took ALL of the ones that seemed remotely reasonable.
Option 1: Put up a baby gate in the doorway. This way she can't get out, but doesn't feel as frightened as having the door shut all night. Results: Still got up three times that night, once for an hour, and stood at the gate screaming, "Let me out of here!! I'm trapped in here!" She continues to talk about that night that she was trapped in her room. OK, so that one was kind of a fail. But I do still have it sitting in the hall and when she asks that we don't put it up, I remind her that it doesn't have to go up if she can stay in her room like a big girl.
Option 2: Positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is such a great idea in theory. At 2 am with an overtired, screaming 2 year old, it takes on a new light. I took Ava to Target last week and picked out a package of 6 little plastic fairies (she's REALLY into fairies right now). I wrapped each of them up in princess paper and told her last Thursday night that she could pick out one present, and if she slept in her bed like a big girl, she could open it in the morning. The result? Throwing the present on the floor, saying she didn't want it and wasn't going to bed. That still ended in a 1 1/2 hour battle and needless to say, no fairy in the morning.
Last night, figuring she obviously doesn't yet have the foresight to benefit from delayed gratification, I let her open up a present last night with the promise that she would try to sleep in her bed like a big girl. She got Fawn, the Animal Fairy, and was so excited for let her sleep in her be with her. We even pretended like the fairy was trying to teach her toy goose how to fly before bed. There was still some protesting, but she got in bed with MUCH less effort that any night last week.
Tonight, she remembered about the present and asked to open another fairy, HOPING desperately to get the Tinkerbell fairy. Well, she was lucky, because she happened to pick Tinkerbell tonight. She was thrilled. So tonight she got in bed, read two books, and went to sleep without a single tear. Of course I still had to sit in there with her for a half hour, but nonetheless...big improvement!! Let's just hope 6 nights of fairy dust will do the trick...
Option 3: Get a toddler night light that tells them when they can get out of bed. Ok, I wasn't going to mess with this, but then three different people who I talked to about nighttime awakenings said this thing did wonders for them, completely unsolicited. So I caved. I ordered it on Amazon, and it should be here soon. It is admittedly really cute. It's a little blue nightlight that has a sleeping bunny on the bottom and a playing bunny on the top. When the sleeping bunny is lit up, it tells her that she needs to stay in bed. When the playing bunny lights up (we set the times for it to switch), it's her cue that it's ok to get out of bed. It sounds silly, but apparently kids really seem to get the concept. We'll see!
In the mean time, I have this nighttime seahorse I got for Ava when she was an infant. You push its belly and it glows and plays lullabies. It had been put up for over a year now, but I got it out and put it in bed with her last night. She only awoke once, and I took her back to bed and reminded her to push the seahorse's belly. Once the music started and the seahorse started glowing, she went back to sleep and didn't wake up again. Hopefully she'll soon be able to figure this out on her own so I don't have to keep going in there and starting it for her.
So...we shall see. Maybe last night and tonight were flukes, but I'm hopeful that we've stumbled upon some good advice. I think this is the first night in a few weeks where no one in the family was crying by 9 pm!!
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