2 x 2.5 year old girls (twins).
Up until now we’ve been pretty good with boundaries, the ‘thinking step’ works quite well and behaviour has been generally good as we follow through on asking them to do things. Dad, Mum and grandparents (the only care givers) all follow the same pattern.

But…

Recently they have not been staying in their beds to go to sleep and start running around/playing as soon as the door is shut. The last 2 evenings they have trashed their room – emptying/tipping over chest of drawers, spreading sudocrem/metanium (from closed containers) all over walls, beds, toys and generally wreaking havoc! 😯

There is not an option to sanitise the room completely and nor would we want to. There have never been locks on kitchen cupboards or stair gates and this has worked fine with boundaries set.

Do we go for a supernanny style sit and put them into bed every time they get out or any other wise suggestions? 😥

(I can’t spend another evening scrubbing carpets, toys etc. and tipping the chest of drawers is dangerous)

don’t let them have espresso after lunchtime, search for the energy gels they’ve taken and hid from you and when you put them to bed leave a radio on with bbc radio 3 playing and tell them that the radio is watching them.

Putting them into bed every time ithe only way to do this without stairgates and locks. Its hard but works but can take hours! eventually they will get the message…

Not sure if this is any help but we’ve followed this procedure with our little lad since the day he went into his own bedroom and he’s never got out of bed. Sits in bed singing to himself sometimes if he’s not tired but thats lovely 😉

Bedtime always 7:30 (unless he’s absolutely knackered or we’re out somewhere and get back a bit later).
Always has a bath before bed. Gets his pyjamas on and toddles off into his bedroom.
Brush teeth
Read a book or two to him whilst he’s having a cup of milk
Climb into bed with his two favourite teddies, kiss him goodnight and set his dancing frogs musical box thing going.
Turn out the light and shut the door.

Done.

It’s hard isn’t it! Our wee boy is 3 in nov, had him sorted with a good routine. As above, bath, brush teeth, story, bottle and bed..
He want well about 6 wks ago, up and down during the night coughing, crying etc..
Because he hadn’t been eating during the day we’d been giving him a bottle during the night (after months of not needing it) and now the wee bugger wants it every night!
I’m on my 7 nights at the mo so unfortunately my wife has had to be getting up with him. Will be booting that right into touch on my first night back though..
The wee bugger has been going through the normal routine, then saying he’s going to cry during the night so he can get more milk!!

Drawer catches on the drawers for a start. If you want to work with ‘boundaries set’ so far, you are going to get used to mess etc. Lock ’em down.

I’m not sure if putting the sudocrem out of reach and fitting a strap to stop the chest-of-drawers tipping over would count as ‘sanitising the room’ but I’d start with that.

I’d go with the waitign outside the room and putting them back in bed as soon as they get out approach. No talking, no eye contact.

and fit blackout blinds or curtain linings, if it’s pitch black in there they won;t be able to see to make mischief.

Would a webcam or baby monitor with video help?

Possibly a bit big brother for some, but means you can catch them in the act and nip it in the bud before they get themselves wound up into a room destroying frenzy.

(Our daughter is just turned 2 and we still find the video “baby” monitor useful to keep an eye on her)

Dad to twin girls myself (3 yrs old next month) so I feel your pain.

Agree with most of the above – a good routine helps (so they know it is bedtime not playtime) and when they do play up DON’T get angry – just pick them up and put them to bed. We went through a phase of sitting in the corner silently (not talking to them apart from telling them to go to sleep in very hushed tones). We also have a ‘GroClock’that has a sun/star display so our girls know to stay in bed when the stars are out.

Are your girls still having naps? If they are why not try reducing/stopping them so the girls are tired when it comes to bedtime. Ours still play up a bit (mainly chatting or getting up to go to the toilet continually) if they have had a nap.

But at the end of the day it is a battle of wills and you have to show them your will is stronger – no anger, just firm instructions telling them what to do.

We also have a ‘GroClock’that has a sun/star display

Ah yes. “Getting lots of sleep you see, Gives us bags of energeee, So if you want a day of fun, stay in bed until the sun”. Another book I can recite in my sleep. 🙂

Our lil’un did say this morning, “Look mummy. I stay in bed until the sun”, so I guess it does help.

Do they just not care if you explain how naughty they’ve been? Tell them how much of a mess they’ve made and how much work it is for you to clean it all up? And how sad that makes you?

If not, for each toy they make mess with, take it away perhaps. Not just their favourite toys though, they stuff they mess with.

Just a guess.

Our lil’un did say this morning, “Look mummy. I stay in bed until the sun”, so I guess it does help.

Yeah that is pretty much what we get – ‘SUN’S OUT!’

My 3yo has been getting up at or before 7am lately, ignoring the GroClock.

However, it is because she wants to go to the toilet instead of pooing her nappy, so this is a double edged sword 🙂

they grow out of it is my advice though removing many things from there and using locks helps.

Not sure any approach is best just do the consistent thing you think is right

This basically with more threats 😈

But at the end of the day it is a battle of wills and you have to show them your will is stronger – no anger, just firm instructions telling them what to do.

Every parent uses routine but it does not work for all kids so stop your gloating 😉

Eldest used to empty everything so yhere was no choice but to remove or lock it up.

@Molgrips – yeah we get that a bit but we are quite strict, telling them they still go back to bed and wait for the sun to come out. We normally say it isn’t long until the sun comes out and that they can get a book, but they stay in bed though. It seems to work for us – they never come into our room until 7am.

Every parent uses routine but it does not work for all kids so stop your gloating

I see routine and strictness as quite different though – what I mean is that we *try* not to let the girls get away with things and once we have said ‘no’ we mean it. It isn’t easy and we do have to bend sometimes but at that age they are trying it on most of the time.

Every parent uses routine but it does not work for all kids so stop your gloating

No gloating here. Ours is still in a cot bed. I’m dreading the coming day when we move her to a bed without a built-in cage to contain her and she can just get up and wander about. Especially as she has just about mastered the latch on the stairgate.

Is it acceptable to lock her in her room…?

Oh my comment was not at you …sorry, it reads like it was

I dont disagree with you

We don’t do forced naps here any more, and I think that might have helped. She now understands that sleep is good, and she pretty much wants to sleep at night. She does have the occasional bout of insomnia, but we all do.

We don’t either – let them fall asleep when they want to (within reason) and now they know to tell us when they are tired which is good as they then *want* to go to bed. But it is upsetting to have one crying that she is tired when we are trying our best to round them up and get them ready for bed.

I agree with much of what’s been suggested. Our 2 boys are pretty close agewise – 16 months between them and have gone through phases of messing about at bedtime.

I’ll 2nd black out blinds – as the nights get lighter it keeps the room as dark as possible.

Routine is important but doesn’t always work – a set time for bath and bed each night.

A nightly bath is good at that age as they can have some fun but also it signals that bedtime is coming and it has a slightly soporific effect sitting in warm water (well it does for me).

The other thing is to be consistent and maintain your cool. Just keep quietly putting them in to bed each time they get out with as little fuss as possible.

Also keep conversation when putting them back to an absolute minimum. Kids cotton on that if they get out of bed Mum or Dad will sit and chat to them and so do it for the attention. Don’t get in to a routine of sitting with them if they are acting up. If they get up, put them in bed and say goodnight and go.

Ohh and FWIW, one of our girls was playing up refusing to go to bed a couple of weeks ago so I just said ‘okay, you stay on the floor then, goodnight’ and walked out. Cue screams when she realised that she wasn’t going to get her goodnight kiss and cuddle and immediately went to bed and stayed there when I went back in.

Another idea. Give them a kiss and tell them to enjoy the garden in the night 😉

At 2.5??????

They would tell him to grow up 🙂

I read a Stephen Biddulph book where he claimed this type of behaviour was done to seek attention, even if it is the wrong sort of attention. Do the kids get a solid block of your time before bed with stories etc.. or are they rushed up to bed quickly? We had similar problems and cured it with a good hour Dad/Mum/kid time before bed so they actually started to look forward to bedtime. Oh, and I owned them with bombers if they misbehaved after lights out.

Now I know where my free CRC energy gels have gone 😀

Some good advice – thanks folks.

We do have a good bedtime routine with bath/milk/stories and lots of attention before bed. This always wrked really well until about a month ago.

Maybe light is contributing a bit (they broke the blind a week ago too) but do have curtains.

Do they just not care if you explain how naughty they’ve been? Tell them how much of a mess they’ve made and how much work it is for you to clean it all up? And how sad that makes you?

I feel a bit guilty because they had to sit last night for 40mins until 10 O’clock watching us clean up and explaining how much work it was.

Plan of action:
– GroClock sounds like a good idea (forgotten about that)
– Get a new blackout blind (although it’s useful for them to sleep when it is not pitch-black as we are away on holiday soon)
– Sit without paying them any attention/eye contact and put them straight to bed when they get up.

I’ll let you know how we get on…

it’s useful for them to sleep when it is not pitch-black as we are away on holiday soon

While you are buying the Gro Clock:

Since you’ve done routine, it’s time to do strict. I used to sit outside waiting. Every time they came out of bed they were picked up and put back into bed. No words – it’s not a time for interaction or play. It’s time for bed! Kids drop off relatively quickly once they settle.

Of course, that’s why I had to eject my 11yo from my bed last night… 😆

Update: So far so good this evening doing ‘strict’. Took about 40 mins of going in and putting them back in to bed. I think one of them has been lying in bed with her eyes open for over an hour now but the other one is asleep!

New (blackout) blind on order as well as GroClock…

My youngest boy, now 2, was brilliant at going to bed until about 3 weeks ago. Now he’s a horror. Right now he’s in his big brother’s bed, top to tail, ‘reading’ a book and shouting. Can’t suggest anything, except that it’ll pass.

Good one – hope it continues to work.