This is the second night that I'm using this tactic with Ella. I'm sitting on a folding chair outside of Ella's room, her door closed, my computer resting on my lap as I type. It's a familiar enough pose - I do this on the train to and from work every day. The beauty of the laptop is also its curse - it's really too convenient. I find myself working at it all the time. I'm surprised I haven't developed a case of carpel tunnel.
Every once in awhile, I have to interrupt my typing to grab hold of the door handle to prevent her from opening the door. See, Ella is just not going to bed and staying in bed. Even with blankets perfectly placed over her body and her chosen sleepmates (stuffed animals) laid exactly where she wants them, Ella is out of her bed and scurrying across the floor the moment we step out of her room after signing "I love you" and blowing her a kiss.
Dan initially ignores her out-of-bed-ness but occasionally chimes in with an "Ella, get back into bed." Sometimes I ignore it and head right downstairs; but typically I give her a second and third chance (call me a sap, call me a peace-maker), clearly expressing my frustration with her each time. Three times is typically my limit, and then I'm occasionally chiming in with "Ella, get back into bed." A different approach is needed. I just don't know what the "right" approach is.
We've used incentives - a sticker for going to bed quietly and another sticker for staying in bed all night. Each sticker was worth a coin to put into her bank. At the end of the week, we'd count her stickers and give her however many coins that equated to. Ella got zero coins for these goals. (She did great with the "wake-up-with-a-dry-Pull-Up" goal, enough that she didn't need them anymore.) We abandoned the reward chart after a couple of weeks. Ella didn't even ask about its absence from our daily routine.
We tried using her "doggie dress" (this black and white-striped cotton dress with a pink tutu attached) as an incentive - if she goes to bed quietly and stays in bed all night, she can wear it the following day. She loves this dress, and this worked a few times; so Ella and I went and bought another version of it, this one with princesses on the top and a pink and blue tutu attached. While one was being washed, she could wear the other.
The dress incentive worked intermittently but put a bit of a burden on me to stay on top of the laundry, doing a load at least every other night. With my uptick in working out and Cal's nighttime potty issues, I certainly had clothes, sheets and blankets to wash. But somehow I either lost track of our rule or just caved in the interest of keeping peace. Ella wore the princess dress today, okay'd (actually suggested) by me.
We've tried threats, too. Since my complete meltdown and subsequent re-boot (see My All-Time Mommy Low)... goodness, that was back in March!), both kids have been listening to the "Frozen" soundtrack at bedtime. If Ella gives us trouble (is loud or doesn't stay in bed) we take hers from her. We remind her of this every night that we put her into bed, as in, "Remember, if you don't stay in bed, I'm taking your music." I'm not sure about Dan, but I follow it up with "You understand me?" She always nods, probably out of obligation. Sometimes she even repeats the rule, "And if I don't stay in bed, you'll take my music." This has worked intermittently, too, but usually ends up in a fight that drags out the bedtime window further after we actually act upon the rule and take her music from her.
I've even resorted to being completely honest with her. "Ella, I'm tired of this. I don't even want to put you to bed anymore," was a subset of my honesty. As much as she asks if it's my turn to put her to bed, you might think that the possibility that I'd never put her into bed would be incentive enough to cooperate. It's not.
A former boss of mine actually turned around the door knobs on his kids' doors (or, at least his son's) so that the lock was on the outside. This way, he can close the door when his kid is giving him trouble and makes sure that it stays closed. Dan used a similar tactic with Ella a few weeks ago by tying one end of two attached belts to Ella's door handle and the other end to the door handle on a nearby closet door. Ella couldn't get out. Eventually, after putting up a big stink about it, she crawled into bed on her own and fell asleep for the night. It worked; but I really didn't like it. It just seems like a jail or a cage to me. And what if we fell asleep for the night before removing the belt? What if she needed to get out to use the bathroom or something worse?
The folding-chair-outside-the-door approach arose out of necessity. I didn't like the belt-on-the-door approach, but I needed an alternative that Dan would accept. I remembered reading a mom's blog post a few months ago where she described sitting at the top of her stairs, laptop in her lap so she could get some work done, while her kids fell asleep. I can't recall if she did this to comfort her kid as he went to sleep or if she did it to enforce his staying in bed. I figured I could do something similar and grabbed a folding chair and my laptop to act on it.
Here's how it works: I set the folding chair up just outside Ella's door, her door handle within arm's reach. I put the laptop on my lap and type, sometimes working, sometimes blogging. When I see or hear the door knob jiggle, I grab it to resist her opening it. She yells at me, I tell her I'll open it if she crawls back into bed and stays quiet for a minute. She says she can't get her covers on, and I tell her figure it out. Most often I open the door while we have this exchange, and I close it without hesitation at the first sign of resistance or "I hate you, Mommy" out of her. I hold the handle until I know she's not opening it and then get back to work.
We repeat this cycle a few times before Ella is in bed on her own accord and quiet. It's effective and not too terribly inconvenient. At least I'm productive... and in control (well, aside from the fact I'm sitting in a folding chair outside of Ella's door, working at my laptop). It's the beauty of the laptop. And tonight, I poured myself a Skinny Girl margarita before heading up for the stand-off. I do like margaritas.
As I finish this, Ella is sound asleep in her bed. When I felt like she was ready to cave and stay in bed, quietly, I decided I'd help her with her covers because she really is bad at situating them over herself. I threw them on her without the usual precision, and she complained that they weren't on right. I basically told her to deal with it, that at least she was covered and warm, and then left. I didn't hear any more peeps out of her. She got the message.
As with most things that I do as a parent, I don't know if what I'm doing is technically right or wrong. All I know is it worked. At least, the last two nights it worked. We have a sleeping child (two, actually) and a content mom and dad. We'll see what tomorrow has in store for us. My folding chair is there if I need it.
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