Video: How to Get Your Toddler to Go to Bed

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Start getting your toddler to bed 15 minutes before lights out. Find out how to get your toddler to go to bed with expert tips from a licensed psychotherapist in this free video about early childhood development.

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Video Transcript

Have you ever wondered how to get your toddler to bed at night, when you're dead tired and you know they are. Well I'm Dr. Donna with some advice. The first thing I think you have to realize is again, they're not going to give it up. They don't want to give up their daily activity. And going to bed at night time interferes with that. But you need to have a routine and the routine needs to start after dinner time. Prepare to slowly transition into night time. Make sure that when your child is going to bed you talk about it. You've got fifteen minutes, we're going to get ready to get our jammies on, brush our teeth. So they're preparing themselves psychological, psychologically for it. Also, make sure that when they're getting into bed, give them the option to listen to some music, maybe listen to a book that's on a CD. That they can wind down just in case they're not ready to go to bed. Try to avoid at dinner time giving them sugary foods, caffeine, anything that will wire them up. Also a lot of times people want to play with their kids right before they go to bed. Make sure that the activities are more quiet, low key and not something that's going to hype them up. Because that will make it harder. If you're finding that your child is not going to bed till later and later, you may have to do away unfortunately with that afternoon nap. Unfortunately that may have to go to get your child to go to bed a little bit earlier. Also, teach them that once they're in bed they need to stay in bed. Maybe you might need to give them a toy or a book or something that they can occupy themselves. But that once they're in bed they need to stay in bed. If they wake up in the middle of night, again let them try to cry it out and let them just try to find themselves being able to fall back asleep by thinking about something positive or sweet dreams as we say. This is Dr. Donna with some advice on how to get your, how to get your child to go bed at night time. Good luck.

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How to Get Your Toddler to Go to Bed

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