How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime
Overview
In today’s article we will be pulling back the curtain on how to get your child to cooperate at bedtime - and maybe even enjoy it.
You will learn 5 new actionable solutions to transform the bedtime routine so that you can cut out the drama once and for all and stop dreading bedtime. And maybe even turn it into one of the best parts of your day.
Bedtime Drama-Crushing Secrets That Actually Work
I can’t even tell you how many parents I’ve talked to that absolutely dread bedtime. Even some of my best friends have told me that bedtime spikes their anxiety, because they know that as soon as they mention that it’s time to get ready for bed, the tantruming and attitudes and push-back rear their ugly heads.
So for each of these bedtime-drama-crushing secrets, we’re going to start by getting into our child’s head, figuring out what they’re thinking and feeling when they have these outbursts and begin to fight back. And they we’re going to talk about strategies to not only respond to the push-back, but even prevent bedtime battles from happening in the first place.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Secret #1: Managing Expectations
So let’s start at the very beginning of the bedtime routine.
I want you to think about a time when you were working diligently on something that you really enjoyed and put a lot of work into. Maybe you were in the middle of making a special dinner for your family. Or you were really engrossed in a project for work. Or you were in the middle of a really excellent workout routine.
And then – you were interrupted and pulled away from it.
Something – or someone – barged in and either told you you had to stop immediately or something happened and you had to react, effectively cutting off your flow, your focused energy.
How did that feel?
For me, my knee-jerk reaction is to get really frustrated and angry. It’s hard for me to get into the focused flow of work. And when I make a meal, I try my best to have everything hot and ready at the same time – and as quickly as possible. When I exercise, I want to keep my muscles warmed up and finish the full exercise so I can move on with my day.
Now I want us to think about the beginning of the bedtime routine. When we tell our kiddos that it’s time to clean up and get ready for bed.
Now we don’t usually think much of it. We tell our kiddos it’s time for bed, expect that they knew this was coming because it happens at the same time every day, and we love bedtime so really they should too, right? I mean, my sister’s kids love going to bed. Why can’t my kid love bedtime? Do you ever feel that way?
And you’re right – it is frustrating. For both parties.
So let’s restructure so we can remove as much of that frustration as possible.
Your kiddo is probably playing at this time. Or maybe watching another episode of Bluey. Or drawing. Or cuddling with Daddy.
These are some of their VERY favorite things to do. For kids, these are the things they are most invested in. And if they could, they would continue to do these things indefinitely. Forever!
So we are going to help them end this favorite activity as gently as possible. In a way that they will come to expect – which makes the whole process easier as well.
I want you to do 2 things –
1) First, 5 minutes before it’s time to clean up, you’re going to get down close to your child and say, “Okay, Owen. I need you to pause just for a second to look at Mom.” Wait for him to do so. Pause the show when you say this, and wait for calm if necessary (even if it takes a full five minutes.)
Then say “5 more minutes, and then clean up time.” Or for 2-yr-olds, maybe “5 minutes, then clean up.”
If your child can repeat it so you know they understand, great, if not, just be sure they heard you.
Now, they don’t understand the concept of time at this age, obviously, but it’s helping manage their expectations so they know that they WILL need to stop soon. Not right this moment. But soon.
2) Second, set a visual/auditory timer. Let them see it. “When the timer goes off, it’s time to clean up.” Or for little littles – “timer go beep, time clean up.”
And when that timer goes off, make sure your kiddo can see/hear it going off – that way it’s the timer saying it’s time to stop and not you.
Then we calmly and firmly help your child stop the activity they are doing
Is it going to be smooth sailing from the very start? Nope. Of course not. But if you do this every single night, it will become an expected activity. And if you remain calm and firm every single night, they will learn that this new pattern will not change no matter what.
At our house, we also use the phrase, “You can be mad and angry. That’s okay. But we still need to XYZ.” Clean up. Or turn off the tv. Etc. And remember - your child will feed off your emotions, so staying calm will help them calm down faster, too.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Secret #2: Clean Up with Direction
Have you ever been in the situation where you have a MASSIVE task ahead of you – like an incredibly messy house after the holidays, or TONS of things to put away after a trip or a HUGE project at work. And you’re paralyzed because you don’t even know where to start? Like, you know that things will get better if you just start – but you feel like you can’t because – like, how??
This is often how our kids can feel when we ask them to clean up – and especially in the early years when they’re still learning how to clean up.
When we say “okay, time to clean up!” we think it’s an easy task, but they look at all their toys and puzzles and are like, “But HOW??”
This is where we step in, and break it down with explicit direction. “Let’s put food toys in the food bin.”
And if you know your kiddo is going to give push-back, you can show them how to gamify it – in fact, I just had to use this trick the other night when my 2-year-old was overwhelmed and fighting back.
We played the “my turn” – toss toy in – “your turn” – have your kiddo toss a toy in - game to get one type of toys put away.
And she was majorly grumpy so I think it even turned into “my turn my turn my turn” as fast as I could to pretend like I was taking all the turns, then pausing to look at her expectantly with a big grin on my face to even get her to participate without a major meltdown.
Did I have to help? Yes. Were there several non-food toys in the food toy bin so my perfectionism started to make my eye twitch? Also yes.
But it got the job done. And I didn’t yell. And my daughter’s mood shifted in the positive direction.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Secret #3: The Order of Things
We talked a bit about setting expectations. And now we’re going to talk some more about it.
I am 100% obsessed with my planner. When I run out of space and don’t get a new one in time, I am legitimately LOST until I get a new one.
Why? Because I like to see how my day is going to play out. I like to know what comes next.
And kids are often the same way.
They like to know what their time is going to look like.
So from a very young age, visual schedules can be extremely helpful.
This is actually a strategy I learned in my graduate school days for speech therapy. And it WORKS.
What you want to do is have a chart. Even better if you child helps to decorate the chart and you talk about it during the day before you use it for the first time at bedtime.
Then have each step of the bedtime routine as a little moveable picture on the chart. You can list the pictures from top to bottom or left to right.
Just make it a straight line of Velcro or whatever you use to stick the pictures on.
This way, your child can see that that “First we get pajamas out, then we go potty, then we take a bath, then put on pajamas,” and on until the end of the routine.
You don’t have to visually represent every single little part of the routine, like “first we sit on the potty, then we flush the potty” unless that task is something you are explicitly working on your child doing independently.
Because too many pictures could also make it hurt rather than help because the visual schedule could become overwhelming.
Then laminate those puppies because they’re going to get a lot of use.
Pro-tip: if you don’t have a laminating machine, cover both sides of the picture with clear packaging tape. Ta-da! Laminated.
And if you think it will be helpful, you can even give you child the option to decide which order to do two of the tasks. “Do you want to brush your teeth or brush your hair first tonight?”
Your child doesn't want control over everything – because when kids have too much control, it actually makes them feel unsafe.
But giving them a little control over bedtime with specific options can also be a good thing.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Secret #4: Guiding the Emotional Spectrum
Sometimes it can be majorly hard to get our kids to really get into the whole bedtime process. They’ve had a long day, they were having a grand ole time playing, and now we want them to go to sleep which is totally boring! For them, anyway.
We ultimately want the bedtime routine to help them calm down and ready their bodies and minds for sleep, but sometimes they need a little motivation to kick-start the process.
This is where some strategic silliness and energy come into play. Start with some “dance” music – our favorite is to tell Google to play Disney music. But as long as it’s up-beat and positive and only used for the first 5 or so minutes of the routine, most lively music should be fine!
This is not the time to be bashful and embarrassed about your dance moves - I for one can’t dance to save my life. Because your kids couldn’t care less. Seriously. Be silly and get them moving into the first part of the bedtime routine. Make a fool of yourself. They’ll love it.
Then, once they’re up and moving and have moved onto the 2nd or 3rd step in the bedtime routine, dim the lights if you can, turn off any unnecessary lights, turn off the tv, and switch the music to something calm, soothing, and positive. We like classical music and especially “ballet” music. Meditation music could be really nice, too.
What you’re doing is crafting their environment to guide their emotions and in order to help them move along through their routine and begin to calm down.
After you switch from energetic music to calm music, you want to try to refrain from getting the kids all riled up again. However, sometimes when attitudes start to sour, you may have to inject a little silliness in even after you've started the calm-down process in order to prevent a full-blown meltdown.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Secret #5: Make It Special
This secret doesn’t mean you have to go out and get a bunch of new toys or elements to make the bedtime routine special. The greatest tool for making bedtime special is you. Yes, you.
That’s what your child wants most. Is special dedicated time with you. And the bedtime routine is a perfect opportunity for this!
So put your phone to the side – it’ll still be there later. Turn off the tv. Pop out the earbud (unless you’re using it to remain calm yourself.) And be present with your child. Talk to them. Give them tickles. Engage with them. Look in their eyes. Smile at them.
In a world where we tend to try to do 10 things at once, it can be seriously hard to put everything else aside and just focus on one thing.
But it’s so incredibly worth it. Trust me.
Another good trick for making it special – have certain elements of bedtime that you reserve just for the bedtime routine. If your child is older than 1 year, have a special lovey for their bed that stays in their bed at all times. It helps make getting in bed that much more special because they finally get to snuggle with their favorite stuffy again.
Or spray a special lavender room spray that only gets used at night.
Etc. You get the picture.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Bonus Secret #1: Cut the Stimulation
Cut off sugary snacks and screens an hour before the bedtime routine starts. Sugar – especially refined sugar - snacks close to bedtime tends to interfere with your child’s ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. You may think – it will be good because it will give them a sugar rush during the bedtime routine and then they’ll crash!
But it often will come back to bite us because they’ll be wired during the bedtime routine instead of calming down, and then they will crash but sleep may be more restless.
And similarly, screen time too close to bedtime can make it harder for our kids to fall asleep and stay asleep. I know! Screen time can feel like a saving grace at the end of the day. But do know that the blue light – which is the type of light emitted from our screens – inhibits - or stops – melatonin production. Meaning our kids will take longer to fall asleep, and become overtired. And overtiredness also causes more frequent night wakings and even, sometimes, sleep walking and night terrors.
So if you can be strong and cut off that screen time at least one hour before the bedtime routine begins every night, it will make things easier in the long-run.
How to Get Your Toddler to Cooperate at Bedtime - Bonus Secret #2: Early to Bed
Early bedtime sounds too good to be true, sometimes. Like, if my child goes to bed early, won’t they wake up early?
Well, it depends on how early you put them to bed, how much sleep they need overall, and what you consider to be waking early.
But most of the time, kids are being put to bed too late.
This is because of the way babies’ and young kids’ circadian rhythms – their body clocks - tend to be structured.
For some unknown reason, the sleep babies and kids get between the hours of 8 pm and 12 am tends to be the deepest and most restorative sleep they get – regardless of when they go to bed.
So if we put them to bed at, say, 10 pm, we’re essentially cheating them out of 2 of those essential hours. Even if they sleep later the next day! Which, most kids won’t.
If you’re a seasoned parent, chances are you’ve made this mistake before – thinking your child will sleep later if you put them to bed later. Only for them to sleep a whopping extra 6 minutes in the morning when you put them to bed 2 hours late.
Optimal bedtime for kids 4 months to 3 years old by and large tends to be between 7 and 8 pm. And if they miss their nap, it can be even earlier!
Summary
So there you have it!
Your 5 Secrets to getting your toddler to cooperate during bedtime - maybe even enjoy it:
1) Managing Expectations
2) Clean Up With Direction
3) The Order of Things
4) Emotional Spectrum
5) Make It Special
6) Bonus Secret #1: Cut the Stimulation
7) Bonus Secret #2: Early to Bed