5 Top Tips For Getting Kids to Sleep

I had some roommates who were disastrous single mothers - some of them would talk on the phone all night and ignore the child,letting him play or watch TV until 11:30 PM. Then the 4 year-old would be screaming from exhaustion the next morning at 7 AM when she wanted to drag him to daycare.

I have seven children. I put them to sleep when they are tired and wake them in the morning for there day. The little ones nap if needed sometimes even the bigger ones nap. They only important thing I have found is if the are physically active and play outside they get tired. When they sit in front of the TV or Videos all day they have trouble falling asleep.

Make your child relax before going to bed. If there up and going, they'll be up all night, plus don't let them eat sugar after 7:00pm. When I was younger, I would always fall asleep whenever I choose.

I babysit for these two children and they can sometimes be difficult to put to sleep. What I have found extremely useful is if I rub their back for a little bit to relax them. That will even make the girl fall asleep in an instant, and normally she has troubles falling asleep...its great! Also, I recommend putting on the radio or having one of those sound machines that play nature noises.

Kelly hit the nail on the head. In my experience, toddlers go to sleep more readily after physical activity. A bath always works well too, especially after running and playing.

I guess one trick is simply to ask yourself, "What makes YOU tired and go to sleep more easily?" With babies and toddlers a lot of times it is the same thing as yourself... cool temperature of the room, physical activity, bath, full tummy, quiet (or at least a fan running to buffer out noise), etc.

I've tried the steady sleep schedule and it does not always work. It also varies from season to season. Daylight savings time puts a big monkey wrench into it every spring. Also a lot of times my toddler will not go to sleep if she knows my husband is still up watching TV. So he has to lay down and we turn off all the lights in the house. Boom, baby goes to sleep. Then he gets back up and sneaks off back to the TV set in the living room.

How can you miss #1 - set a stable bed time. I swear 4/5 of my friends when they became new mommies did not do this. One night the kid went to bed early because he was tired and the next night he was up until 10pm. Babies really need stability in their sleep schedule.

Along those lines is #2 - set up a bedtime routine. Doing the same thing every night shows the kid that everything is safe.

You haven't seen this method used, but I have -- and it works!
Make them stay up! Seriously, tell them they CAN'T go to bed. 15-20 minutes they'll be begging and crying to go!!!!

One tip I have is to tell the child, "Don't go to sleep, just rest." Works like a charm. Kids don't want to miss anything, that's why they don't want to go to bed.

I always waited until my son was ready for bed before putting him in. I remembered all too well lying in bed awake from 6 pm until I finally fell asleep from boredom. The summer nights were especially horrible, as I would lie there for hours. This is no way for a child to be treated. My son soon found his own comfortable time to fall asleep and get up and stuck to these right into adulthood. I think it is unkind, to say the least, to stick a child into bed before they are tired and expect them to be quiet and sleep on your command. I am sure that the way I was treated has contributed to my persistent insomnia.