Hi! I'm Nicholeen Peck and today, we're going to talk about how to get your toddler
to go to bed without resistance. I'm most known for the work I do teaching families
how to govern themselves. So, teaching parents and children how to master themselves. And if
there's one thing I know that teaching someone to go to bed without resistance doesn't start
on the night that they need to go to bed. It starts way before. So, in this video,
we're going to talk about what to do before it's time for the child to go to bed and what to do
on the night, on that time, in that moment when it's time for them to go to bed. One of the best
ways to teach a toddler is to turn it into a game. Now, I don't mean make it a game right at bedtime
because that's not going to work. They're going to know you're up to something because they see that
it's dark outside, maybe you already asked them to get in their pajamas. So, they won't trust you
then. But if you turn it into a game when it's not nighttime then it could be something fun. In fact,
something they might even want to repeat again and again. So when my children were toddlers,
I played a game that I called "It's time for bed", And so, what we would do is I would say,
*"Okay, we're going to play it's time for bed. And when mom says, "It's time for bed",
then we're going to go and brush our teeth and say our prayers and all the little things we do
at night time, our routine. And then we'll get in our covers. And mom will come in and tuck us in
and give us a kiss and then mommy will walk out of the room. And when she walks out of the room
she'll just wait right outside the door for maybe one minute. And then I'll come in and I'll say,
"It's morning time!" And we'll all cheer and we'll wake up. And then we'll go have a treat."* So,
if they know ahead of time that they're going to do this practice, it's just a game and then they
get a treat. That's something that they usually will agree to. Plus it's playing pretend with mom.
And toddlers love to play pretend with their parents. So, play this pretend game. Play it again
and again in the same day. Have multiple treats. It's okay. You're getting ready to learn a
new skill. So then, once you have learned that skill and you've practiced that game,
then you're ready to pre-teach for success in the minute. With toddlers, the rule of thumb
is pre-teach, pre-teach, pre-teach. That means you prepare them ahead of time for each new
thing that's coming. You have to pre-teach many many times before one skill will stick
because their little brains are so small. Their prefrontal cortexes where they problem-solve
are so tiny that they need you to remind them again about what's coming. But we don't want to be
nagging or bribing, not those kinds of reminding. Teach them skills and then help them use those
skills. So, we already taught them the skill in the game "It's time for bed". So, now what you
do is you say to the child when it's evening time, you say, *"Okay, here it is. Remember,
now we're going to do it's time for bed for real. And in the morning, if we do it all just right in
the morning, mom will come in and tell you "It's morning time" and then we will have a treat."
So, you say, "Okay, here we go. It's time for bed." And then they all say, "Okay." And they
run off and they get everything done and they get in their rooms. And you go in and you tuck them
in. Maybe sing them a little song whatever you do for your night routine. And then you remind them,
"Okay. Now, stay in your bed until it's really morning this time and then we'll have a treat
in the morning." And then you walk out of the room and they stay. Now, if they don't stay, obviously,
you're going to have to do a correction of some sort. But usually, they will because they know
now because of the game what will happen really in the morning. And they trust that it will happen
because you already showed them that it would happen. And they didn't have to go through any
anxiety to learn that lesson. Normally, when it's bedtime and you say, "Oh, this will happen in the
morning." They'll know they'll forget. They think you'll forget. They have anxiety that it won't
really happen. So, make sure in the morning that they really do get that positive consequence that
you told them would happen. Now, how long do you do treats? You do treats for maybe 2 weeks tops.
It usually takes about 2 weeks, maybe 3 weeks no more than that ever to learn a new skill and
to make it a habit. So, they'll learn this skill quickly but it probably won't become a habit for a
couple of weeks. And tell them we'll have a treat every morning for a couple of weeks. And then
we'll know that our family has learned this skill and we won't have treats anymore in the morning.
So, come up with something motivating for them. If for some reason they don't follow that instruction
to go to bed when it's time, then you'll need to do a correction. I have other videos on this
channel that talk about the proper way to do corrections. So, I highly recommend looking
around the channel for videos that teach you how to correct your child or how to make them obey.
To help you out, I'm going to even put some links in the description box that will help you out. So,
go there and click those links and find more things on how to correct children.
There is a skill that we teach in the teaching Self-Government parenting program called following
instructions. This skill is also going to be a vital skill for helping toddlers learn to go to
bed. Toddlers can learn all of the 4 basic skills which are following instructions, accepting "no"
answers, accepting consequences, and disagreeing appropriately. These are self-government skills
that all people need to know. If you've enjoyed this video, I think you're going to love my next
video which is What is Self-Government To a Child? So, click that video now
and get more help learning self-government and the skills that you'll need for success.