For a year and half, Jack slept with this on his crib:
Jack is super tall and learned to crawl out of his crib at 15 months! Not only were we not ready for him to be in a toddler bed, he wasn't mentally developed enough to understand the concept of staying in bed when we told him and for the entire night. Crib tent to the rescue! Seriously, it was a lifesaver. Jack slept, well, like a baby with it on his crib. However, when we found out we were having twins (and realizing that super tall Jack was way too big to sleep on a crib mattress) we gave in and bought Jack a big boy bed. Of course he loved it and we were quite surprised at how quickly he adapted to it. However, Jack took his new found freedom and ran with it. He stopped taking naps at home (UGH!) and he has the hardest time staying in bed at night. Most nights he literally gets out of bed 10 times for various reasons (he has to pee, he needs water, he heard a noise, blah blah blah). This lasts for up to 2 hours and some nights he doesn't fall asleep until close to 10pm, resulting in a super tired and cranky boy the next day. We have grown so frustrated and have had some serious heart to hearts about how to best handle this situation. The "super nanny method" of just repeatedly putting him back didn't work. Threatening to take his blankies away didn't work. Actually taking his blankies away didn't work. Yelling didn't work. Soft, smooth talking didn't work. Rewards might actually be working.We decided to reward Jack if he stays in bed with the exception of getting up to go potty. For the most part, its has worked. We tell him he gets a surprise the next morning if he stays in bed and Jack is so motivated by "stuff" that he is pretty devastated if he gets up and loses the surprise. Because I don't want to just give him toys, we have tried to find things that are both educational and pretty exciting to him.
Puzzles--
Marbles. Jack LOVES LOVES LOVES marbles, probably because they are small and colorful and he has a lot of them. For some reason playing with them in a toilet paper roll makes them that much more awesome.
Lets just hope that Jack stays in bed enough that he doesn't care about the surprises anymore because we are running out of books, puzzles, and other relatively inexpensive surprises!
