Parenting Toddlers (1-3) Support Group

My 2 1/2 year old gets our of her bed as well, although not as often anymore thankfully. I just make sure there is nothing in her room she can get into or hurt herself on and there are very few toys in there for her to play with. She can't open the door either, so if she gets out of bed she has to stay in her room anyway. Usually when she does this she'll run around for a few minutes but realizes she needs to go to sleep and ends up climbing back into bed by herself. It was rough in the beginning when we moved her to a big bed as well, but after a few nights of being shut in there she pretty well stopped getting up and just stayed in bed. Now, it's mainly nap time that she gets out of bed and fools around, but as long as she's in there and I know she's safe I just let her do it.

Found this article on cnn today. Not entirely having to due with your issue, but it is interesting....
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/...

I put up a safety gate, as I didn't want to shut the door. Worked great. He started staying in bed, and I could peek in without creaking open a door.Lights off in there, bathroom light down the hall on. We also added nature sounds, we call it his music and let him hit the snooze button for the sounds, then we leave...

When we moved house in June DD, who was not quite 3 at that point, started coming to our bed every night. So we got a star chart. What you do is get the chart and for every night they stay in their bed they get a star - Fairly basic, right? But the trick is EVERY night, so not necessarily consecutive. Then, when they fill the chart (DD's has 20 stars) they get a reward. Clare managed to fill her's once. It took her a fair while, but she did it and when she did she got to go on a train trip with Mom and Dad.

Now we're doing it a second time and I believe she's missed 1 night. She actually filled it the second time last night and we go to Lollipops over the weekend as her reward.

My child will come through to us if she really needs us (Hence the one night she missed.) but otherwise we don't hear from her until she hears us moving during the week. Over weekends she won't hold out passed about 7:30am before she comes and gets me. But she will not come out of her room before that even if she's awake. It's absolutely brilliant.

We'll start again tonight, but with a slightly different goal - She will have to go to bed when we say LOL!

Good luck!

Thank you everyone for your advice!!! We're working on it. Right now, we are doing a sticker chart. Some nights it works, and not on others. We'll see.....I'm just maintaining my self control which seems to help a lot. The gate sounds brilliant....that might be next :)