I've just been leaving the room after lying with her for awhile and then letting her cry. I live in an apartment and I'm sure my nieghbors hate me by now but at least she's not screaming anymore she's just whining and yelling for me but then she falls asleep. Oh and I just said forget it with the naps and them running my enire day trying to get her to nap could take hours out of my afternoon so if she wants to give them up I was like whatever. She sleeps for maybe 20 minutes sometimes like if we're in the car and somedays she's ready to nap so she'll sleep for the what used to be normal hour or so. I guess I'm picking my battles and bedtime I'm not willing to lose on.

Amy and Shelby,

Abby is 4 and at least she isn't screaming, but SHE NEVER GIVES UP!!! I put her in bed at 9:00, she gets up and gets up and gets up, she actually goes to sleep about 2 nights out of 7 without badgering her. Right now it is 10:45 and she has consistently gotten up every five minute until now and she is lying in my bed....still awake. I just want an hour to myself at night, I would even settle for a few minutes. Most nights she just simply wears me down--like tonight. It is very frustrating...hopefully we can get back in a routine come Monday...until Christmas vacation then it will all be out the window, she has two older sisters that stay up.

I am so glad I don't have this problem. But one of my DD's playmates is this way - not on purpose - she just has a different time clock than the rest of her family. They have early schedules - have to head to work at 4 am, so they need to go to bed early. But she simply can't sleep that early - even WORSE if she took a nap during the day. She usually goes to sleep at midnight. So to keep the sanity, they do something they would not do if it weren't for her obviously different body clock. They let her go watch TV in her room - usually Barney - while they go to sleep. She stays up til 12 then turns off the TV and goes to sleep. They have a family member on a later schedule take her to school in the a.m.
They spent months trying everything, figuring she was just a procrastinator. And once they figured out she just has a different cycle, they tried to reset her clock to something more in line with a 9 pm bedtime to no avail. And now they are all happy. Other than bedtime, she actually does not watch a lot of TV.

I used to have a problem with my son on this issue, he is 3 now. It was a real tough one. We tried everything. It's because he thought he was missing out on something.
We started having him say his prayers before he went to bed, and he let up. He'd recap his day, bless his friends and family (and now, Santa, frosty and Rudolf).
He stills tries once in a while, but we tell him "if you don't go to bed and put your head on the pillow, you'll regret it, Santa is coming, he nows when you've been bad or good". This is a stage. You'll get thru it.
Jainie

We started having problems with our son who is almost 3 again in the past couple of weeks. He started to tell us that it was too dark in his room. He has a nightlight and this special winter thing that's in there now that has little lights. He'll still tell us it's too dark. Maybe some of you with the same problems have kids who are scared? We also have young kittens that are ripping and tearing most of the night and I think that sometimes scares him, too. So we have this Christmas light thing that we plug in until he's asleep and then we unplug it. It's working. He said something about a big baby bear in his room. I guess he doesn't see monsters!

~Leslie~