Bedtime resistance

Stalling, curtain calls, and the bedtime pass.

About 3 minutes to read

Bedtime resistance and curtain calls

Stalling, refusing and repeat trips out for water, another story or one more question: the research calls these "curtain calls". Mindell's 2006 review describes them as mainly affecting children aged 2 and over, at roughly 20 to 30% of infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

1. Keep the routine to 30 to 60 minutes with the same closing signal, and do not extend it. Children tend to expect tomorrow to look like tonight, so a routine you can repeat easily is worth more than a generous one. Reading an extra story has not created a problem.
2. Offer choices within limits. Which pyjamas, which two books, which teddy. Not whether it is bedtime. Real choice on small things reduces the fight over the thing that is not up for discussion.
3. Use a statement, not a question. Derbyshire NHS puts it well: keep the words identical every night, for example "John, it's time for bed". The same words create consistency and cues, and less opening to answer back.
4. Silent return. NHS advice for a child who gets up is to be as boring as possible so as not to excite them, and to leave the lights off.
5. Rapid return. ELFT NHS describe standing outside the room and, as soon as your child is up, returning them gently but immediately to bed with your set phrase. Parenting solo, a bell on the door handle tells you they are up without you standing on the landing.
6. Praise in the morning. Newcastle NHS suggest reward charts and praise for staying in bed, though Mindell's review found positive reinforcement was never tested on its own.

The bedtime pass

This gets its own section because, unusually for a tip of this kind, it has been tested three times, once as a proper randomised trial. Friman and colleagues' original 1999 study was a single-case design with two children; both reached zero instances of crying and leaving the room, still holding at three weeks. Freeman in 2006 took four three-year-olds and separated the parts: the pass alone reduced but did not eliminate resistance, and adding extinction, meaning calls are ignored once the pass is spent, produced much larger reductions. That is why step 4 below matters. Moore and colleagues in 2007 ran a randomised controlled trial with 19 children aged 3 to 6: significantly fewer trips out of the room, less calling out and less time to settle, still there at three-month follow-up. Their conclusion is the striking part: it keeps the powerful effects of extinction-based approaches without the "extinction burst", the spike of escalating protest many families find unbearable.

1. Make one pass: a card with your child's name on it, which they can decorate. One card, not several.
2. Explain what it buys, at the start of the routine. One excused trip out of the room, or one visit from you, for a brief purpose: a drink, a hug, the loo.
3. Honour it promptly and without drama, then take the pass back.
4. Once it is spent, calling out gets no response. If they come out, return them calmly, without conversation or eye contact.
5. Same rules every night, including for any other adult who does bedtime.