12 Desperate Things Parents Have Done to Get Their Kids to Sleep

From purposefully imitating the Von Trapp family to accidentally impersonating a witch.

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Kids come into this world with a combination of boundless energy and a desire to still be connected by an invisible, if no longer physical, umbilical cord. Never is this more apparent than at bedtime when their whole mission in life becomes to not sleep (and consequently to make sure no one else sleeps either). Sure, it's easy to tell them to go to bed — it's a lot harder to make them actually go there and stay there, which makes for some very, ahem, unique solutions, as these ingenious moms can attest to.

1. When I Say Lights Out, I Mean That ... Literally

"After fighting our five kids to keep their lights off and go to sleep at bedtime, we finally just removed their light bulbs so they can't turn the light on. We do this until they are about five years old and then they can 'earn' their lightbulbs back by staying in bed."" —Jill H., 36, Cedar Hills, UT

2. Forget Daylight Savings Time, It's Now Sanity Savings Time

"My son has been up at the crack of dawn and in my room ever since he could figure out how to get out of his bed. So when he was three, I decided to get him his own digital clock, taught him how to recognize the number seven and told him he couldn't come out until seven o'clock. I told him he could play quietly in his room if he was up before that. I did all I could to make sure he knew exactly what a seven looked like and went to bed hoping for a little longer to sleep in the next day. The next morning, I had a visitor in my room at 5:57 claiming it was morning time because, of course, there was a seven. That day I showed him where exactly the seven needed to be … and then I set the clock back an hour for good measure." —Melissa S., 36, Farmington, MN

3. A Midnight, Moonlit Drive Never Felt Less Romantic

"Recently, we were at a cabin resort with a bunch of family. That whole first day was filled with so much play time and people, we were certain our one-year-old daughter would sleep well. But it was the first time she ever slept in the bottom portion of her Pack-n-Play, and she absolutely hated it. We tried everything — sleeping on the bed, in a chair, shushing her, walking her, swinging her in her carseat, giving her more milk. Three a.m. rolls around with a very cranky baby and two exhausted parents. Finally we decided to take a moonlit drive around the lake. BAM. Sleeping baby! Driving for hours when you're sleep deprived isn't the best solution but it worked. But the next day really sucked." —Krissy O., 31, St. Germaine, WI

4. Lock 'Em Up

"My cousin had six kids in five years and she taught me the best trick for getting kids to stay in bed: Turn the doorknobs around so the doors lock from the outside. If our kids try and come out my husband or I will lock them in. Once they learn to stay in their room, we let them help us reverse the doorknob back to the original position. We have to be careful though as that same cousin got locked in her kids' room when she went in to grab some shoes and they locked the door behind her. Even with all the pleading and knocking she did, they ran off laughing and wouldn't let her out. Eventually she had to open the second story window and yell until a neighbor heard her and came in her house and let her out." —Jill H., 36, Cedar Hills, UT

5. Make It a Musical

"I had to learn the entire song and dance routine to 'So Long, Farewell' in The Sound of Music, complete with waving from the staircase, to make my kid go to bed. It may sound silly but I do the best impressions of the Von Trapp family now and that's got to be worth something!" —Lizzie B., 38, Liverpool, UK

6. Sitting Guard

"For the last five years, nearly every night, I've sat in the hallway after bedtime. It started as a way to keep my two youngest quiet and in their beds, as they knew I could hear and see them. After we moved into a two-level townhouse, it became a way to head them off so they didn't make it all the way downstairs to see what was going on without them. Now, at six and four years old, they think they need me out there or they can't go to sleep. I drink wine, play on Facebook, or read. More than once, I've fallen asleep myself. But honestly? After so many years of this I'm so darn tired of sitting in the hall." —Michelle S., 35, Omaha, NE

7. I'm a Witch, I'm a Lover, I'm a Child, I'm a Mother

"When Ella was three, my husband went out of town for a couple days, leaving me to handle bedtime on my own. It's like she knew I was weak and so the first night she woke up, calling for me every few minutes. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, I'd had enough. I stood at the foot of her bed and growled, 'It is the middle of the night! Do not make another sound! Go to sleep!' A couple hours later, when we both woke up for good, she timidly said to me, 'Mom, last night there was a witch in my room.' Yeah, that was me. I was the witch." —Katie W., 39, San Antonio, TX

8. Spray the Scary Away

"My toddler daughter is afraid of monsters and would not stay in her bed or room. So we made some 'monster spray' with water and scent and put it in a spray bottle. At bedtime we would spray it around the room, then leave it on the bedside table. It worked. She knew that we believed her that there was scary stuff in her room and she had a way to get rid of it. The best was in the middle of the night when we would hear her furiously squirting away in the next room." —Jennifer H., 31, Logan, UT

9. Mommy Needs Therapy

"Our horrible bedtime routine — and the resulting exhaustion — was a problem in our house for years. I finally got so desperate that I signed up myself, my husband, and my daughter for counseling. It took a therapist to teach us to say good night once and then just keep walking her back to bed....over and over and over. The counselor also taught her what she could and couldn't do after going to bed. She even had the list of things to do and not to do next to her bed to remind her. It worked! It was the best money we ever spent." —Julie J., 36, Allen, TX

10. Sleepwalker Ranger

"I have three sleepwalkers! One turns on lights as he walks around the house, the second cries, and the third has long conversations with us. It's the creepiest thing ever and almost leaves you feeling like the house was burglarized or something. We have learned the hard way to never wake them up and just shepherd them back to bed and give hugs. It tends to happen when they're overtired and almost always happens in the first couple of hours after they go to bed. The oldest is 10 and hasn't grown out of it yet. So now we try to make sure they get to bed on time or one of us will stay awake for a few hours after them, on sleep patrol, to make sure everyone stays put." —Becca G., 37, Burnsville, MN

11. It's Bedtime, Now Where's My Rope?

"Our two preschool boys refused to go to bed every night, choosing instead to stay up and party in one or the other's room. After making the 20th trip upstairs one night, I finally took a jump rope and tied their doorknobs together. Their bedrooms are across the hall from one another so if one pulls on the rope, it just shuts the other's door even tighter. Now the boys call it their 'night night rope.' I can only imagine what their teacher thinks when they talk about it at school!" —Marie H., 32, Marysville, WA

12. The Phantom Mouse

"We'd had an infestation of mice and even though it had all been taken care of, my 4-year-old son remained terrified that they were going to come back and get him. Specifically, he thought they would crawl out of his heating vent at night, which made sense since that was how we'd first found the mice — from the noises they made crawling through the ventilation ducts. So to help him sleep we helped him devise a 'mouse trap' made Tom-and-Jerry style from a large colander propped up with a wooden spoon tied to a chunk of cheese. Every night before bed, he'd 'set' the trap over the heating vent. We went through a lot of cheese that winter, but he slept great!" —Kathryn A., 29, New York. NY

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