Naptime-out

I was working from home yesterday.  I was on a conference call, and I heard Momma yelling and Violet crying.  Once my call ended I went upstairs to see what had happened.  Christie was at the top of the stairs.

I said to her, "Is everything alright?"

"No," she said.

"Why?  What happened?" I asked.

Christie told me about how she told Violet that it was time for a nap, but Violet didn't want to stop playing.  Christie had put Violet in her bed, and Violet had instantly stood up and tried to get out.  After two repetition of trying to put Violet in bed, and Violet popping out defiantly, Violet got a time out.  Her stint in time-out didn't change her attitude, however.  She kept telling Christie, "No.  No nap."

While I had been on the call, a total of three time-outs happened, and some yelling on both sides.

I asked Christie, "Where's she now?"

"In her room," she said.

"In her bed?"

"Ahh, no," she said.  "I don't know what else to do.  The time-outs aren't phasing her."

I told Christie I'd take care of it.  I brought my computer up into the dining room, so I could be near to Violet's room, in case I gave her a timeout.

After setting up work, I went into Violet's room.  I found her playing in the closet.

"Violet, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Playing," she said.

"OK, but it's nap time.  You don't need to sleep, but you've got to stay in your bed and try."

"But I don't want to," she said.

I got tough.  "OK, Violet, you can't play, you can either stay in your bed or do timeout until naptime is over."

"I don't want to be in bed," she said.

"Well, it's not playtime, it's naptime.  Your only other option is to spend naptime in timeout.  Do you want to do that?"  I said it like she'd be crazy to pick time-out over bed.

To my surprise, she said, "Yeah."

"You want to do naptime in time-out?"

"Yeah."

"OK," I said.  I put her into the corner I use for time-outs.  "You're in timeout.  You have to stay there until naptime is done.  If you change your mind and decide you want to go into your bed for the rest of naptime, just tell me."

Violet nodded and started to do her time in the corner.  Now, for time-outs we typically follow the recommended duration of one minute per year of age.  So Violet typically stays in the corner for two to three minutes.

I thought for sure Violet would get bored with time-out and be begging to go into her bed.  Once again, I was wrong.  Twenty minutes passed, and I decided to check on her.  She was still standing in the corner where I'd left her.

I asked, "Do you want to go into your bed now?"

"Yeah," she said.

I put her into her bed, but saw from the monitor that she instantly got out of bed.  I collected her and put her back into her time-out corner.

In the end I had tried one more attempt to get her to stay in bed.  That attempt ended the same way the first one had.  Excluding the two brief attempts to get her to stay in bed, Violet was in time-out for a whole hour.  At some points, she was making a pathetic fake cry noise, but she never moved.  She never sat down.  She just stood there and did her time.

At no point did laying down in her bed seem like a better options than staring into that blank corner.

Sometimes I'm sortof proud of what a strong little woman she is.  And sometimes the fact that Violet did a one hour time-out like it was no big deal scares the crap out of me.  She's only two and a half, and still stubborn as a mule.  What happens when she gets a few years older?