Kristen Bell Relies On A 'Controversial' Technique To Get Her 3-Year-Old To Sleep

Kristen Bell has admitted to what she calls a “controversial” technique she does to get her three-year-old daughter to sleep.

The actress, 37, who is often open and honest about her life as a parent, said her toddler, Delta, decided to “stop sleeping” about nine months ago and now after she’s put to bed, she turns the light on and moves around the furniture.

This of course irritates Bell’s son, four-year-old Lincoln. “Look, I’ll get controversial,” Bell told Parents magazine. “We switched the door knob. We turned the lock on the outside.”

Steve Granitz via Getty Images

Bell continued: “I’m sorry, I know that’s controversial, but we lock it when she gets in there, and we stand outside and say, ‘We love you, we will talk to you in the morning, but now, it’s time for sleep.’”

The mum-of-two said after about 10 minutes, Delta winds herself down and manages to settle herself and go to sleep. Before Bell and her husband, Dax Shepard, go to sleep, they make sure they unlock the door so Delta can get out in the morning or during the night if she needs the toilet.

Speaking to Parents magazine, Jodi Mindell, associate director of the Sleep Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said allowing kids the “chance to work it out for themselves” and see if they fall back asleep without your help could prevent creating a “sleep monster”.

If you’re unsure about Bell’s technique, but are looking for tips on getting your kids to bed without a fuss, Maryanne Taylor, a sleep consultant for babies and children at The Sleep Works, previously told HuffPost UK a bedtime routine is crucial in ensuring your kids have a drama-free night. “There should be a consistent bedtime routine really from an early age, it’s really helpful for a child to know what’s expected of them,” she said. “They always do better when they know what is coming next.”

She also said if it has become a habit for your child to wake during the night, try and introduce a technique called ‘wake to sleep’. “It can be very effective for children stuck with a wake-up time,” she said. “Go to your child half an hour or 40 minutes before she is due to wake up and jiggle the child slightly, not so they fully wake up, but so they stir and soothe them back into their next sleep cycle.”

What hacks do you use to get your toddlers to stay in bed? Let us know in the comments below or get involved in the conversation on Facebook.

Before You Go

Baby Sleep Tricks

The Guide Book(01 of04)

The Gentle Sleep Solution: The Naturally Nurturing Way To Help Your Baby To Sleep offers a gentle alternative to controlled crying methods. Drawing on her experience as a psychologist, CBT therapist and mother of four, Shallow teaches parents, firstly, how to identify the underlying reason for their baby's troubled sleeping by reading their behaviour, and, secondly, how to respond in ways that will help to reduce their anxiety and allow them to fall asleep independently. (credit:Jupiterimages via Getty Images)

The Bedtime Story Book(02 of04)

Swedish behavioural psychologist and linguist Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin spent more than three years perfecting his bestselling sleep-inducing bedtime story The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep. Using psychological and positive reinforcement techniques to help little ones to relax, focus and eventually drift off, he describes the story as “the verbal equivalent of rocking a baby to sleep.” (credit:Penguin Random House)

The Smartphone App(03 of04)

The Sound Sleeper app, gives you a choice of sounds for lulling your baby to sleep according to her personal preferences – whether that’s the rhythm of the womb, a gentle ‘shhh’ or the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It also ‘listens’ for your baby and starts playing the sound you’ve chosen as soon as it hears a whimper. You can even track your baby’s sleep and generate graphs to help you learn and analyse your baby’s sleep patterns. (credit:Layland Masuda via Getty Images)

The Night Light(04 of04)

The Sleepy Baby™ Biological LED Lamp light bulb works by filtering out the stimulating blue light spectrum that can inhibit your baby’s production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Although it provides adequate light for bedtime stories, nappy changes and night-time feeds, your baby’s brain registers the light as darkness, making it easier for them to fall back asleep. (credit:Lighting Science)