Snips Snails and Pigtails

I'm so tired.

Princess has suddenly decided that she doesn't need to sleep again. She seems to go through these episodes every few months.

It's not your typical (at least not for me) need less sleep episodes. I mean she does. not. sleep. At all! We're talking 2-3 hrs a night, and not all at once either.


Well, when she is going through these episodes we lock her door at night. We moved the lock on the outside of her door and lock it. I know, I know, it sounds awful. Please don't judge us! It's for her own safety. The child SIMPLY CAN NOT stay out of things. She climbs right over baby gates so that's no longer an option for ue. The Hubby and I have joked not to fall asleep when she's awake or she'll burn the house down. (And we both know, it's not really a joke)

So anyway, my problem is this:

She is now terrified we're going to lock her door at night. She FREAKS OUT. And I suppose she has every right. Its giving her a complex. So we've been trying really hard to wean her off of it. We let her go to sleep with the door cracked open and then close it (but not lock it) when she falls asleep. We talk with her on her level about staying in her room until mommy and daddy get up. She seems to understand, but NEVER does!

I'll get up and find that she's filled water bottles up and poured the water into her play kitchen sink. In the process pouring water all over the tile floor. And I'm not talking just a little bit of water either... TONS of water. Or she's torn paper up (books are her favorite things to tear) and strewn it ALL OVER THE HOUSE. Or she's gotten a pen or pencil and drawn me beautiful (NOT) pictures all over the walls or herself. She's gotten into the food, the cookie jar up on the counter with candy inside of it. The list goes on and on and on... And well, since she's not sleeping, I am up all night long making sure she's safe or fighting with her to stay in her room.

Last night after fighting with her for hours I finally locked her door. I needed some sleep!!! Of course that led to her screaming and kicking her door until I thought the house was going to fall down. I drug myself out of bed and once again had a chat with her. I agreed to leave the door unlocked if she PROMISED to stay in her room. That was about 2:30am. At 4am, The Hubby climbed into bed after arriving home from work and said he found Princess playing in the living room!

There has GOT to be another way. She's so different than my boys. We left baby gates on their doorways when they were toddlers. By the time they got big enough to climb over, they were trustworthy enough to come out of their rooms unattended. They never got into stuff like she does!!! Plus, they S.L.E.P.T at night!!!!!

Does anyone have any suggestions???