You finally have a plan. You’re going to stop giving in to the whining, or stop lying down with your toddler until they fall asleep, or stop answering the same worried question for the tenth time. The first night, things get worse. Louder, longer, more intense.
It’s easy to conclude the plan is failing. Often it means the opposite.
What an extinction burst is
When a behavior has worked for a long time, and suddenly it stops working, people try harder before they give up. Picture pressing an elevator button that has always worked. When the doors don’t open, you don’t walk away. You press it again, harder, several times.
Children do the same thing. If whining has eventually led to a yes, or crying has eventually brought a parent back into the room, a child who meets a new, calm response will often push harder before they adjust. Behavior specialists call this an extinction burst. “Extinction” just means a behavior fading because it no longer gets the result it used to. The textbook example is a bedtime tantrum that gets much worse for a day or two before it tapers off (Kazdin, 2005).
A burst can even be a good sign. It usually means you’ve found what was keeping the behavior going, which makes it likely the plan will work (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2020).
The classic example
One of the first published cases, from 1959, is still taught today. A toddler cried and raged at bedtime until a parent came back and stayed. When his parents decided to put him to bed calmly, leave and close the door, he cried for 45 minutes the first night. The crying gradually got shorter. By the tenth, he smiled as they left the room.
About a week later, a relative put him to bed. When he cried, she went back in and stayed until he fell asleep. The tantrums came right back and had to fade a second time. The crying lasted a little longer at first, and it was gone within nine nights. After that, his parents reported no bedtime tantrums over two years of follow-up (Williams, 1959, as described in Cooper et al., 2020).
The lesson parents take from it isn’t “ignore your child.” It’s that everyone who handles bedtime needs the same plan.
It doesn’t always happen
Here’s the encouraging part. When researchers looked back at 113 cases from behavior-treatment studies, a burst showed up in about 1 in 4. It was much less common when ignoring a behavior was paired with teaching and rewarding a better one: 12% of those cases, compared with 36% when ignoring was used on its own (Lerman & Iwata, 1995).
And when bursts do happen in real-world treatment, they tend to be short. In the studies that reported them, they lasted only a few sessions without notable problems (Cooper et al., 2020).
Clinical guides for parents still tell families to be ready for one. Pediatric sleep specialists tell parents to expect bedtime behavior to get worse, often for several days, before it improves, and to expect a second round of testing days or weeks later (Mindell & Owens, 2015). Parent coaching manuals warn that when parents stop reacting to a behavior, it often escalates before it fades (McNeil & Hembree-Kigin, 2010).
Make it less likely
Taking attention away from a behavior works best alongside giving lots of attention to what you want instead (Kazdin, 2008). If your child stops getting a yes for whining, they need to get a quick yes for asking nicely. If you’re stepping back from bedtime, they need a predictable routine and praise for staying in bed.
Check what the behavior gets your child. Calmly not reacting helps when the behavior is a bid for your attention. It doesn’t help when the behavior gets your child out of something, like a bath, a chore or leaving the park. Not reacting still lets them skip it, so the plan has to look different (Miltenberger, 2024; Cooper et al., 2020).
Go gradually if you need to. You don’t have to wait out every cry on night one. One approach for bedtime starts with how long you can comfortably wait before going in, then adds 5 minutes every 2 days. Another gives a young child a “bedtime pass” good for one short trip out of the room each night. In a small study of 3-year-olds, the pass ended bedtime battles without a burst (Cooper et al., 2020).
How to get through it
Know it might come. Many plans fall apart in the middle of a burst. If both parents expect one, you’re far more likely to hold steady.
Decide in advance what you can live with. Before you start, pick a behavior you can calmly ride out, even if it gets louder. Whining and complaining usually qualify. Hitting, running into the street or anything unsafe never gets ignored.
Stay the same, every time. Giving in after a long, loud stretch teaches that pushing longer works. Parents and teachers often say consistency is the hardest part (Cooper et al., 2020), so the same response from every adult matters more than the perfect response.
Reward the opposite, fast. Name the behavior you want and notice it the moment it happens. “You asked so calmly. Yes, you can have a snack.”
Look after yourself during it. A burst is hard to sit through, especially when you’re already tired. Tag out with a partner if you can. Remind yourself that it’s a sign of change, not a sign you’re doing it wrong.
Expect a second wave. A quieter week followed by a bad night doesn’t mean you’re back at the start. Behavior specialists call it spontaneous recovery. It’s usually brief if you keep responding the same way (Kazdin, 2005; Cooper et al., 2020).
When to get help
Get support if the behavior gets unsafe, if a burst goes on for weeks without easing, or if you and your partner can’t agree on a plan. A plan built for your child, with someone to adjust it week by week, can make this much easier to stick with.
At Alpine Family Therapy, parent coaching builds that plan with you, helps you get ready for the hard nights before they happen, and helps you through them. Read more about tantrums and meltdowns, sleep and bedtime, or our approach.