What is the best way to get a 5 year old to sleep in her bed?

What the evidence says

A 5-year-old who won't stay in bed is dealing with something doctors call bedtime resistance, or 'limit-setting type' sleep trouble. This is very common at this age and there's a lot of good research on what helps.

The first step is a steady, calm bedtime routine done the same way every night, like bath, then books, then lights out. A Canadian paediatric guideline points out that a child should learn to fall asleep the same way she'll need to fall back asleep if she wakes in the night, meaning in her own bed, on her own, without a parent right there.

Once the routine is set, clear and consistent limits matter a lot. One well-tested method is the 'bedtime pass': the child gets one card she can trade for a single extra visit or hallway trip after lights-out, and after that, parents calmly and consistently do not respond to more calls or trips out of bed. A randomized trial found children using this pass left their room and cried out far less often than children in a control group, and the improvement lasted for months.

Other approaches that have research support include gradually reducing how long a parent stays in the room each night, and rewarding calm bedtime behaviour with praise or a small sticker chart rather than punishing the resistance. A big review of over 50 studies found that these kinds of behavioural approaches worked for the large majority of children, and the gains held up for months afterward.

Whatever method you pick, sticking with it every night for a couple of weeks matters more than which exact method you choose. If snoring, gasping, or very heavy tiredness during the day is also happening, that's worth mentioning to her doctor, since it could point to something else going on with her sleep.