Why does bedtime suck?

[brandiewine11]

Seriously, I would say for the last year bedtime has been ok. Some definite rough days and frustrating phases but overall not awful.

For the last couple of weeks bedtime involves lots of screaming, crying, kicking, pounding on the door, "Mama don't leave me here!!!" etc.

He's fine until we get to his room then all hell breaks loose.

I never all the ideas on how to better manage this. Because I suck at it.

[milano]

Ohh hello this sounds like us. The last couple weeks bedtime has been such a pain in the neck, whereas before that it had been a breeze for the past almost year. He used to take 10 min tops to fall asleep, and in those 10 min he'd lay next to me real still and just cuddle. Now, he's hopping all over the place, sometimes being mean and it takes like 45 min most nights. I'm hating it. And it makes solo bedtimes really damn hard. If M cries he'll let me leave usually with minimal tears, but it takes him even longer to fall asleep if I'm not in there so I'm always rushing to go back in.

Hopefully it's just a phase?

[tj]

This is naptime for us. He is close to P's age, right? Sometimes little things like letting her ride on my back to her room works. Or letting her choose a special toy or baby doll to put in bed with her. Sometimes I have to remind her of her choices. 1) walk calmly to her room and she gets a song and a rock and a cuddle. Or 2) scream and throw a fit and I will put her straight to bed with no song or rocking.

Worst case scenario is when it's mh's nights to put her down and she's acting like a fool. He refuses to let her tell him that she doesn't love him and only wants mommy. So when she acts that way, he calmly places her in bed and walks away. She does not like that, and will tell us 20 times the next day that she will NOT tell daddy that she doesn't love him.

Probably not helpful. But.... solidarity?

[stringy]

Is he afraid of anything? Dark? Shadows? Being alone? Three is when they realize some of these things and start having those fears. For M it helped to have a flashlight/lantern and books. Most every night I go in and she's passed out cuddling her lantern.

[sassyq]

L has to have a lamp on, music on and books when she goes to bed. She looks at books until she falls asleep every night then we go turn off the lamp. She had started having serious separation anxiety around age 3ish and would have legit panic attacks if we tried to make her go to sleep in her room. After the addition of all those things she got much better and now sometimes even wants to go to bed. She's a natural night owl, so being allowed to look at books helps her settle and be in bed, and we still have some evening left over.

[Dramaphile]

I've discovered that, for whatever reason, Nugget almost never struggles at bedtime if I let her have books in her bed. No idea what she does with them since her room is too dark to see them, but it's now part of our routine that we read a couple of books and then she picks out which ones to bring into her crib (which currently is a stack of like 10...) and I put them in the corner of her crib and put her in and give her blankies and leave the room.

[ovenrack]

Oct 4, 2017 8:32:59 GMT -6 Dramaphile said:

I've discovered that, for whatever reason, Nugget almost never struggles at bedtime if I let her have books in her bed. No idea what she does with them since her room is too dark to see them, but it's now part of our routine that we read a couple of books and then she picks out which ones to bring into her crib (which currently is a stack of like 10...) and I put them in the corner of her crib and put her in and give her blankies and leave the room.

M also loves bringing a book to bed too! In her crib, she gets a water cup (360 cup), a stuffed animal, and a book. And her beloved blankets.

[brandiewine11]

So he already has books, water, a million stuffed animals and blankets (his comfort object). I sort of thought maybe he was just pissed that his brother is in my room and he is not. But maybe it is more separation anxiety and fear. He hasn't really gone through that yet.

Maybe music or a light he can control would help. He has a nightlight but he can't control it.

Thanks. I'll try this tonight.

[mapleme]

We went through a stage of this with M and it seems to have passed for the moment. I can't really say what worked because we tried and failed at lots of things. I think that my mom visiting helped because it reset the routine of her bedtime stalling/screaming/running out of her room.

[critter015]

O sleeps with Scout the dog that lights up and talks/sings. He used him a lot at that age to soothe himself and I would turn it on to play music as part of his bedtime routine. I'm also really not nice after bedtime and they can cry or whatever, it is bedtime and I have things to get done after that so too bad.

[tj]

Also, I'm sure you're doing nothing wrong and it's just that toddlers are tiny tyrants hell-bent on making us suffer. Good thing they are cute.