Lots of great suggestions here thanks everyone for the input.
As far as routine, that might be our biggest problem. We did the whole pick something and stick with it and that worked, but since these regressions it hasn't. Now we've been trying different things but nothing in a consistent pattern, just kind of whatever works to get him to sleep that night so we can sleep.
So I think that is the hottest tip, you're right in that nothing works the same for two kids, except potentially the consistency.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
If you haven't tried this already I would consider doing stories in his bed and then laying next to his bed once it's bedtime. We did that when ours starting getting difficult for bedtime and it worked well. I would lay with him for 45 min, then got that down to 20 min, and now it's more like 5 minutes. He still occasionally gets really upset when I leave his room but I think now in his mind he's developed that trust where he knows I will be there in the morning to get him.
If he still won't go down you may want to do a 'reset' - bring him back into the living room or wherever to quietly play with toys or whatever until he seems more settled and then try again.
You can also play up the 'big boy bed' thing by dropping major hints throughout the day about how he's so big and can sleep on his own in his bed. Also recap the day before bed and play up the things he's done really well that day like playing well, listening etc. so he will want to live up to your expectations. That worked well for us too.
What are his naps like? He may be either overtired or not tired enough for bedtime based on his length of nap.
Are there any relatives that can do bedtime for you for the odd night? I've found it's good to mix it up sometimes and ours behaves way better for grandma/grandpa.
FWIW sleep regression is super common hence the need for sleep consultants.
I'm sorry you're struggling with the little one. As others have noted, no two children are the same so you will ultimately have to figure out what works best for you with a little bit of trial and error. Thereafter, and what also has been noted, is consistency - or 'routine'. This is incredibly important no matter what resolve you end up using.
Your child has also discovered some newfound freedom with the big boy bed, and is learning that if he comes up to his gate and begins to yell and scream once you leave, that this will garner the results he seeks, which is you or mom coming to see him. If you can handle the difficult agony, try to eliminate the practice of coming to the room when he does this, since at this time you're giving him exactly the outcome he desires. The 'cry it out' method is a bit heartbreaking, but it typically only takes a few days to curb the behaviour. It's a tough few days mind you, but the adage of short term pain for long term gain has never been more true. If you can find a way 'not' to come back to the bedroom once you leave, this will go a long way in resolving your issues. If that means sit in the chair until they fall asleep in bed, or lay beside them, or read until they drift off, or simply give a kiss and walk out while they're awake and see you leave (versus falling asleep with you there then waking up 'without' you there) you're going to be so much better off.
If you are able to, try to discover a bedtime routine and stick with it without exception. That means every night follow the same routine (bath, jammies, story, sip of water, kiss goodnight, whatever). This means you will have to cut short some activities you'd otherwise wish to attend where you would bring the kids along and have them stay up later "as an exception" because it's a Christmas party or because family wants you over for a gathering or what not and then you're forced to head home late and straight to bed without routine all for the benefit of your friends and family or personal desires to attend an activity but to the detriment of your sleep training. Be incredibly diligent and firm with your routine. Eventually you'll be able to have those later nights, but not at a time where you're sleep training your child. It's far more important to instill a routine and not short cut it. The ability to have those later night exceptions will come, but not until you've built the successful foundation.
As a final suggestion, do not give in and allow your child to sleep with you no matter how exhausted you are. If you begin to allow that to creep in, you're setting yourself up for years of potential problems far greater than the scenario you find yourself in now. It's so easy to have them crawl into bed with you to give you a good sleep and stop the crying, however, this more often than not creates a far greater problem and learned trait that is incredibly difficult to shake if a child takes a particular liking to the comforts of crawling in with mom and dad. It's not to say every child does this, but most parents I know who took this route regretted it for years after as their child climbed into bed nightly with them for years upon years. They wished they would have dealt with the situation from the get go versus taking the easy way out for the moment.
Best of luck. It does take some time and experimenting, but routine, familiarity, and not caving in to their methods/cries for attention will ultimately get you all comfortable at night.
Last edited by jmac98; 01-05-2020 at 04:45 PM.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to jmac98 For This Useful Post:
I have Philips Hue lights and when it's bedtime it's not sleep time. My 3 year old gets into bed with a couple of books. His room has a floor lamp with a fabric shade and I dim it to about 70% when I leave the room. For a while I would slowly dim it over the course of 15 minutes from my phone. It would allow him to make going to sleep his choice after he's been alone for a while and not the abrupt shock situation of being put in bed, light out, door closed that gets an immediate reaction.
My wife will often read to him before leaving the room, but then it's still the same routine where he gets his quiet time with the light on.
I now rarely dim it and just have it on a timer. Often he's put his books down and gone to sleep before the light has gone off.
The remote light was also helpful when he'd wake up in the night and be looking for a stuffed animal, or just be confused for a minute. I'd bring the light up just enough for him to have a reset, and then dim it back down.
He's always been a good sleeper compared to what other parents have had to deal with so I've been lucky.
Oh man I definitely feel for you. We've had issues getting my toddler to sleep but not at bad as yours.
I definitely agree with the routine and limiting nap suggestions. The worst nights for my daughter are either when the routine is changed through travel or visitors or when we let her nap til 5pm.
One thing that has really helped for us both for going to bed at night and not getting up too early in the morning is a colour change alarm clock. It took a bit of fighting at first but now we have her trained to stay in bed whenever the clock is blue. She isn't always sleeping and we regularly hear her playing and singing in bed but she knows that if the clock is blue she needs to be in bed.
__________________
The masses of humanity have always had to surf.
The Following User Says Thank You to FireGilbert For This Useful Post:
....
Don't ask permission for anything, just set the rule and stick to it. Don't negotiate. Don't give extra things for disobedience. Don't read extra books or give any extra food or any other good things. That only reinforces the bad behavior. If the kid gets up immediately, don't say anything other than "it's time to go to sleep" to them and just put them back in bed. Do it as many times as you have to for them to stay in bed. Repeat as necessary if they get up for any reason.
It might be hard (really hard) for a week or so, but if you stick to a consistent pattern and don't reward bad behavior, the child usually gets it and gives up the game. That's my experience anyway.
I find it definitly harder when my kiddo takes a nap, but we took off the railing of her crib. So days where she’s not tired, we still do our usual routine and after she’ll play for an hour or two and then she’ll go to sleep by herself. She usually will still wake up the same time but more grumpy. Guess the easier part is my wife is a stay at home so she’ll nap earlier and then bed time will be back to normal as she’ll have napped earlier.
What are your boy's regular activities? Sure he's probably playing and roaming all day (as 2 years olds do), but is he getting physically tiring playtime outside every day?
Burn him out and he won't be able to stay awake even if he tried.
An environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.
Mine is nearly two years old now. I feel for you about the sleep regression. I've lost count how many times we've had to evolve the routine to something acceptable, but fundamentally, they're all based on the same stuff.
A good sleep routine is important. Bath, reading and music are usually good ones to follow. We do a bottle before bed as well, though we're trying to wean him off of it.
I personally have a few extra things in my nursery I find helpful.
1. Amazon Echo. Great for streaming lullabies prior to sleep, white noise and I bet there's stories, but I haven't found anything good and my son prefers we read to him anyways (he loves books).
2. Security cam with cry detection and intercom mode. Sometimes, rather than go into the room, we will just announce our intentions to our son and say things like wait. Go to bed. We are on our way, be patient (and slowly meander over) etc. On days where he won't say down in the crib, I will leave the room and stand by the door. The moment that I hear shuffling in the room just before he stands up, I reopen the door immediately and say, "Hey! Lie down!" and after he lies down, I usually can leave since he seems to know I'm watching him and know what he's doing somehow.
3. Bed. Sometimes if my wife and I are absolutely exhausted, we will just stay in the room overnight in the bed. The goal usually is to sneak out after he starts falling asleep, but if we fall asleep in the room while nabbing a little shut eye and telling him to stop making noises and go to sleep, oh well, whatever. We started doing this with naps as well. We used to just use the glider chair, but a bed was way comfier. Also, if we need to touch and whatnot, we are doing so from outside his crib, not standing over it and adding strain to our back etc.
4. Smart lights/paired with Amazon Echo. This allows us to dim lights lower than normal as part of bed time routine and turn on lights without getting up or doing laps in the nursery in case we need to quickly flick on the lights to check something. This is more a luxury now, but when my son was a newborn, it was a god send.
Lots of great advice on already, but I'll chip in my 2 cents.
For my kid, we never sleep trained him. We tried when he was 1, but it was a terrible experience, and we couldn't handle crying.
We pulled the tuck and roll, and still do. We found that reading to him in bed helped a lot, and also just tuck and rolling, and sometimes even falling asleep with him in bed while cuddling worked wonders. Now he's 5, and he just needs us to be around til he falls asleep.
Everybody is different, but the tuck and roll worked the best for us, even though it's a 50/50 whether I fall asleep with him or not. But it doesn't bother me any.
I'm only 4 months into this parenting thing, but we've been using the (paid) Huckleberry App to track and "schedule" naps/sleep times. It's actually fantastic at helping avoid overtirednesd and rejiggering sleep schedules on weird days (drs visits, seeing family, woke up early, etc.)
Works up to 5 years old I believe, uses AI learning and historical sleep patterns to determine the best sleep times for your kid.
I feel for you, don't have any helpful advice either, I fell asleep in my son's bed many nights, laying with him until he fell asleep, then trying to sneak out later without waking him up.
All I know for sure is consistency is key with whatever method you choose. Good luck.
My son, a recent new father, complains about being tired a lot! I just shrug my shoulders and tell him it comes with the job. Also, the worry affects your sleep when they are independent as well, it never ends.
My nephew is 2.5. I went to visit my brother, and he absolutely refuses to sleep. His parents try everything. They read with him, lie in bed with him, are firm, etc...If there is no sort of physical barrier, he just come out of his room and hangs out and pretends like nothing is happening. If there is a physical barrier (Ex. Crib) he just screams at the top of his lungs for a solid hour.
He's also convinced that his mother is having cake parties and eating all the cake for herself whenever he goes to sleep. When she puts him to bed, he just body shames her and asks why she needs all that cake to herself.
I don't think this will help you at all, but just found it kind of funny.
The Following User Says Thank You to blankall For This Useful Post:
