Cried for 90 mins

I have two children and I completely agree with that poster.

Being a parent doesn’t make you someone who decides it’s best to leave children to cry… What a strange comment.

Personally yeah I wouldn’t go on my phone at that time with them coz it overstimulates their brain/blue light etc so you made it very very hard for them to go back to sleep.

id have worked through a checklist which you haven’t mentioned if you did eg nappy leak, calpol for pain, hungry, thirsty, cold. They are the reasons I normally wake up. I’d be livid if I was any of those and was shut in a room.

i also have a child of similar age. If I can’t settle them I actually start my day then and try for an earlier nap/bed time. Personally I don’t agree with your approach for the reason that cry it out has been scientifically debunked now (even popping in every so often it’s still cry it out).
also because a 2 year old isn’t capable of understanding or amusing themselves for that period of time, developmentally, so it wasn’t really ever going to go well.

I never got up with mine if they woke up at 5am, as it's an unacceptable time for us to get up in the morning, and I certainly didn't want to allow their body clocks to set to that time with us both having to get up and go to work an hour or two later - we needed that extra sleep, thanks.

We would just keep cuddling and quietly settling them, lying down in their room, keeping the lights off, reading a bit, creeping out of the room, Calpol/Teetha if their teeth were hurting...a bit of reassurance and comfort but not a daytime routine/start to the day and a difference between day and night. We quickly learned that "being firm" or "leaving them to cry" was instinctively wrong in most cases, no matter what Gina Ford or Supernanny thought about it.

DD1 would be hysterical at about the age of two and a bit sometimes when we settled her back down, really scared and had probably had a nightmare, probably a developmental stage and because she had started pre-school and felt a bit less secure.

This was different from her being just slightly unsettled after being settled back down, and in fact becoming calmer and going to sleep- then it's counterproductive to pick them up them up again.

That said I think leaving them to cry and going off for a cry yourself for a bit just to try and recover, is perfectly acceptable and normal. It's really hard and please do take both of you to a sympathetic GP and ask for more help if you need to.

Also don't try and be perfect or beat yourself up about it. We ALL make mistakes as parents, and I've no idea whether we got it right, we just did what we thought at the time, and you will get through this stage and out the other side.

He might just be getting to the age where he can have some sort of visual clue as to when it is ok to be downstairs, and rewarded for it. We used to have one of those sunshine clocks that lit up at whatever time we had set as being ok to be up. So 6am/6.30am/7am depending on the child and our knowledge of their night sleep patterns.

You think a child alone, in the dark, trapped in a cot is simply having a tantrum? If your child was having a tantrum during the day, would you think it was ok to put them in their cot and leave them there to cry for 90mins? If your child was crying and calling for you during the day would you ignore them?

If my child is crying and it’s not an appropriate time to get up, then you can be as sure as hell I’m going to sit with that child to give them comfort. If they get back to sleep then great. If not, then it’s cuddles. Anything else is just lazy.

The OP doesn’t give a shit about giving in to tantrums - her first tactic was to stick the toddler infront of her phone ffs.

You sound like you’ve swallowed a Gina Ford book. Some children will naturally wake earlier than 7AM and that’s ok. Some will occasionally wake earlier because they feel cold / wet nappy / heard a noise etc. It’s a rare child that can go back to sleep at this time because the ‘wake-up hormone’ cortisol is circulating now.

Well he knew you were there for him. That time is too early to go downstairs and you/he needed sleep.

Sounds like he was crying because he was frustrated, not lonely or frightened. I would have left him too but gone back to check just like you did. You need sleep and he needs to learn when it is and isn't okay to go downstairs (has he got a groclock or something else to let him know when getting up time is?)

Did he say why he wanted to go downstairs? I know sometimes they ask for totally irrational things(My three year old demanded a green door she saw in a garden wall at Hampton court). Good to take him into your bed but I wouldn’t have let him watch a screen which can be stimulating and keep him awake. Maybe a story or just talk to him till he falls asleep next time.

This is why you did the right thing. The minute you give in to letting him downstairs, is the minute you lose control. It's awful and heartbreaking but you need to stay strong. It doesn't take children long to learn. You're doing ok, don't let it get you down.

I think being firm on wake time and not going downstairs is absolutely fine at age 2. As is not having him in your bed - unless you want to make a rod for your own back.

Don’t use the phone next time. Hopefully there won’t be a next time as you did not take him downstairs and start the day at 4am!

I would probably pop in and check every so often but I don’t think you did anything wrong. His basic needs were met and he was having a tantrum as he wanted to get up. If you let him - he either cries every night at 4 am which is worse than one night or that’s your new wake time.

Like others, we agreed an acceptable wake time - 7am. Anything earlier than that is treated as the middle of the night. No talking, no attention, no lights, back to bed. It works. Unless you fancy getting up at ridiculous O’clock for years!

I have two children, including a two year old, and two step children.

Many people have to get up earlier than 7 in order to fit in school runs and work commutes and other morning tasks. But that’s beside the point. Nothing wrong with an adult getting up at whatever time they like but why should they enforce that time on a child? It would be perfectly normal biologically for a child to wake at, say, 6AM but you want that child to stare quietly at the ceiling for an hour? I wake naturally at around 6AM and it would drive me insane if someone made me lie in bed for an hour with nothing to do. 100x worse for a 2 year old to cope with that. By all means encourage them to wait but if they start getting distressed I think it’s pretty lazy parenting to just ignore them.

...are you saying that anyone who has their own children inevitably learns that leaving a child to cry alone for extended periods is fine? Bit of a weird comment.

I don't think you can identify the causation there. How would you know it was because you 'gave into it' one time and it's become a habit? And not just because they've had all the sleep they need and you need to either put them to bed later or let them have less of a nap in the day? If you have a child who gets up at 4/5 every day, presumably they're getting enough sleep at some point within the 24hrs. Maybe it started happening because they got older and their sleep needs reduced.

All the parents out there who end up with a child regularly waking at 4 or 5am probably started out thinking 'it's just this once'

If you even once let a child get up and go downstairs, you've set a precedent and they will fight much harder to be allowed to do it next time, because it's much more fun to be allowed to go downstairs and play than lay quietly in bed!! This is why so many people end up with this issue which is then 10x harder to fix with a 4 or 5 year old in a terrible habit.

It’s a good age to start with a grow clock, when it’s blue it’s still night time and we can’t go downstairs. It comes with a nice story and mine really took to it. Fully recommend and it takes
a few weeks and re enforcing with we can’t get up as there’s no sun on the clock

He's 2, idk why he's even still in a cot. My daughter could easily climb out of her cot before 18 months and we switched to a toddler bed. I'd be very surprised if he can't climb out of his cot yet which is way more dangerous than being "on the loose".

Tell me you don’t have any children without telling me you don’t have any children 🙄

Yes, why reach for phone? You could have got a book & read quietly. He may have then felt sleepy enough to nod off.

By leaving him to cry you're affecting his attachment to you. Long gone are the days of Ferber & his crying to sleep method. My eldest is 21 & it wasn't acceptable then either.

Sorry for all the judgy comments you’re getting OP - for somewhere supposed to be a supportive forum to get advice or discuss I find it almost never is and lots of posters just love to put you down regardless!

Personally I wouldn’t have got the phone out I don’t think that’s helped your situation!

I wouldn’t worry about the drop from the bed at that age though.

My DS at that age had a toddler bed and a baby gate on his room, if he woke up really early he would generally play in his room - maybe you could look at a set up like this?

Good luck!

What's there to disagree with? 7am is when most working people get up for a 9am start. It's a reasonable time for most people to get up. Not running after a child's every tantrum will build them up for when others say no to them. The whole world doesn't revolve around small people who want it done there and then.

As a one iff its fine

but if you do this again then his brain will become adjusted, ah its 4am lets wake and have time watching something. Hard as that maybe not to let him watch something, keeping him in a dark room where he is safe is better and you did put him back to bed

does he have back teeth coming through?

You don't encourage them to wake at 4am though? You arrange their daytime sleep/bedtime so that they are waking up at an acceptable time.

Eg my son is now not going to sleep til 2130, waking at 7am. If i want him to go to sleep earlier i need to wake him up earlier so he goes to sleep earlier, cap his nap, or a combination. And i need to accept that it might take a week to adjust.

I know I'm in the minority, but I'd leave him if there's nothing wrong with him or his environment. He needs to learn he can't always have his own way.

What is so special about "downstairs" ? Why does he want to go there ?
Anything that could be moved into his room to keep him quiet ?

Your suggestion is dangerous for the toddler. If the op fell asleep then there would be a toddler on the loose. It would have been safer putting him back in his cot.

You did the right thing.