How on earth do I end these bedtime antics with toddler?

[tallache1]

Me and DP are at our absolute wits end with the whole bedtime circus we have to go through every night 😭. I stopped breastfeeding our 2.5 year old a few weeks ago because I couldn’t cope with the constant latching and unlatching before she fell asleep. But her behaviour is shocking now 😭

We start winding down around 7.30, give her a bath, read a book, maybe watch something non stimulating like the Gruffalo. For the next 2.5 hours she will get up, get out the bedroom and go downstairs. Run around. Say she’s hungry. Say she’s thirsty. Says she needs a wee. Asks for 4728284 different books. Until one of us cracks and takes her out in the car which is the only way to get her to sleep. WTF is going on? How do people have children that get into bed and go to sleep? When she’s getting up and creating we literally turn all the lights off and pretend to be asleep but can just hear her wreaking havoc downstairs.

Advice needed please 😭 me and DP are desperate for an evening to ourselves.

Is her room dark enough?

Does she nap?
What time does she wake up?

Stairgate into her room (if she can't climb one?). If she will read beside you to read books, read a million in a row till she goes to sleep?

Baby gate on the bedroom door so she can't get out of the room..

Start earlier in the hope that she falls asleep earlier?

If you are always cracking, why not just start in the car. Get ready for bed, story and then a car drive. That is, only if she falls asleep quickly in the car.
If that won’t work, then consistency is the key, you are the parents - you decide how many books, whether she’s allowed back downstairs. A stair gate at the door is a good idea and just putting her back into bed each time she gets out. It’s hard work, she will cry but you’re there, she’s safe, nothing bad is happening to her and she will eventually get the message that bed time means bed time!
Good luck with it.

We introduced ‘wrestling time’ after bath to get out all extra energy and it’s a time for a bit more physical touch with us. I haven’t weaned yet though so dreading it all going tits up. Did you go cold turkey?

We’ve bought blackout blinds for both her room and ours so upstairs is pitch black but makes no difference 😩

Does she nap? There’s your answer, stop the nap

Another bone of contention. She goes to sleep marginally better when she’s not napped but nursery have a policy that they’re not allowed to wake them. Yesterday she slept for 1.5 hours WTF so was absolutely bouncing off the walls all evening. So if she goes to bed at a reasonable time (8ish) she will get up around 6.30am maybe 7am if we’re lucky. If she goes to bed around 10pm she’ll sometimes lie in until 7.30ish maybe 8am at a push.

DS used to do that mad running around thing when he needed a poo. Knowing that fact didn't help much though.

If she can open or scale a stair gate on her bedroom door then I'd just put a latch on the outside of the door that you can just open when you know she's asleep. If she's going to mess about then at least she's confined to her room.

@Rockandgrohl@pjani tried a stairgate, she either scales it or has worked out how to open it and just opens it. She can do the one at nursery too and is forever escaping and encouraging her colleagues to escape too 😩 if I read a million books she’d ask for a million and 1, I can’t even tell you how much willpower she has. More than us 😆 but yeah I could definitely try just reading every single book she asks for and see how we get on.

You have taken away her sleep aid, she could only fall asleep when feeding, so now you’re expecting her to fall asleep all on her own which she has never done before?

falling asleep in the car is another way of aiding a child to sleep. If you want her to just lay down and fall asleep you need to teach her how to. At her age you probably need to do the lie or sit down next to her until she falls asleep and then night by night slowly retreat until she gets used to you just leaving the room and falling asleep on her own.

Try the back to bed routine? Don’t say anything once you’ve said goodnight. Calm redirection. It’s exhausting but you will get there

Tell us her daytime routine.

Without knowing what time she is awake from though I’m guessing she is overtired and you need to start winding down earlier. Have supper at 5pm. Bath at 6:30, bed at 7:00, read for 30 mins.

We’ve tried that, she only seems to fall asleep in the car after 2 hours of bullshit. If we try before she’s not sleepy enough 😭 thank you, we need good luck. She is the most strong willed little thing I’ve ever encountered and if we stop her going downstairs or doing what she wants to do we have 1 hour + of full blown tantrums including bashing her head on the floor or wall. I mean at what point is this level of toddler tantrum not even normal? She is an incredibly bright and active little girl and running rings round us both. Dreading the teenage years!

For starters you are starting the routine way too late for their age, you are also going to have to take a deep breath and stop the car business and NEVER give in, or she will know she will break you eventually. Make the routine consistent- bath then 3 books in bed, calmly put her back every time she gets out of bed, stay in the room on a separate chair if you aren’t ready to move onto her self settling.
No false threats/promises/incentives, just calm (quite boring) consistency

also completely ignore the head bashing, zero reaction from you

I would never expect her to fall asleep on her own @MyPurpleHeart, her dad used to be able to get her to sleep (when she was still bf because I work nights a few times a week) but cuddling her and tickling her back. I’m the same but since we stopped feeding she pushes me away and doesn’t want me to tickle her or even touch her most of the time. But yeah once she’s asleep she’s absolutely fine to be left it’s just the whole rigmarole of getting her down. Very happy to stay with her and get her to sleep if she’d just stay in her bloody room and not be running about everywhere or saying she’s hungry or demanding different books 😩

We had a great routine since before stopping feeding @Wateryworldswe’d do all the usual, bed, bath books etc then she’d have a feed and go to sleep but I needed to stop as I really hated feeding her! But will definitely give that a go. If she gets out of bed 100 times do I just keep putting her back in?

That’s a good idea @Emonade and she does love a bit of rough housing! Yeah over a period of a few months I cut down to just one feed at night and then I said mummy’s boobies were sore and had no milk so she helped put plasters on and seemed to take it really well. Or so we thought 😵‍💫 her behaviour has really deteriorated since then so I’m feeling a lot of guilt and sadness for stopping but it really was time because I hated feeding her.

Yeah she is almost manic on a night so I would guess over tired too? So she gets up at around 7am mon- weds for nursery. Has a nap on those days so it’s always harder to get her to sleep. We have tea around 6 and start her bedtime routine at 7 but some nights it’s later like 7.30pm. On my days off on Thursday and Friday I let her sleep in but she usually wakes around 7.30ish so not much of a lie in. And then we just try stop her napping but it’s hard as she will fall asleep in the car if we’re driving in an afternoon.

I think it’s too late too, and she’s is getting overtired, my two had stopped a daytime nap at 2.5yrs. We always, feed them, bath, watched the CBeebies bedtime song and then they went to bed at 6.30pm. We had the same routine, they always got up around 7am sometimes later. Keeping her up won’t mean she will lay in bed longer, but she will be hyper if she is overtired and gets a second wind. She needs to learn how to get herself to sleep. I would try a similar routine, and put her to bed, say goodnight, no hanging around, no reading just leave the room. And keep putting her back if she gets up. Be consistent, if she isn’t getting the attention she will soon learn when it’s bedtime, time for sleep.

I feel for you OP, my first DD was/is exactly the same! She's now 6 and still a fight getting her to sleep and the more tired she is the more she fights it. I kind of blamed the breastfeeding because I felt like she didn't know how to self settle herself after being so used to feeding to sleep, however my DD2 was also bf and fed to sleep but goes to sleep much easier. The napping through the day will make a huge difference, that's a strange rule for nursery to have. Things I found helped (a little):

• We go upstairs at 6.30pm to start bath/bedtime routine and have a strict don't go back down again rule. They get water up to bed but that's it, nothing else to eat/drink. Saying she's hungry is definitely just an excuse to get up. However not sure this would work if your DD can open the stair/room gate
• Tonie/yoto player, I read 2 stories then put the tonie on and we listen to that.