To leave ds to scream in his cot tonight...

[listsandbudgets]

because I can't manage to deal with him tonight.

He's 2+4. EVERY NIGHT of his life he's screamed endlessly at bedtime. We tried going to him, lying down with him in the dark, cosleeping singing to him, letting him come downstairs, cuddling him, ignoring him, sitting holding his hand, seen GP and had various cchecks carried out to make sure he's not in some kind of pain...

but still he screams endlessly "MAMA,MAMA, MAMA, MAMA, MAMA...

Over and over again.

We finally get him off to sleep about an hour - two hours after putting him to bed (I say we its normally me as dp works away Monday to Thursday and someetimes longer).

He then wakes at 3am and it all happens again until about 4.30-5am.

Its affecting my mental health. I keep losing my temper, keep bursting into tears for no reason, I can't function properly at work and I'm facing a disciplinary for mistakes, I feel like everyone hates me and I wouldn't blame them

I've not had a full nights sleep since 3 months before he was born.

I can 't do it any more. I just can't do it....

AIBU to sleep in teh spare room with a pillow over my head and let him scream?

You'll all flame me I know you'll flame me and I deserve it.

He's still screaming I put him to bed at 8pm and I've already been in and given him 2 X10 minute cuddles

How do you know he won't? Breathing is erratic during crying anyway. If you're crying and vomiting and breathing erratically there is a very high chance of choking on vomit. I couldn't and wouldn't even take a risk. There's plenty of other ways to teach children who is is boss. Making them cry is not one of them. Not to say it doesn't work for some people, but I wouldn't do it to my children at such a young age. Probably around age 3.5/4 they should be able to be left to cry without worry ime.

Ohhh, I really feel for you, op, it sounds dreadful.

Think you've had some good advice here. Return to the GP for help, try and get DS referred and get yourself signed off from work with exhaustion. You haven't said if DS is usually at childcare in the day while you work, but if so, being off will give you a bit of time to doze/recover and plan your next move.

It's so grim for you, but I agree with those pp who say you need to be tougher. Or maybe I would say-steel yourself for leaving him for longer periods each time. My darling dd was like this up to around 3. I once put her back in her bed 67 times one evening, when I was trying the no talking no eye contact method. She eventually went quiet and I went in to find her passed out on her knees on the floor, bum in the air, her hands stretched out as if reaching for the (open) door!

I'm very wary of saying this-after 3yrs she didn't really improve massively. It is only since September this year when she started school that I have been able to get a full nights sleep.

I found I was mainly helpless. I look back now and can't believe it. Lots of gritted teeth, and yes, I did sometimes lose my temper with her, and myself. And everyone else

You have my sympathy, fwiw

I honestly can't believe that people are saying it's ok to ignore a child crying so hard they vomit and just stick earplugs in!
In a lot of cultures it is totally normal for the whole family to bed share until about age 7-11 depending on the child's choice.
Personally we are about to put a single bed alongside our kingsize bed, which already has a cosleeper cot as it is getting a little crowded with a preschooler and an older baby who likes to starfish.
If he's happy in bed with you why not just roll with it and reclaim his bedroom as a study, or hobby room?

I can't believe some of the advice... This little boy is a person I would not treat a animal the way some of ye have suggested!

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been said but I think 8pm is much too late for a 2 year old to be going to bed!

My (just turned) 3 year old goes to bed (and has been doing so for about 2 years) any time between 6pm and 7pm - dependent on how tired he seems. If your DS is getting himself that worked up at bedtime, and I know some of it will be learnt behaviour, then that says to me that he is extremely overtired.

I also find that an overtired child is one that is going to be more prone to waking in the night or waking very early in the morning because of disrupted sleep cycles.

I really really feel your pain - my girls (6 and 5) are, and always have been, excellent sleepers but DS spent the first four months of his life crying for most of that time (proper 'someone is trying to kill me') crying and not sleeping for more than about 40 minutes at a time. I was an absolute zombie and my mental health was seriously messed up. If someone had knocked on my door during those dark days and said they'd like to adopt him, I think I would have cheerfully given him away! Not a nice thing to admit but there's a reason that some cultures use sleep deprivation as a form of torture.

I hope things pick up for you soon (hugs)

So, in summary: put your son to bed much earlier and do be strong with the CC if that's what you want/need to do.

Look, some of you may feel it's cruel to let him cry.

I think. It's far crueller however to let them. Continue waking up for months or years. It's an h sustainable habit. One day you won't be there. They need to learn to cope. It's a few days thats it.

Far less cruel than having them. Dependent on you for their sleep when they should be able to settle themselves.

I agree it cannot continue the way it is but there are other ways to deal with it than leaving him a full night crying.... Poor baby and that's all he is really.

OK - realistically you need to either decide to do proper CC or not. If you're not ready to, for whatever reason, you need to stop with the 'kind of' leaving him as it's teaching him to just scream for longer. If you do decide to do CC that's it, forever (or when he's 18!) It does work but you need to stay CALM, bored face if you can manage it. Go in every 10 mins for the first hour as you are reassuring him that you're there but NOT picking up, winding up etc. The idea is to teach him that this is bed and sleep time, you're there, love him but are NOT going to give in. Repeat for the next 300 years.
It will improve if you;re clear with the message. As for the 'cruelty', he's 2yr 4 month, not 2 months....time to learn that he's a toddler, not a baby.

P.S. I meant to say good luck and if it makes you feel any better, my 14 yr old enormous ds is still my baby too! Unfortunately you've moved past the 'I need my mum and I'm crying because of that' phase (i.e. v young baby)....he's wanting his own way and is too tired and young to show any other way of expressing it. Be the parent and let your little boy start to grow up without both of you being utterly exhausted every day.

....he's wanting his own way and is too tired and young to show any other way of expressing it

^this^

princesslucky he isn't a baby

I think 8pm is much too late for a 2 year old to be going to bed!

That really depends on what time he's waking up in the morning and whether he is still napping during the day.

DS (now 9) was a poor sleeper (for many reasons that won;t be relevant to you) but he did drop a nap at 2yrs completely and hasn't napped since and then starting going to sleep at 7.30pm he did wake but only briefly. Certainly although dropping a nap didn;t cure the problem completely, it did improve it quite dramatically.

I liked the Elzabeth Pantley no cry sleep solutions book for toddlers. Didn't give me any magic cures again but did make me feel much more confident about how I was handling the situation.

Do it, be strong though and mean it. You will be giving him the gift of being able to get himself back to sleep, an important life habit that will benefit his mood, health and growth.Explain to him calmly that you won't pick him up before you put him to bed. Try a couple of days of going to him but not picking him up before not going over door threshold, before not going in at all. This time next week(prob sooner) it will all be over. Get someone to be with you though to stop you giving in. Good luck
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It may see cruel to leave him to cry but realistically he has to learn to sleep alone - those saying co-sleeping until 7-11 is normal in some cultures - well it isn't normal in ours and tbh I think parents have the job of raising functional, independent children who can turn into healthy and well balanced adults. He can't sleep with her until he's 18 and it's much better to instil the habit of self soothing and sleeping alone early than to have this fight with an 8 or 9 year old. I'd have kept sleeping in my parents bed into
I was a teenager if they had let me.
Family bed concept is not one I get behind - bed is for me and DH, our space and no one else's.

well it isn't normal in ours - co-sleeping much more common in "our" culture than you think! And there are westernised societies like Japan when its extremely common. There is evidence that co-sleeping results in functional independent children just as much as any other kind of sleeping.

In my experience (of a child with terrible separation anxiety for concrete reasons rather than just a "clingy" child) most children will naturally wean themselves off co-sleeping sometime between 7 and 11 anyway. DS who had co-slept most of his life stopped just after he turned 7 - no fighting involved. At nearly 9 he is firmly and happily in his bed and only resorts to mine after a nightmare or for a quick cuddle in the mornings (and sadly now not always then!)

But thats not really the point - co-sleeping per se isn't the issue here - OP's child doesn't sleep properly even when co-sleeping.

Yanbu. If he is well fed, warm and had a good day then leave him. You cannot carry on like this. Do a routine, put him down, leave him, he is 2 amd a half not a baby. Perhaps start earlier than 8pm

I thought he did sleep better (no crying) when bed sharing?

Oh and I remember seeing some evidence that college students in America who had bed shared as children were more secure and independent than those who hadn't. Certainly there was no evidence of negative indicators anyway, and cultures who do bed share routinely have lower rates of adult depression - but correlation is obviously not causation :)

(Sorry for tangent)

Kewcumber I agree, I would have given different advice if cosleeping was working. We coslept with one of ours and it was a good deal easier but the other one it didn't work with. The OP says that cosleeping isn't working.

If you were left screaming for hours at night , you vomited and still no one came it wouldn't give you a great feeling about bedtime would it.
I think look at the underlying cause here OP . Lots of posters are concerned for your wellbeing and rightly so but look at what's causing this child to scream . If it's been going on for ever it could be food related, toddler relflux can be undiagnosed and cause a child to scream at bedtime. As soon as they lie down they get reflux. Also putting to be too early is a disaster . Some sleep clinics keep the child up way past their normal bedtime to reset their body clock. This isn't something you should do alone though. Some universitys study child sleep problems. Maybe find one that does and ask for advise. This is usually free . Get some help from an expert . Get some help Asaph before you lose your mind. Sleep deprivation is a torture .

But at no point has the OP said he vomited and she didn't go in. She's said she's tried everything, this has been going on for years, and she wanted to know what people thought about taking a harder line.

I understand that there will be differing opinions, but this is someone having a really hard time, and I think talking about seizures and vomiting is a little OTT, seeing as none of those things have happened, and are relatively unlikely to at this point - especially since OP is having a hard time not going in to her son to begin with!

How did it go last night OP? I hope you manage to sort things out - there will be lots of advice on here, things which will have worked for other people that may or may not work for you, it must be overwhelming.

If he's happy in bed with you why not just roll with it and reclaim his bedroom as a study, or hobby room?

Unless you're a single mother already, this is a good way to head towards divorce and marital strife. Your spouse comes first, then your children. Your children are not equals, and you don't want them to get that idea until they're old enough to handle that level of responsibility. You can't have a happy and stable home for your child if you and your spouse are at odds due to lack of intimacy.

I'm not exactly in agreement with letting him sleep in his own puke, you can clean it up without much fuss or attention on him and then put him back.

My spouse doesn't "come first" before my dcs, not I to him