To have the rage at bedtime?

[Cherrypineapplecocktail]

3 year old at bedtime. Won’t settle to sleep if i’m not sat in the room by her bed but recently it’s taking about 2/3 hours to get her to sleep. I feel like starting the bedtime routine at 4pm so she’s asleep by 7 😂

She’s fine for bath/teeth/story etc. Then when it’s time to get into bed, she doesn’t want to stay in bed. She wants to play/be rocked/sing/wee/drink etc on repeat.

I’ve tried ignoring, bribes, threats of losing fun things, saying nothing apart from “time to sleep” on repeat, I’ve even left her in her room and come downstairs as I needed a cry. She was very upset, kicking the stair gate at the top of the stairs.

I’ve tried walks in the evening, visiting the park, trampoline to tire her out, no tv after 4pm.

I find she gets beyond tired and gets a second wind.

When she decides she’s ready to sleep, it takes her about 30 seconds to drop off. Then she’ll sleep all night (but the late nights mean she’s not getting enough sleep and is tiredp in the day).

Not to mention having to get 6 year old to sleep too.

Single parent so no one to tag team with but I need help!

Aibu to find this hard? Praying someone has something I can try! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

No advice, just in the same boat with our three year old so complete solidarity! She eventually goes to sleep around 8.30 🙈

Sounds like you've tried a lot of things. How long did you try each one for? I'd give one approach a good couple of weeks before giving up/trying something new.

I'd probably go with the approach of one phrase, repeated "It's bedtime now" or whatever - and calmly and gently returning her to bed if she gets up.

Or you could try "I'm just going to do some tidying, I'll come back in 5 minutes to check on you"? You need to do it pretty much straight away, before any faffing about starts.

Is this new? Is there anything else going on that could be worrying her? Do you talk about bedtime at other times? Does she have a nightlight?

Tongiht we’ve had crying for 30 mins to even get into bed. Atleast now she’s laying in it (albeit playing with a toy.)

What about a starlight projector lamp thing, audiobooks? Something you can leave on to hypnotise her off to sleep but you don't need to be around for.

We have the star light. She used to play with it and insist on holding it. she broke the plastic dome a while ago and I haven’t replaced. She has audio books on my phone but we don’t have a Tonie or yoto as I think she’s play with it all the time which is what she does with her friend’s one whenever we go round.

Toni box? Worked wonders for us. I don't mind if he's awake and listening but I do want him lying down quietly moving towards sleep.

Get a cheap Alexa, Audible books are great. My DS listened to Plop every night and was asleep in moments

Definitely a yoto player, put it up high on a shelf so she can't play with it. she gets to pick one card for bedtime and has to stay in her bed listening to it or it goes off. They do loads of stories so they'll defo have something she's interested in. Worked wonders at that age with my now 5yo, she's listened to it every night since she was 3

Don't bother with yoto or Tonie. Just get a cheap echo dot and use Amazon parent dashboard to allow audible books onto it. Turn the mic off on it so she can't mess about with it. Then it can play audiobooks that last a lot longer. My dc listen to magic faraway tree that goes on for hours. They fall asleep and it just goes on in the background.

With mine when she went through something similar, I had to sit halfway down the stairs so she couldn't see me and kept saying "go to bed" (or something) on repeat and not engaging otherwise. (We have a stair gate in the middle of the upstairs hall as we have odd-shaped stairs, so she'd not be able to see me sitting on the stairs when she was standing at it). Then, when she did get into bed, I went and gave her a big cuddle and lots of praise. And repeat for a few days... For some reason, that combo of not being able to see me, and lots of praise for doing the right thing worked.