17 month old bedtime rebellion?

[tholeon]

DS (17 months) has for the last few months been pretty good at going to bed - I do sit with him while he goes to sleep, but he has always managed it without upset. He does wake up in the night sometimes but tends to settle fairly quickly nowadays, though he often ends up in bed with us around 4 a.m...

For the last few nights, though, he has decided that he doesn't want to go to sleep in his cot and we have had a lot of screaming - for an hour and a half tonight, before he finally settled with me singing him lullabies..! If I get him out of the cot he quietens down but then screams again if put back in it. But I really can't go back to having him sleep on me all the time like he did as a tiny baby...

Does this sound like a toddler tantrum type thing? Do I need to be firm? To be honest I felt quite cross tonight - was up a lot last night with food poisening, am better now but completely shattered and really needed him to just go to sleep...

hi there, i can sympathise, i posted a similar post earlier about my 15mo, only have one reply so far from another mother in the same situation looking an answer. hopefully advice will come along soon.

We had this with DS. He was never a great sleeper and I think initially we didn't realise that the waking was getting worse, until suddenly he was in bed with us every night, wanting to sleep with his head on my boobs and feeding on and off through the night.

We were exhausted and decided to nightwean him from BF when he was 20 months. We did it over the Easter weekend when DH had some time off work, and DH went to him in the night every time. It was a nightmare - DS cried, DH held him, I was awake in bed and crying. But, it took 4 nights and since then he sleeps through in his own bed apart from the odd night when he is upset/ill or whatever.

I know you aren't BFing, but I think a similar approach would work. We didn't feel able to just leave DS to cry, but you have to prepare yourself for some difficult nights in the short term for long term gain.

Could well be the 18 month sleep regression a bit early.

More info here and here and here.

thanks I'll have a read...

Alibaba he has been much better regarding night waking since I stopped the night feeds, but actually going to sleep in the first instance has never been a problem until recently..

I think in some ways I'm asking for permission to be firm - he needs his sleep, I need my evenings. I don't mean just walking away and leaving him but making it clear that he needs to sleep in his cot, not on me. I think he does kind of understand the message - just doesn't like it, and of course doesn't understand why it is a problem! And there was soo much crying last night. Am hoping tonight will be better...

Check for ear infection - DS2 did that and I put it down to separation anxiety but was an ear infection. As soon as that was treated, he settled down. But then started up with fussing around at bed times a couple of months later - we found letting him take a favourite toy to bed with him helped him drop off.

I think it is ok to be firm by this age.

DS will still try it on occasionally, about 20 minutes after he's been put to bed. We hear him thumping around, ignore for a while and then it escalates into him calling for us. One of us will go up and it will be 'I want a cuddle', which he gets - always - then, 'I want to sleep in your bed', which he doesn't any longer. Yes he cries and yells and has a bit of a tantrum, but we sit with him in his room, rock him on our laps in the rocking chair and he is allowed another drink at this stage incase thirst is the reason he can't drop off. But it all happens in his bedroom.

With hindsight I think we should have been firmer about it sooner than we were, but we were so sleep deprived we couldn't formulate a plan!

Hope you have a better night tonight :)