Please help, DS is being so difficult - sleep/food related

[chocolatemarzipan]

I'm at my wits end with DS (2.10). We seem to have every problem going at the moment.

1. He won't eat much - the list consists of cheerios, yogurt, bananas, tortellini, cheese sandwiches, strawberries and boiled eggs if we are lucky. He has recently gone off jacket potatoes, weetabix, fishfingers, carrots, and broccoli. I can manage to find something for him to eat for breakfast and lunch but teatime is a nightmare. He won't even try anything new, never mind eat it. Today he's had half a boiled egg and about a quarter of a slice of toast. He then goes to bed hungry and a recent development is him not going to sleep because he's hungry. DH wants to give him a snack but I'm reluctant to start this. He's quite thin, not underweight but quite skinny.

1. He refuses to have a daytime nap. He is absolutely shattered by lunch time. Huge black bags under his eyes and really cranky and playing up. He's often too tired to play properly and just wanders around whining and whimpering. I've tried leaving him upstairs for an hour but he just shouts. He doesn't tend to get out of bed, so we can't do the returning him to bed treatment. It's shouting we have the problem with, and refusing to lie down. About once a month, he's so tired that he falls asleep at nap time before he can fight against it. After a nap he's so much better and he really does still need them but just won't do it.

It's almost like having a baby again, getting into the 'too tired to eat, too hungry to sleep' mess that I remember well. I do have a 6 month old at the moment as well. I have wondered if it's all attention related.

1. Waking at night. He's recently been toilet trained and still has a pull up at night which he doesn't normally use, but we've not dared to remove it yet. He normally wakes at least once a night for a wee, but doesn't always go back to sleep. Tonight I've put him to bed and he's so overtired he just can't settle. He goes to sleep instantly but then wakes up crying several times in the first hour or two. Some days he's only having 9 or 10 hours sleep per day.

Any suggestions welcome, please tell me if it seems like I'm doing something wrong. I can't see the wood for the trees at the moment with two of them waking up in the night. We're just exhausted.

Hi
Ds2 just coming out of the end of a dreadful phase so you have my sympathy if nothing else. IMO
Re food: what he does eat covers the main requirements so let him have them. even if you just decide that for a week he can have just those foods it gives you a break from keep trying other stuff and tearing your hair out and it gives him time to get sick of them and/or break a possibles power battle.

Re sleep: we have always had 'quiet time' after lunch in this house. Lie on sofa/ dummy in if they have one / movie on for an hour or so. DS1 rarely slept but benefitted from the down time and DS2 often naps on the sofa even now and he is 3.5. Or, put them both in a double buggy and walk for an hour if he's driving you totally nuts.
HTH. Anything worth a try and remind yourself Uthat this too shall pass. and

I could have written your post OP. DS seems to be narrowing the list of what he'll eat all the time and won't nap even though he is shattered which means he begs to go to bed at 7pm (fine) but then wakes up determined to start the day at 5am (not fine). He will occasionally drop off if we go out in the car at the right time but I am too tired to aimlessly drive around + its not fair on DD (12m). We do the quiet time after lunch thing, but too often I let that drift into having the TV on all afternoon. re the food, we have tried so many things, like, "you can have yoghurt / biscuit etc of you have the dinner", giving him a choice, standing over him, ignoring him, praising his sister eating the same thing but basically if he doesn't like it / want it, there's not much you can do. I really don't like sending him to bed hungry because it just means he'll be up even earlier. Sorry, not much advice, just wanted to say you're not alone - let's sit and hope someone comes along with some more ideas soon!

musttidyup I hope this is just a phase for him too. It's been going on for a long time now and getting worse not better. I think it's all an attention thing now he's got his new sister around but not sure what to do about it. What annoys me is that it's working and he gets most of the attention and I feel bad about his sister, who fortunately seems a lot more placid. Toddlers are so manipulative!

He's been lying on the floor this morning he's so tired but not sure what tactic to try to see if I can get him to have a nap later. Good idea to stick to his preferred foods for a while. I hope he doesn't get sick of them or we might be a bit stuck :)

trixie we have quiet time too but I know what you mean about it turning into an afternoon of TV. The trouble is he can't really concentrate on anything in the afternoon, he's so tired. I've tried to do jigsaws and playdough with him but it lasts about 2 minutes max. He will not sleep in the car or pushchair so unfortunately I can't even try that... We've tried the same as you to try to get him to eat, but like you say, it doesn't seem to work. I'm rapidly going grey!