What happened to my lovely children?!?!

[SleeplessInTheStaceym11House]

Right dd (2.8yo) and ds(8months) used to be great at going to bed, we'd put them down at half 7 and they'd go pretty much straight to sleep and sleep through till 7am. now suddenly in the last week they have been an absolute nightmare they are taking around 2hrs to settle and screaming most the time!

what has happened?

they share a room so just letting one of them cry is out of the window as they both end up going! DD goes to bed with a book most nights and has got increasingly more demanding to what she wants next to her bed (i.e her juice that she never drinks, a clock she can't read, her nightlight that she flicks on and off.....)

please tell me what im doing wrong!!

Your dc are still very very young - poor you! You aren't doing anything wrong, they're just going through little changeable phases. SHoudl all settle down again.

That's vague and pretty useless, isn't it?

hopeully this wil be a very quick phase for your sanity to remain!

i think if i wasnt sleep deprived from them waking in the night (for the first time in months) i might not be so down on myself!

i just feel like screaming half the time coz they just wont go to bed!!!!

might be worth trying putting little one down earlier for a while to get him to sleep first?

but we all eat dinner together at 6.45 when daddy gets home (whichs dd flatly refuses to eat whatever it is) and then shes of to bed, ds has a bottle and then he goes....arrgghh im confused!

i dunno maybe.......dinner is a problem tho as i want us all to eat together and dh isnt home till so late!

I wouldn't bother changing your whole routine then. My memory's hazy, I just remember there are blips and it all settles down again (and dds are now 10 and 8 )

can we swap for a little while please?

could do with some sleep!!

iv got SIL (9yo) coming to stay next week so hopefully dd will settle down a bit better when shes in there and wont disturb ds too much.....she might even get a week of late nights with her auntie so ds can go first and see how that works!

er...no!

I would totally change the routine.

6.45 is quite late if you then expect them to go to bed at 7.30pm.

I would feed them at 5pm ish and wait for Daddy to get home to play with them.

so

5pm dinner
6pm bath
6.30pm gentle play and stories with Daddy
7pm bed

this routine works a treat for us.

Both asleep by 7.30p.

HTH

here's collision to sort you out

very snippety-snip

but dd wont eat anything if we dont eat together....at least if we're there she normally tries something........

oh i dont know...think a lot of my reluctance is that if we dont eat togethe dh just wont eat (even if its plated up )

maybe putting bedtime back a bit might work, ay 8pm or even 8.30 if i wast having such a battle of wills at bedtime i wouldnt feel the need to be in bed by half 9 leaving me and dh precisely haf an hour together!

OI!! Pointy!!

Should I be offended by the snippety snip comment?

No offence meant!

You made me sound so woolly, gazey and long-tassle-skirty that your matronly tone tickled me.

LOL!

I can sound like that sometimes but really I am woolly too sometimes.

I do like them to get to bed tho so I can spend time with DH!

Chop chop! Into bed!!