My 32 month old has always self settled, meaning we could kiss him goodnight and walk out the room and he’d chat away until he fell asleep….
I had a brief hospital admission a few weeks back and ever since coming home bedtime has been an absolute nightmare. He’s developed some form of separation anxiety whereby he’s hysterical if I leave the room. It has got to the point I’ve had to stay holding his hand until he’s fallen asleep.
The issue is the majority of bedtimes fall on me as my husband works a lot of late shifts. I am also pregnant and expecting number 2 in the summer. I really don’t want this routine to continue as it’s so time consuming and I know I’ll have my hands full when the baby comes in the summer.
Tonight we tried some gentle sleep training, leaving him for intervals then going him and reassuring him that mummy is here but also needs to rest etc. He got himself so worked up again, it broke my heart and before I knew it I was holding his hand until he fell asleep.
Any advice/tips? I don’t know if this is a phase, or separation anxiety from me being in hospital. Either way I am exhausted and bedtime is taking up to 2 hours rather than a usual hour (bath, book, bed).
He still has/needs a 45 minute nap although I’m not precious over this and the same battle applies if we are at home. I would happily cut the nap out but he’s also started waking up bang on 6am, where as he use to wake around 7am and chat away in his bed.