How can I stop this??!

[GoldNumbers]

My three year old is a nightmare every morning! He starts nursery at 9 yet here I am watching him tantrum on the floor.

He goes to bed at 8 asleep by half past and I get so angry with him I can feel myself wanting to scream. Everything is a battle from brushing his teeth to eating his breakfast.

Ive tried making it into a game, ive tried promising him treats after nursery yet it's the same thing every day! We're always late and I'm always stressed by the time we get there. I'm starting to think about schools now but if he acts this way now who's to say he won't act this way in September when he starts school.

anyone got any advice on how to stop this behaviour?

My 8 year old goes to bed earlier than your 3 year old. Could it be tiredness and over tiredness?

Try putting bedtime forward bit by bit and see if that makes a difference. I'm sure when mine were 3 the bath went on at 5:30 for a 6:15 ish bedtime.

Does he go to nursery for 9 or not? I don't understand. You do have months before school so you are right, you need to address this. But, don't panic. You'll get there

8pm is too late imo.
Earlier bedtime.
Lay out everything the night before - clothes, bags etc
Get up a little earlier? What time are you currently getting up?
Teeth brushing is non negotiable, he has to have this done.
If he messes with breakfast I'd set a time limit then take the plate/bowl away. Is he distracted?
As much as I can empathise you need to make sure you're on time, for your sanity if nothing else.

Could you put him to bed earlier so he's getting 12 hours sleep at night, he's probably tired from lack of sleep af after a busy day at nursery and frustrated with not feeling rested. It will get easier, it's a tough age because everyone is trying to establish boundaries and at 3 he wants to be Mr. Independent. Would a reward chart work better than the promise of treats, X days good behaviour gets a trip to the park/some other treat at weekends

What time does he get up? Do you have to wake him?

I agree with earlier bedtime. Mine went at 6.30 at that age, up at 7- 7.30. That gave us plenty of time to dress, breakfast, etc.

I have never been able to get mine out of the house quickly. Try and rush them and they get upset, I get anxious, they get worse, the upset slows them down, and we take five times longer than if I have time to get shoes, distract them from their game, put shoes on, distract them from the cat....

My 3 year old goes to bed at 6, no way could she go to bed at 8 and be up for nursery in the morning, she needs a good 13/14 hours sleep a night

Our DD has never gone to bed any earlier than 7:30-8:00 as it always takes 40+ minutes to do the bedtime routine and we don’t finish eating tea till 6:30 or 7pm as we are not home till 5:30. We are up at 6am and leave the house at 7am. DD is now 4 but it is still a long day for everyone and she has always only had about 10 hours sleep a night which apparently is less than normal – although it is normal for her.

If you are in a similar position and can’t bring bedtime forward I’d suggest

1. Get everything ready the night before
2. Reduce the bedtime routine to bare minimum so it does not take so long to get child to bed
3. Make picture chart of what your child needs to do every morning i.e. get dressed, eat breakfast, wash face, clean teeth etc in the order you normally do it in and have child follow that – this may make it fun to follow the pictures, but also means they know what they have to do.
4. Resort to threats! They do work! Telling our DD we will make her walk to car with no shoes on (in winter) if she does not put them on has worked and still does work though it is not a hoppy way to start the day at least we are not late – luckily she learns fast so we find we don't have to repeat the same threat for a while..

We also found that taking away the 2nd story if DD faffs about when getting ready for bed (i.e. is she’s not getting out of the shower/not putting PJs on etc) results in her deciding not to faff around for 15 minutes the next evening, so that she can have two (short) stories. The time taken to get ready for bed (shower, teeth, dressed, story) had got to 60 minutes and we wanted to reduce that and this worked. She is often in bed for 7:30 although she still has to get up 3-4 times immediately afterwards for completely unnecessary toilet trips having gone to bed (part of her OCD-type routine) which can get a little annoying as it eats into her sleep-time.

By the way if the child genuinely doesn't seem to want to go to nursery (rather than simply not liking being hurried or not liking not being in control of getting ready to go out), then he may be unwell (if this has just been for this week, it might be illness) or else something isn’t right at nursery. If this is the case you must talk to the nursery staff. It could be anything from his relationships with children at nursery (does he play with others, has anyone left/joined recently) or that he finds the noise difficult to cope with.

My 6 and 8 yr old are in bed by 7.15
8pm is too late for a 3yr old IME

My DS (4yr) is in bed by 7.30 at the latest and up at 8 most mornings. The biggest way this was accomplished was routine and warnings/consequences from messing about or bad behaviour.
Tea is only served 6-6.30 and usually just getting teeth brushed at 7.
He doesn't have a bath or shower every day though, about 3/4 times a week.
He's made to go/try to the loo before bed and told not to be getting up until he's had some sleep. Although some nights he'll be up around 11 or even the wee hours (pun intended) and will sometimes come and nd do the "stare" at the bed to check we are still asleep before going back to bed and then either I will wake him up at 8 if he hasn't opened his bedroom door on hearing me go to the loo.

Hi everyone,

Thankyou for your replies. My poor baby had a shouty mummy this morning and then an accident at nursery resulting in stitches and we're staying in tonight. Poor thing.

I will do the earlier bedtime once everything is back to normal. It's not a problem with nursery as he loves it when he's there (except today!). It must be that he's not getting enough sleep.

Thanks all

Hope he's better soon

Thankyou sparkling. Have been trying to attach a pic to this but no luck. Poor little thing fell and a stick went through his cheek. Feel absolutely awful for shouting at him this morning and that I wasnt there when it happened. He has been so brave through his operation and now sleeping though I can't be there as I have my 10 week old to feed his dad is with him.

Sparkly I mean sorry