my 2 yr does this. i feel redundant!

[sooty8844]

Hi there. I have a 2 year old that rips pages out of books so we cannot read him bed time stories as he is not interested in them yet.

But ..

When he's sad when we try to console him it just makes him more mad

And some evenings he will just go upstairs and put himself to bed.

He is and will be my only child and I feel so redundant already :( I don't want him to grow up with no interest in his parents and feels like he's started already. Anyone else had this then had diff when they are older?

Thanks x

Yes to a routine. What time does he get up in the morning? Try to think about the accumulated hours sleep in a 24 hour period, if he naps he's not going to have that sleep overnight. And board books are the way forward with toddlers.

He wakes up 6/7 am . I may think about the controlled crying thing again as its all so messed up at the moment. I guess if I give him too much " you are in charge " now, it will only get worse :(

Independence is great and to be encouraged, but they don't have adult comprehension yet so in some areas they need to be guided or told. It's a difficult balance to strike.

Will also look up board books.

What about giving him a bath as soon as he gets home from play school? Then you can make it a long fun affair without worrying about messing up bedtime. My toddler and I have baths together in the afternoon and he loves playing with his tea set in the water

So today we didn't give him a nap, and he had a bath then for about 20-30 mins we kept taking him to bed, for him to just kick me and partner and push us away, then we went downstairs as he just wouldn't relax, then about 10 mins after he was down he went back up and took himself to bed! Gotta be kidding me lol. We take him to bed we get beaten up :P then he takes himself to bed after following us downstairs lol.

What time did he go down? Was it any earlier?

To solve the post nap tantrum you could try immediately putting him in front of tv when you wake him. Worked for my dd - she used to have awful strops post nap, now she is ok by the end of one short tv programme