Bedtime dramas all of a sudden at nearly 17 months - what's going on?!

[bohemianbint]

DS has been a bit of a dream from about 4 months and has always gone down for naps and nightime with virtually no hassle at all.

The last two nights, however, have been hellish. Saturday night he screamed non-stop for 75 very long minutes, and last night for about 20. And just now I put him down for his lunchtime sleep and he's gone mental.

It got to the point, especially Saturday, where we just didn't know what to do! We've never really had to deal with this - he's not ill, it just seems like he wakes up and thinks it's playtime, or doesn't want to go to sleep at all.

We kept going in the other night to see if he was ok, give him a drink or whatever, but then when we left it seemed to make it worse. I hate the idea of leaving him to cry but I also hate the idea of getting him up and him thinking that if he screams long enough it's playtime.

Hopefully it's just temporary - but what do I do in the meantime? Me and DP ended up having a mass row last night because the constant screaming stressed us out so much!

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I think ds1 was about that age when we introduced an extra wind-down time before putting him down for the night after bath-time. As for the day all I can say is that ds1 was a devil for needing to have been out in the morning if he was going to sleep at mid-day. Is there anything you can do that you know will tire him out resdy for a nap?

cheers yomellamoHelly! I had him running around at a play group all morning and he still didn't sleep a wink at lunchtime! I'm starting to wonder if he's got another tooth coming as he is generally being a total nightmare. Hopefully tonight will be better - I've been up since 3.30am (not his fault!) and I'm ready to drop!

cheers yomellamoHelly! I had him running around at a play group all morning and he still didn't sleep a wink at lunchtime! I'm starting to wonder if he's got another tooth coming as he is generally being a total nightmare. Hopefully tonight will be better - I've been up since 3.30am (not his fault!) and I'm ready to drop!

maybe he isn't going to sleep in the evenings because he's not tired? does he have a long lunchtime nap? if so, id' try cutting it back a bit. do it for a few days and see if it helps.

i found my dd cut out her daytime naps at around that age. unfortunate, but i'd much rather she get a good night.

My 2 year old has just started doing this as well

Up until about two weeks ago, he was a great sleeper - we'd put him into his bedroom in the evening, he'd go through some books for a wee while then climb into bed and go to sleep. Magic! Now, he's started waking up 2-3 hours after he first falls asleep and gets back up to play again. Sometimes he's fine and will go back to bed after an hour or so, but it's becoming increasingly more common for him to start bawling. And I mean really bawling. bohemianbint - like you, we hate to leave him crying, so we try to pop in every 10 mins or so but it always seems to make him worse. It's usually 1-2 hours before he settles himself and I get SO stressed out and upset by it

It's definitely not a case of him not being tired - he's always very tired looking. If anything, he seems to be OVERTIRED but I'm not sure what to do about that either! How can we stop him from getting back up to play a few hours after he goes to sleep?!!?

Really, really hoping it's just a phase. We have an 8 month old as well, so it's extremely hard to look after them both myself while hubbie is at work and I'm having these major toddler naptime battles!