General tips or advice for 2 year old behaviours

[Edamamebeans]

Looking for any tips or advice to help with my DS aged 2 and 3 months. For the last few months his behaviour has altered which I guess is part of the "terrible twos" phase (though I try not to use it!)

Does anyone have any advice or tips for the following behaviours:

• he will not eat any hot meals anymore (used to love his food and eat anything and everything). Only eats toast, any bread, cereal, porridge, fruit, yoghurt, organic snack bars. Refuses most savoury now, but especially any hot dinners. Its really sad as his diet was so adventurous and healthy. I continue to offer a bit of everything we are having plus one thing I know he'll eat, but all the hot meals go in the bin.

• he suddenly went from drinking a tonne of milk each night to nothing. We can cope with this and try to use the yoghurt to get calcium into him instead.

• he gets really upset about bathtime (used to love going up)

• ditto bedtime. Tries every trick in the book to get me to come back into the room, stay with him, hold his hand etc. previously he went off by himself no problems so I'm reluctant to "give in" and sit next to him till he sleeps in case it causes worse regression and causes night wake ups, but obviously it breaks your heart. It now takes about 45 mins to 1hr him to go down. (Once he's down he generally sleeps through).

• early wake ups at 5.30, (used to wake up at 7). Shouts out mama mama and shouts the street down.

..................................
For context his timings are:

Nap time 12.45-1.45/2 (usually around 1hr 10mins)

Bath time around 7.15
Into bed around 7.30-7.40
Finally asleep around 8.30

Wakes up 5.30

Also for context, the eating behaviour etc applies when at home and at nursery (part-time).

Any advice would be great, thank you! 🙏

Have you tried an earlier nap? He's awake for 7 ish hours before first nap but only 5.5 from wake up to bedtime. Could be overtired hence the difficulty settling and early waking.

The eating thing whilst horrendously annoying is probably just a phase. You need to try and maintain a sense of ambivalence about whether he eats or not, don't pressure him. Give him his food and it's up to him whether he eats it. They self regulate well when little. Chat with him and eat your own meal while he eats and try not to pay too much attention to what he's doing with the food.

Thanks @MGee123 . I did think that about nap but the problem is that 4 days out of 7 he's napping at nursery and that's when they put them down. Hence we moved his nap which used to be nearer to noon, to fit in with the nursery timings. Not sure there's any way round that...?

My DD naps earlier at home than she does at nursery so you could try an earlier nap on the days he’s with you.

She was 2 in July and we have a lot of the same behaviours you’ve described, I think they’re fairly normal (but annoying)

some things we’ve tried are:
Offering choices where we don’t mind which she picks eg
”It’s bath time, do you want the boats or the cups to play with?”
”Do you want the blue nightie or green pyjamas?”

With food just not commenting at all on what she eats. Offering different utensils (eg letting her use my fork, teaspoon instead of her normal spoon)
having some vegetables but from my plate

for the early mornings she can have a cuddle in our bed. Worst case scenario she’s awake anyway and we get up after a few mins but occasionally she’ll be tired enough to sleep another hour with a cuddle which is lovely.

Thanks @SamanthaVimes I would love it if he fell back to sleep but sadly he's up and ready to live his best life at that time in the morning!

Will keep trying to stay chill about the meal times.

Sounds weird but try an earlier bed time - he might be over tired by that point and therefore against bath/bedtime routine!

@Edamamebeans it doesn’t happen often for us either, she’ll go back to sleep maybe 1 morning a week but I live in hope 😂

Our first went through stages of hating the bath so we showered with him instead took out the battle but kept the routine of a wash before bed. The food thing is just one of those as annoying as it is we seem to have had a few cycles of going off random foods.
Sleep is ever changing I think not ideal I know but it will settle out again, or you you could try a glow clock for the mornings but might be on the young side to understand how it works.