Please help me with my toddler

[BlueBritish]

Hi all, my DD is 2.5 yr old and all of a sudden she seems to have become quite hard work. Usually we’d have fun days with minimum tantrums and when they did happen they was very easy to deal with. DD also slept brilliantly, she would go down to sleep within 15 mins and sleep a good 11hrs. Within the last 2 weeks our days seem difficult, her tantrums are bigger than ever and much more regular, I feel as though she is testing every boundary possible. Bedtime is horrendous too, takes around 1hr30 mins for her to get to sleep now and some nights (like tonight) they can be full of tears and demanding bottles etc. DD has an hour nap in the day and then will go to bed 6hrs after she wakes from her nap. I have not changed anything in our week, I have not changed the way I parent but I feel as though I’m doing something wrong somewhere and it’s really dragging me down.
I would just appreciate any advice or relatable stories please. Feel at my wits end😔

If bedtime is taking that long then drop the nap entirely. It might take a week of adjustment, but it's worth it for quicker bedtimes.

Age 2/3 is a trying time. There will still be fun bits alongside the boundary pushing. Just a phase

@rattlemehearties Thanks for the reply. I have tried the no nap in the day for a few days but she is unbelievably grumpy without the nap😩

You've done nothing wrong, most likely a development stage, but I would also drop the nap and up the bedtime and mealtime by half an hour
Just keep being consistent- she's doing her job which is to push boundaries- this is a good thing-a sign of development and getting out there in the world. Doesn't seem like it in the moment.
You may find she's slightly under the weather too- there's lots of bugs going round and sometimes they take a little while of feeling poorly before the snot comes out!

I was just going to say maybe she's not feeling well? My toddler is really good for a 2yo but when she is ill she turns into a complete psycho!

I was just going to say maybe she's not feeling well? My toddler is really good for a 2yo but when she is ill she turns into a complete psycho!

You have done nothing wrong. Tantrums and sleep regressions are normal in early childhood development.

I’ve copy and pasted a link to some info on social/emotional development for your dd’s age and stage of development. Hope it is helpful.

www.kamloopschildrenstherapy.org/social-emotional-toddler-milestones.htm

Are her second molars coming in? Mine turned into a devil for a good few weeks until they broke through the gums. Tantrums literally all day. They’re really big teeth and painful for them.

Do you have story cds or kids audiobooks for her to listen to after bedtime routine. I found it helped me because after bedtime routine I could give myself a break. My dd sometimes took 3 hours to get to sleep and she had dropped her own naps by not sleeping during nap time. And it was absolutely exhausting trying to help her stay in bed and get to sleep. I also, tried cuddling her to sleep (which she loved) but she’d get excited and wriggle and try to play and talk to me. So, that wasn’t working. She falls asleep to relaxing music in the background that plays on a loop all night long (helps keep her asleep) and listening to stories on audiobooks. I turn off the audiobooks when she has fallen asleep.

I also, eventually found a doctor who would prescribe melatonin as she wasn’t getting enough sleep. But, I had tried everything else first.

Sounds pretty normal for 2.5 to me! Sorry to say it. Tantrums I just used to let DD burn herself out, she's pretty headstrong so not much else worked once she was on one. I found more time at home actually helped - between nursery, trips out, activities I think she just wanted a bit of time to chill out. Plus when she did boot off it was only the neighbours who could hear rather than the whole stay & play!

I found when DD was dropping her nap she'd need one every 2-3 days - I once found her asleep on the wooden floor in our dining room when she'd never just fallen asleep easily before.

Hi all, can’t thank you all enough for the replies. Had a good look in DD’s mouth today and one of her molars is coming through, so that probably says a lot about the last few days. Also, I decided to not let her nap today and it seemed to have worked a treat, she went straight down to sleep. We had a bit of a grumpy moment at tea time but after tea she was fine and went straight to sleep at 6:45. Thank you all for your advice as I’ve had an amazingly better day in comparison to what I’ve been used too.

That's so great to read OP.

@BlueBritish that’s an awesome update 🤗

So I did think that I’d solved all the problems (how naive can you be when you have a toddler) but she’s currently woken up and demanding a bottle of milk (I’ve given in tonight as I’m so tired) I feel awful as I feel like we’re back to when she was 6mo and still doing night feeds. I did think she would sleep right through after not having a nap yesterday. 😩