Does anyone else's child get possessed by an evil demon at bedtime?

[doingitalllagain]

My son, 3 but not far off 4, is on the whole lovely. Has his moments, plenty of them, but generally is quite reasonable, kind, funny, sweet. When he does start to go, you can quickly bring him down. For example, he asked for an ice lolly for breakfast, he started to kick off and I simply got on his level and said "I can see that you're cross. I would love an ice lolly for breakfast too, but if we have something sugary so early we'll get a bad belly and we wont be able to have a fun day." And he huffed and said "ok" and the battle was over.

At bedtime however, nope. It starts before we even go upstairs, he starts to cross into the danger zone over dinner, sometimes he'll get through it but sometimes he'll start shouting, getting up walking away, being rough with his brother. I take him upstairs and he'll start arguing about everything, then he'll start scratching me, then he'll start threatening to bite me, then he'll be screaming his head off and running away to hide, I'll have to pin him down to brush his teeth, he'll spit at me because he didn't want his teeth brushed, he gets put in time out, he gets hysterical and is just trying to hurt me in anyway he can, and then he'll snap out of it after about 30 minutes and ask for a cuddle and go to bed and have stories.

But it's every night, 30 minutes guaranteed of hell! I'm fed up of it! Doesn't matter if me or his dad does it, it's always bloody carnage.

Solidarity

Ahhh the witching hour.

The hour before they go to sleep where they are not quite tired enough for sleep, but too tired to be reasonable and so get wound up at nothing or slip into giggles/hysterics for no reason.

DD is 9 now and still has it but from about 6yo we have been able to point out to her that she is tired and needs to do something calm and she's been able to follow that instruction.

Missing the point... But don't think an ice lolly at breakfast will give a bad tummy all day...

No but he doesn't need to know that does he 😂

My son did! He grew out of it (he's 5 now). I look back in disbelief about how bedtimes used to be. Personally I wouldn't bother with time out etc right before bed as its prolonging it and giving it more attention and extra time before going to bed which might be what he is after! Just hold hands etc to stop the hit and then continue with the bedtime routine without much energy redirected back at him if you can manage it. Saying to my son "let's be quick so we have time for an extra story" helps too, perhaps it could for you!

Not yet, but I think one of my toddlers might be heading that way... he used to love bedtime but now he is screaming himself into exhaustion when he goes into bed. It's creeping gradually earlier in the routine so now it spoils bedtime stories. So well done for surviving so far! Hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

Can you try changing the order of things? Is he scared of the dark? FOMO?

I think DD used to be scared of going to sleep (dark room etc) definitely used to kick off around end of dinner before bathtime now she will stretch everything out but she doesn’t completely freak out (just refuses to go to sleep and can’t sleep unless one of us is sitting with her (🤦🏽‍♀️). It’s awful though, you have my sympathy, it’s a rubbish way to end the day. i considered getting DD a toniebox but it resolved itself.

We find having quite a long (relaxed) bedtime routine helps a bit. We read a book each with her before bathtime then Dh reads her one while I dry her hair, then we read a book each after bathtime as well. I acknowledge this is extremely long winded but it enables us to get her in bed with minimum fuss.