When do bed times stop being a nightmare?

[SmedsSmoos]

4.5 year old is a fucking nightmare every bed time. He'll flip about something every night. He doesn't want to get dressed, or brush his teeth, he wants mummy, now he wants daddy, he wants 'a thousand stories' not just three and will scream cry hysterically about it for half an hour. It's just relentless, he wants water, he wants more water, he's hungry, he wants to go to sleep in the morning, he only sleeps on Thursdays (just listing his reasons for the tears and shouting!)

Weve tried ignoring the bad, we've tried making it fun, he gets rocket ship up the stairs, he gets to play a game on his dads phone while he brushes his teeth, he gets to pick his pyjamas etc. We have tried everything, it is literally every single night. He has screamed in my face repeatedly tonight, like at the top of his voice screaming at me "I'M! HAVING! 1000! STORIES! NOT! 3!" I told him not to shout at me, and that he is wasting all of his story time screaming and crying and won't even have time for three in a minute, but he just won't drop it, no, he wants a thousand stories, won't lie down, won't stop crying, just relentless.

I have tried telling him yes ok you can have 1000 stories but he just gets you to keep reading and reading and reading and then eventually it'll be 9pm and I have to say this is ridiculous and the tears start again - so I can't just say that.

On a good night, which doesn't mean no hysterics, just means he had the hysterics about getting dressed or brushing his teeth but did get into bed after and let us read to him, he will have 3 stories and fall asleep. When he decides to kick off about how many stories he's having it's almost impossible to get him to calm down and in to bed.

We dread every single bed time. They are awful. When the fuck does it stop!?!?!

My DS is younger but I echo @Gro and @firstpregnancy1 Really strict boundaries.

We got into the habit having loads of stories and we changed it to 2. For 2 weeks he’d ask for another story and cry if he didn’t get one. But we persevered and now it’s 2.

Last night it was: thirsty, hungry, need a wee, need a poo, need X toy. I deal with this the same every night. Thirst: he has a drink by his bed, hunger: he can have something to eat in the morning (he’s not hungry, he had tea and then a banana before bed), wee: let him go to the toilet long enough to squeeze one out, poo: he tried but I told him after 5 minutes that he clearly didn’t need a poo so it was time to stop trying, X toy: it’s not playtime now you can have it in the morning (unless a special toy he has in bed). I had to force him into PJs last night but a countdown often works for him 5, 4, 3, I better not get to 1, 2… he gets minimal engagement from me when he plays up. If he gets out of bed and wants a toy it’s a dull reply as to why not and then up to bed. Same with the wee, he still needs my help but I make it as dull as possible. We too tried “there won’t be time for a story” but at the point he’s being silly he doesn’t care so I just read the story to his teddy. Then I tuck him in and leave him in his room.

Fwiw we couldn't get DS to sleep for love nor money. It'd often be 11pm before he was asleep at that age.

In the end we stopped the fight. It was upsetting us all and not getting us anywhere. We did the routine then said that's it and left him. Every time he asked for something else it was straight back to bed. We could hear him awake upstairs but we just left him. It wasn't worth the stress for any of us. Bed was 7pm and that was that.

But no more negotiating.

That lasted until he was six/seven. Then he started to go to sleep. We still have issues with him sneaky reading but for the most part he does go to sleep now and he doesn't make a fuss. He understands the routine.

Hes 9 and bedtime is 8 with reading til 9pm. Tbh thats later than I'd like but he simply doesn't sleep before then anyway so we felt it was pointless doing anything different. He gets up himself at 7.00 - 7.30 without issue.

Some kids don't give in in 2 weeks.

This is very true.

The big thing is to stop bedtime being a negotiation situation though. The word is no. Then ignore as much as possible after a certain time. Take to bed do not talk or engage with them.

Why not get some tokens and start rewarding him for the good things?

Brush teeth - story or cuddle
PJs another story or cuddle
into bed - another story or cuddle
Stay in bed - extra token for tomorrow as a treat - this won’t last long

Make it positive instead of negative

If he wants you there for falling asleep then he needs to accept the rules - into pjs and teeth done and one story or chapter of a larger story then light off and snuggle time.

Any dicking about I'd get up and leave. Remind him that if he wants you there to fall asleep with, then he needs to follow the rules.

DD is the same age and bed time (and lots of other things) feel like a battle at the moment. I think she has a lot of worries with starting school and it’s just making her behaviour, at points, unbearable.
When she shouts at me or says nasty things during a tantrum (apparently I’m not coming to her birthday party and I’m the worst mummy ever) I just calmly say “what you’re saying isn’t nice and I ignore people who say horrible things to me”. I then stop engaging or walk away.
It’s so hard to manage because ignoring/walking away/limiting something as a result of behaviour just makes her even more angry but I know it’s the right thing to do.

How about earning the stories. He gets to pick one story once he has brushed his teeth without fuss, one for pj, one for getting into bed. Another (for the next night for staying in bed and going to sleep)

Gosh I really don't think stories or cuddles should be rewards or earnt.

They should be there regardless of whether the child is anxious or struggling or whatever.

I’m quite shocked the number of people saying they get iPad before bed. Screens before bed isn’t encouraged for good sleep?

At the moment they are getting attention even if it’s you getting annoyed etc. They smell weakness, agree with a PP.

Perhaps a daft Q but can he tell the difference between 3 and 1,000 that well at this age, e.g. if you say you will read him 1,000 stories and read him a few, does he actually know, or is he kicking off when you say it's not possible to read him a full 1,000 of them?

@SmedsSmoos the problem with staying til they fall asleep, is that you will never get your evenings back. I've read posts from those still laying with 9 yr olds. My 8 yr old went to bed at 8.45 last night but was still awake at 10pm (he's a night owl, needs much less sleep than his brother) but was happy reading and listening to yoto.

I think it depends on your child? Mine gets 30 minutes before bed, because that’s the only time I can give it to her without her toddler brother around who is definitely too young for an ipad (excluding on long flights because I’m not a martyr) and she’s fine. No issue with taking it away, we do her story afterwards then sometimes she potters and plays with toys for a bit but she always goes to sleep at a reasonable time and wakes up happy and well rested at 7. Whatever works for you obviously but I don’t personally agree with using cuddles or a bedtime story as a bargaining chip, so the ipad is what we use instead because it is contingent on homework done, toys downstairs tidied away and zero fussing at bedtime. I know some people have issues with the blue light, if your kid was one of those then obviously don’t do it, but just thought I’d share it as an idea because it works really well for us.

Do you follow through on enforcing rules? If you say he has to stop screaming otherwise he only gets one story and he screams anyway then you only read one story. Otherwise he knows the rules can be broken. We used to say they could earn a story back if they started to behave. But there's no substitution for being firm with the rules.

I also can't understand commenters saying screens are ok but cuddling to sleep isn't. Why? It's got to be some ideological reason because no studies would back that up. But even ideologically I can't see why anyone would prefer training their kids to prefer screens to cuddles.

Don't get me wrong, I'd use screens if they worked on dd. But no one here is saying cuddles don't work. They're saying cuddles do work, but don't use them, just..because kids "ought" to be able to settle themselves without cuddles [but not screens...?]

We have a star chart of teeth brushing. I have printed out a month diary and she had a box for AM teeth, PM teeth and her cream for her skin. She gets a stick star for doing her teeth and if she doesn't a really good job she gets drawn star that she can colour in. We have a box of crayons and she picks the colour stars. She will get a reward once she gets to the end of the month. We had put circles around things she is looking forward too as well so she can see the count down to friends birthday party on the 20th for example.

We do stories based on time rather than number. She gets 2-4 and mostly 3. Every day she gets 1 on the floor and 1 in bed by default. She had a cup of oat milk on the floor with that story. If she hasn't finished her oat milk at the end of the story she gets one of short stories as an extra one. If she has been well behaved and we have got into bed ahead of time she gets a second story in bed and these are also from the short story part of the shelf. If we have some how managed to massively ahead of time she gets two regular length stories but this a rarity!

Short stories are the baby board versions of the little people big lives books or the first in nature books

If she is messing around and not listening to her story in bed we give warnings and the stop reading. This has only happened twice in a year.

If she is messing around we try to break the cycle. Yesterday she had a fun game of running around the room with her linen basket on her head with no clothes on. Refusing to stop or get dressed. After taking it off her twice the third time I removed it from the room. Very quickly she sat down and got dressed. Another time she was getting very irate about something I had done and she just wasn't getting past it. I stepped out of the room and left bedtime to daddy to finish. The tantrum stopped within a few minutes and had a fairly good bedtime after that

Nothing wrong with cuddles, every child should have lots of cuddles before bed! They should never ever be withheld as punishment. Ditto a bedtime story.

But when it’s not a quick cuddle and it’s actually hours of lying next to them whilst they struggle to get to sleep then it’s something else entirely. Of course fine if that works for you and everyone is happy but it’s also totally understandable to want to try something else where the child is that bit more independent at bedtime so you can have a bit of time to yourself in the evening. Which I think is the point OP has reached??

Each to their own obviously but personally I feel like I’m a better parent for having DD upstairs by 7 and asleep by 8ish without needing my input, so that I get a bit of adult time to decompress. And despite the 30 minutes of ipad, no one in our house is lacking cuddles!