3 year old toddler bedtime is so f*cking annoying

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Honestlllly so jarring! I'm looking for a vent buddy not tips on blackout blinds.

You give them such a nice day and then they just won't go to sleep at night! All the excuses and all the talking. It is so so hard to be patient because you are tired yourself.

I am hot and bothered and fed up today!!!

I am in two minds whether to have a second child and honestly on days like today I don't feel like I deserve one if can't be patient at bedtime.

Please can a normal mum out there tell me she finds these resistant bedtimes just as annoying.

And breatheeeee.

My 2 year old is nightmare as well. We have a routine, always spend ~30 minutes reading stories before turning light off and she always protests and takes 30 minutes to make her fall asleep.

I'm a "normal" parent and don't recognise this at all. Sending strength OP.

I'm sure you can toughen up and reclaim your evenings. Mine is in bed at 6 (soon to be 3 year old) because I need my evenings to myself or I'd go loopy. Sometimes he's out like a light and sometimes he takes a while to fall asleep. But bedtime is 6pm regardless. 3 bedtime stories and no more. Cup of water while reading bedtime stories and no more after.

The Tonight I could hear him chatting away to his teddies in the dark for an hour before he drifted off.

It's soooooo frustrating. My 2.5 year old used to go to sleep with the light off, after I'd left the room, in 10 mins and slept through the night. Great!

Fast forward to 3, and we'd have hour long epic battles because dc would NOT stay in bed. I would not engage, just put them back, but nothing would keep them in bed. I did lose my rag on occasion.

Fast forward to 3.5 and they don't sneak out anymore, but only because I stay in the room until they are asleep. And they need the night light on. And don't sleep through 😭 My theory is that around 3 they developed fears, started having nightmares and just want to be near me. Which is sweet but hard to keep in mind when they want yet another glass of water.

OMG yes so frickin annoying. Hours of your life devoted to getting them to go to sleep. I feel ya OP.

Mine is a teenager now and getting him to bed at a reasonable hour has become annoying all over again 😝

Wow that’s beyond bitchy

Yep. My 3 (almost 4!) year old has only just bloody gone to sleep. I feel massive guilt but I am TIRRRRREED and I hate getting ratty but it’s harder to control this time of night.

@Zinzinner me too

Had a proper word with myself tonight that I need to cut that out - not a good example at all and nothing good comes of it.

I'm hoping with age she will just be in her room and go off when she wants. She is very good at talking you see so she always has something to say...even if you ignore her!

Yes I've been there with my two and it does get easier!

@maw1681

There is hope I promise. It's not even that far off as 8.

Once DD became slightly more reasonable we introduced to concept of quiet time (n hour usually) before bed. A lot of the time we'd be in my bed while she listened to an audio book, coloured/drew, played quietly with her toys, maybe even watched a video/film(bad mummy I know), read a book etc while I scratched her back or her legs and just ... settled. Sometimes she even fell asleep before actual bed time if she was particularly knackered.

She's 12 now and we still have the same routine.

@ArseholeCatIsABlackAndWhiteCat very cute

Feeling much calmer after sharing

I think the previous generation were stricter so in a way they didn't deal with what we did but oh my imagine not have other mums at your fingertips

Oh and at her worst , she was still up at 1 am and ready to go by 6 in the morning. I'm surprised either of us survived it.

@ArseholeCatIsABlackAndWhiteCat the energy is endless! (Not a bad mummy by the way - no judgement zone and sometimes screens are the only way I can get her to stop moving!)

My 5 year old has a 7pm bedtime. He knows he then needs to stay in his room and settle down.

In reality he spends 2 hours jumping on his bed and off the bed, rolling around. The noise is insane, the ceiling shaking as he acts out another scene from the book we read him. You can tell him off every 10 mins if makes no difference.

I read posts like this think WTF? 6pm? We are barely home from work / nursery at 6pm. No one had dinner yet. It's a good bedtime when we are done with books etc by 8pm to start trying to actually sleep.

When does your kid wake up? 3am? Because that's 9hours of sleep.

@suuny yeah I love it works for another family but nursery pick up is 6pm!

Our little one has always gone to bed later, just who she is

In fairness generally she does not wake up with the birds

Which is what I need to remind myself when I get frustrated at night

@Snooglequack

You can tell him off every 10 mins if makes no difference

I'm not trying to be facetious but I don't know what you mean by this. I parent similarly to how I was parented. I wouldn't have been allowed to do this, there would have been consequences for behaviour like that.

Growing up in a flat my parents could not let me make such noise as it would be inconsiderate to our neighbours. Why do you allow him to make "insane noise" and shake the ceiling?

@suuny

A 3-4 year old should be getting between 11-12 hours of sleep a night typically.

If he's out like a light at 6 he wakes at 6/6:30. If he's chatting to himself and falls asleep around 7 he wakes 7/7:30. If we've had a really busy day (he's very physically active) he's been known to wake at 8am but that's not very often and not ideal on nursery mornings.

My husband works from home. He stops work at 4pm to eat dinner with us and join in with bedtime until 5:30, plays with son for a while or does bath time. Then I usually do bedtime stories, teeth etc and he goes back to the home office to work until 8. I do not work from home and make sure I only work until nursery pick up at 3.

If our work meant that we had to pick our child up from nursery at 6, I still couldn't cope with long drawn out bedtime routines. I went to wraparound care as a child but I still had a strict bedtime routine and wasn't allowed to muck around and eat into my parents' time together in the evening.

If it works for you that's all that matters. You sounded really at your wits end in your OP though and I think that's a sign that things are no longer working. It might be time to clamp down for your own sanity. The bedtime faffery is cutting away more and more of your valuable time in the evening to relax, and is turning bedtime into something fraught when it should be a lovely time at the end of the day for you both.

You need to look after yourself as well as your child.

We had a string of nightmare bedtimes around this age.

I found the best thing to keep myself calm was classical music. I also bought DD a tough drop proof MP3 player with a load of calming stuff loaded on, so we could always have it with us as holiday bedtimes were the worst!

Solidarity. She's 11 now and quite likes classical music. Goes to sleep ok. I think I brainwashed her 😀.

I think it's almost like grey rock. Once it's bedtime no playing, minimal response when they talk to you and make it really boring so there isn't any incentive to stay up.

Solidarity. We have stuck to the same routine for years now and bedtime with nearly 3 year old has turned into a circus.

Does your child still nap?

We read Mr Men books which are so awful, badly written and boring that when read half speed it takes about three to knock her out.
But agree a stimulating day can make it harder. Bath, then classical music in background, not over dressed as it's hot, bore to sleep with slow reading.

I’ve had to grey rock mine, I was at the end of my tether. Similar to you I can give him a wonderful active day, absolutely undivided attention and ‘play’ lining up 453 hot wheels cars, a long pre-bedtime chat about what we’d do if an elephant chased us into the jungle and a tiger wanted to eat us, a lovely bedtime cuddle with stories read as if I was a celeb doing the bedtime story on CBeebies. The more I give the more he wants 😂

He’s at nursery 3 days a week and sometimes he’s practically asleep against the tram window on the way home, says he wants his bed in a plaintive little voice and he STILL buggers about for ages when put to bed. I ignore all the requests for cheese or questions as to the whereabouts of a keyring we lost on last year’s holiday or that his toenail scratched his other toenail but he has a piers de resistance- he will claim he’s done a poo in his overnight pull up as he knows we can’t ignore that. Sometimes he actually has. So obviously I have to come in and change him but I pretend I’m a cyborg and am unable to make eye contact or speak beyond what is absolutely necessary because I’ve been programmed with limited words like ‘bedtime now’ ‘time to sleep’.

Fuck it is wearing though isn’t it.

I'm all up for suggestions. We go up the minute we hear noise. Say he has to be back in bed. We have tried taking things away, reward charts, sitting nicely and explaining it all and listening to his feelings (he feels he needs to jump). I feel like we've tried most things.

My parents wouldn't have allowed it either but then they would have smacked me. I don't want to smack.