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.

This! Just do the necessary and leave the room. I never stayed with mine - their choice to mess around or sleep.

“We go up the minute we hear noise.” Sorry but that’s madness to me. Unless it’s prolonged crying.

He's 5. Hes not crying, he's acting out scenes from books. We go up to get him back into bed. We've tried ignoring it, he ends up awake until 11pm.

@Yourethebeerthief yes you are right, frustration normally means time for a change!

We will work it out. Just grateful for a vent.

Sounds like solidarity to others mums feeling it too and I'm happy for the mums that can't relate.

We all do it our own way and that's okay.

@Boogiemam no nap since she was two!

She's 3.5yo now

We are a routine family. I'm putting a bit down to hot, bothered and having big days at nursery.

She was a dream until 16 months when she started talking. We would just say goodnight and close the door. I can't ignore toddler cries the way I did babies.

I grew up in a tough household so I can do it, but I don't want to. I'm not a full softer mum either.

I'm in between!

@FanofLeaves okay thanks to you and the other mums that said this. I will try and keep it less chatty. I suppose the more I protest at her. The more she protests at me!

Will still to repeating- time to sleep, goodnight

X16384637

Bedtimes with my 3 year old twins at the moment are bloody horrific. I tell myself each morning I will have more patience tonight and after 90 minutes of messing about gymnastics ten million questions my patience is in shreds

No advice OP because I'm in the trenches and tried everything!

@Snooglequack

My parents wouldn't have allowed it but they never smacked either.

Something is wrong in the routine if that's what bedtimes are like and I'm sure you can find what it is and fix it.

If he needs to jump can you buy a trampoline and let him go bonkers for a half hour or whatever before bedtime? Even a mini trampoline in the living room would mean he could bounce about early in the evening before the calm bedtime routine begins. I would have a firm rule of no loud noise after a certain time and no jumping on the bed like it's a trampoline as looking after and caring for our belongings is a big deal for us. I would absolutely buy my son a trampoline if he felt the need to bounce so much, but I would have consequences for breaking the no bouncing and no loud noise after X time rules.

My son needs a huge amount of tiring out in the day to have a calm bedtime, so I get that some children need that to be more biddable. Sometimes that means a little run around the park on his bike in the early evening when we normally wouldn't so that we can meet that need for him.

We have a 6-person trampoline that he goes on after dinner. He is in a very busy forest school set up from 8-5.

The length of his messing about has extended since it has got hotter though. I suspect the only solution is to move to a remote Scottish island.

The length of his messing about has extended since it has got hotter though. I suspect the only solution is to move to a remote Scottish island.

We're in Scotland and heading out for a walk now with jumpers and a balaclava on my son 😂 It's so windy.

Prayers are with you for the cooler weather! I can't handle anything above 25 degrees 😬

Mine 100% wouldn’t. Stay in his room if he doesn’t fancy it. I can take him to bed, have routine, story blah blah. Then he just springs back up like a jack in a box and would leave room. He’s been able to climb baby gates since 2 so no point.

I am also like you. I don’t want to be the screaming parent who looses cool every night or smacks. My parents say we went to bed at 7pm and stayed there, but they use to either lock door from about 2 years and ignore us, or smack and shout. That’s not how dh and I parent.

I used to sit on chair in his room but it still took like 2hrs of him up and down. Now we just let him fall asleep in our bed. He falls asleep much much quicker, bedtime is more relaxed, and I just sit comfortably on bed and read kindle whilst he falls asleep. Takes 20-45mins depending on how tired he is, but it’s calm.

I am all for doing what works for your family and not making things stressful for everyone, but what do you mean he won't stay in bed if he doesn't fancy it? My son sometimes doesn't fancy it but he still stays there as we did all the battling and stuck to routines and rules. You can do this without leaving children to cry in a locked room or smacking them. So appalling that this happened to you.

There are lots of things in life that children don't fancy doing.

It's good you've found a calm solution for your child that doesn't drag for hours and he feels safe and happy and you're not stressed. That's the important thing.

@Yourethebeerthief - I mean he won’t stay in bed. He learnt to climb out cot around 18 months. I then spent about 2+ hrs every night until he was around 3 returning him to bed. I think I once counted 42 times.
If we left him he would make himself sick within minutes or just leave room.
Around 3 I decided just to let him fall asleep in our bed and it was much quicker

I have a 2.5 yrs old ds sounds like they're all the same!!!!

I'm with you OP! My 4 y/o is a master of bedtime manipulation. Her latest trick (which to be fair is a very clever one) is that just as she should be dropping off she will start talking to me about her worries, or things that have happened to her in the day, or other emotional topics. This is after I spend the whole day trying to get crumbs of information about what she does at school, how she's feeling etc, and all she will do is pretend that we're a family of unicorn Captain Hooks or something. So obviously, even when it's 9.30pm and she really should be asleep, I just cannot grey rock her when she says something like 'Mummy, why will you die and when will it be?' 😭.
I also have got very frustrated at times over the years with the lack of evenings, but now I'm in a more accepting phase and actually like that she has a safe space in the dark to tell me her innermost thoughts. (although I would prefer it to happen about an hour earlier than it does).

@serialplanner I can't ignore toddler cries the way I did babies.

This struck a chord with me - but I ended up going quite hardline on sticking to the bedtime routine a few months ago, and what I found was that if I stuck to what I'd said (and we'd agreed!) we'd do, DS never cried for more than 5 minutes. It took a couple of weeks of the new regime before he stopped complaining altogether. I honestly think he was quite relieved to have a very clear set of boundaries around what is allowed at bedtime and what isn't.

The whole routine takes about an hour from first going upstairs for his bath to me leaving the room, but that's normally it for the night at about half past seven. We do bath every night but if he's really tired or we've started late, I just don't put that much water in and just get him to wash his face.

Yes it is awful because it's when we are most tired ourselves. Check out the three day nanny on you tube. It's called the back to bed routine. It works and if you stick to it you will crack it in no time. Well 3 days

God they are good aren't they and I totally agree. How does one ignore that, but also they know that! For now, this is what we do.

This is exactly it about the previous generations parenting.

We're doing our best xx

Thank you x

I'm an ordinary Mum and I'd say it's a phase most children go through at about the age of 3. I remember it being an issue in practically every family I knew when my kids were little.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately as it turns out) we couldn't indulge our eldest when she went through this as we had a newborn at the time. So we did our version of the back to bed routine very consistently (absolutely no shouting or smacking!!), just gently but firmly taking her back to bed and saying it's night time now, time to stay in bed ... we deliberately didn't say sleep because that puts too much pressure on the child to go to sleep immediately, they don't understand that you naturally kind of drift off rather than switch off in seconds. I remember maybe 3 evenings of sitting on a chair with a book outside her bedroom door so that I could intervene before she came downstairs and saw the lights and TV on and all of that.

It worked and she quickly became a good sleeper. 3 years later and we had to do the same with her baby brother! It's worth putting the effort in and not having an evening yourself for a few days, otherwise it can drag on for months or even years.

Oh god i remember the toddler bedtimes well 😭 and will have to do it all again in a few years time 😭, mine are nearly 14, 12, 9yo twins and 5 month old, i think having more than 1 makes bedtimes easier in a way, with my first i used to read books to her and she would keep requesting more and talking, messing around, getting out of bed to ask for drinks/snacks, once my second came along it was “right! Snack and milk, teeth brush, ONE book, kiss n cuddle” because i HAVE to go and settle baby for bed too, if you have the time to go to their beck n call its alot easier to do so, mine are all older so now all i have to do is go “time for bed” and off they pop lol my 5 month old goes up to bed at 6 for breastfeed and done lol we have also staggered bedtimes, which i think helps each kid settle before the other one comes up, cause they share rooms it stops them messing around together, my twins boy/girl goes to bed at 8, 12yo boy 9:00 and 13yo girl 9:30 xx