Title: 23-month-old won’t sleep, I’m completely worn down and need help

[missguidedsmiles4]

Hi,
I’m at the end of my tether. My son is 23 months old, and bedtime has completely fallen apart since we transitioned him from a cot to a toddler bed. He now refuses to stay in bed, laughs in my face when I try to settle him, jumps out constantly, and just treats it like a game. It’s honestly breaking me.

We’ve tried letting him cry for 15 minutes before going in, but he just escalates and ends up wanting me to sit with him while he falls asleep—and sometimes he still won’t sleep, just messes around and keeps getting up. He’s not scared, not hungry, not in pain—he just seems to be testing boundaries.

He wakes up at least 3-4 times during the night and does the same thing all over again. I try giving him a bottle, resettling him, keeping things calm, but it turns into this long-winded drama of getting him to go back to sleep. He’s clearly tired, but he won’t let go.

We’ve removed all toys from his bedroom, got blackout curtains, a night light, music melody box, a fan—everything that’s supposed to help. We have a consistent bedtime routine (bath, wind down, bottle, bed). Doesn’t matter.

The hardest part? I’m the one dealing with almost all of it. I have him all day from 7:30am on—my partner works full-time, so I do all the day care, all the meals, all the housework, and most of the nights too. I’m running on no energy.

My partner might get up once a night, make a bottle, but it’s mostly me—24/7, nonstop “take him for a walk in the buggy” or “get fresh air,” but I’m too tired to even do that. I don’t get a break. I’m shattered.

Please—if anyone has gone through this and actually come out the other side, what worked for you?
Do I try sleep training again? Do I sit in his room until he falls asleep every night?? I’m honestly open to any ideas at this point. I just need something that actually works. I’m beyond tired, and I feel like I’m barely holding it together.

I also don’t have much of a support system. I asked my MI-L for advice and she turned it into a competition about who had it worse. I’m not after gold in the Parenting Olympics—I just want sleep and some real advice that actually helps.

Thank you in advance for any advice

The problem is the father not doing his share.

what are his hours? He must surely be at home sometimes to parent?

Could you go back to the cot for a while longer? Ours was in a cot until 3 which made the transition to a bed much easier. If theyre already climbing out of the cot though I guess that won't be an option. Sounds really tough.

He had started climbing in and out of it, had become a danger zone

He sets him a bath and makes him a bottle.. Will sometimes sit with him, and he gives me a lay in on a weekend, but my body clock is messed up so it's not much
His mother makes out that my partner is perfect and does a lot and basically criticises me and tells me how my child's such a good boy, which is lovely to hear but belittling in a sense.

I suspect our second is going to be climbing out of the cot early too, and dreading it. Hope you get some helpful advice OP.

Goodluck, I hope its a smooth transition for you 🤞

Almost every child I know has been through a similar phase at around 2 years old. IMO it’s the last and the worst of all the sleep regressions.
Some thoughts of what helped us/may help you:

-Nap time- it’s quite little to drop the nap but maybe if he’s generally low sleep needs, if he’s not ready to drop it entirely you may need to cap it, also make sure there’s a decent gap from waking before bed
-Stairgate on his door so he can’t easily get out, you get taller ones designed for dogs but they also work for toddlers who are climbers
-Plenty of fresh air and exercise in the day, wasn’t so much an issue for my DD but my DS was like a puppy and absolutely needed to run his energy off
-Having a nightlight plus some books and a few quiet toys in their rooms so if they said they weren’t tired that could be presented as an alternative instead
-It’s not the worst thing to sit with them for a bit so long as it’s not ages, if he’ll fall asleep with you there in 15 minutes or less then that would be ok with me and you can transition away from it later
-Not for me but lots of families rate cosleeping; if you’d be willing then you could get him a small double so you have the option of getting in with him overnight
-Chuck out the bottles, he’s too old for them and especially if given after brushing teeth and overnight then they’ll be rotting his teeth; it also stops him expecting one if he wakes overnight which eventually should help stop the night wakes; offer water only in a sippy cup- from 2 I left it by their beds so they could help themselves without having to wake me.
-Is he having enough for dinner to not be hungry overnight? We used to have to do an extra supper after nursery tea

He does help, just not as much as people assume. He’ll run a bath, make a bottle, sometimes sit with our son at night, and he gives me a lie-in on the weekend—but my body clock is so messed up from the constant night waking that it doesn’t help much. It’s not that he does nothing, but the day-to-day, night-after-night care falls mostly on me.

His mum paints him as the perfect hands-on dad and often acts like I should be grateful for everything he does do. She also constantly tells me how “good” my son is, which sounds nice on the surface but comes across a bit patronising—like I shouldn’t be struggling if he’s such an “easy” child. It all just makes me feel like I’m failing or being overly dramatic when actually, I’m just exhausted and carrying the load 24/7.

Have you tried the ‘silent return’ method? I think that’s what it’s called if you google. Basically the first time you put them back on bed and say you love them etc, second time you say ‘it’s bed time’ and leave, every time after that you just plonk them in bed and leave, no chat. We did this. It’s not a quick fix and it’s 2 steps forward 1 step back, but eventually my daughter stayed in bed. we also have a baby gate on her room so she can’t get very far.

at his age he does not ‘need’ a bottle (no judgement!) but you could try moving to a sippy cup of milk/ water and then he can have a sip of water when he wakes in the night as part of the resettling routine (eventually he’ll be able to do this himself)

tbh I think the issue is he’s young to be out of the cot. It will get better as he gets older.

I second the silent return method. Just stay with him if he’s doing anything dangerous and Place him back in bed. You’re there but not responding in a way that will encourage him to be boisterous. It will take some time but he will eventually get the message.

I should add… you need a fair distribution of labour. Could your partner do any wake up before 1am for example? Then you could go to bed as soon as baby is settled (obvs not ideal, but it’s temporary!) and get 5 hrs? Or could he do every wake up past 3am so you can get a solid sleep? You need a solid sleep whether you have a paid job or not (personally I think most office jobs are less tiring than parenting! I say this as I’ve done both! I can’t speak for manual or safety critical jobs)

Yes it’s important to monitor for danger- use the baby cam if you can. But also baby proof the room as much as possible - locked draws and cupboards, nothing to climb on, no socks/cables in reach.

outside of commuting and his work hours, all parenting/housework should be 50/50. How can there be any argument for it not to be equal.

so, assuming normal hours, you should be getting a full day off each on a weekend (use for family time only if you wish) and he could be doing all of bedtime. So you can sleep say 6pm - midnight definitely, as he’s on duty.

the major problem you have, and it won’t be limited to this stage im afraid, is it seems that he has been raised to believe he’s gods gift by his mother, which has the obvious consequence of being anything but. This will be ingrained in him.

do a colour coded hourly spreadsheet to divvy up the on duty time equally.

Years ago now and probably frowned on by many, but in desperation we let our DS have an audiobook on low. He loved stories so it was a treat. The deal was if he stayed in bed, lying down, he could have the audio book. If he didn't it went off. We started off listening to it with him to make sure he was calm then reduced that time slowly until we didn't need to be there at all. It worked for us. Good luck!