Three year old WILL NOT go to bed. I am at my wits end. Please help

[Helppleaseeee]

I am at the end of my tether. She will not go to sleep.
i have tried everything.
Ive tried quiet time before bed.
I’ve tried walking her back to her room again and again but she just resists and screams and screams.
she cries.
every excuse going to not to her bed. I need toilet, I want to ask you something, there’s monsters in my room, there’s monsters in your room. I’m hungry (she’s not hungry)
it worked for a bit if I let her go in my bed. Now that doesn’t work.
doesnt work if I sleep in the bed with her or stay in the room.
singkng her to sleep doesn’t work.
cry it out doesn’t work it just makes her scream more.
no screen time and reading books before bed - doesn’t work
bath before bed / no difference.

i work full time. I literally go to work then spend all evening with my child. I’m starting to cry at work because I’m drained.
my husband works shifts so is barely here. I have no life to myself.
I want her to just go to sleep.

the only way she will go to sleep atm is if I let her lie on the sofa and she will fall asleep on there.

she’s gone from a chilled two year old that sleeps to a three year old who is demanding, won’t sleep and wants her own way.

what am I doing wrong? She had such extreme reactions I imagine my neighbours hate me.
if I try to be firm she just cries and gets hysterical.

im fucking broken. My only downtime is being at work which is fucking stressful. I’m really struggling. I just want to relax for an hour in the evening by myself without going to battle about brushing teeth and bedtime. Why does she hate sleep?

I am so sorry this is happening.

Do you have a consistent routine?

Does she eat well?

In that routine do you have time to read to her, talk about her day etc?

Does she get enough exercise in the day? I used to take mine swimming to tire them out.

I am sorry if my suggestions are patronising - I know what it feels like esp when you have work as well.

Try asmr if quiet doesnt work.

My son was like this. We fitted a stair gate to the top of the stairs and told him that it’s fine if he wants to run around in the dark. He cried, of course, but not for long. There was nothing for him to do except go back to bed.
We made sure he’d been to the loo, had water and a story and then it was no more pandering to him.

No not patronising at all, thanks for responding. She gets so much exercise, she’s at a forest nursery so lots of outdoor time and I always take her out as she has so much energy being inside is a nightmare.
we used to have a consistent bed routine but it’s just all gone to shit now, and I can’t find a consistent one that works.
she eats well too.
I talk to her about her day and read with her a lot.
three has been so hard in general, she now has tantrums when she doesn’t get her own way. Honestly feel like im having payback for having an easy two year old 🤣 we didn’t have terrible twos, dhe was so easygoing. I sometimes don’t recognise her.
She kicks as well now when shr doesn’t like something.
I just feel like such a failure and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I’m just so exhausted and its impacting my job.

My DD was like this. She would cry until she vomited. It was tough but we survied (just).

We started with a consistent routine.
Bath and pjs 1 hour before bedtime. 30 mins before- small bowl of cereal and milk. Then up toilet, teeth and story in bed. Kiss and lights off. Same bedtime and wake up time every night, no deviations at weekend.

Then to actually getting to sleep, we had to do gradual retreat, so from sitting next to her on bed for a few nights, to sitting in the chair by the window, then near the door, then just outside the door. But no conversation. No lights back on. No 'I just need....'

Good luck.

That’s a really good idea. I live in a flat so wondering what I can do similar.

It will pass promise, anything in her room bothering her, strange shadow? My youngest was like that for a while, it is really wearing you have my sympathy, seem to remember used a monster spray, water in spray bottle you spray around room to get rid of monsters worked for a while and just reading for ages, still trapped in room but no stress

Can you get an armchair for her room and sit in that while she goes to bed? Take a book or some knitting or something that she’s not interested in and sit there quietly ignoring her and just saying “it’s bed time, get back into bed”.

That might give her the reassurance she needs to not feel scared, the quiet ish down time that you need, and for her to realise she is capable of going to sleep herself and there’s nothing more interesting going on elsewhere in the house that she wants to be involved with.

I get it’s not ideal for you but it sounds a lot better than your current set up.

Yes that’s what my DD does. She will cry until she vomits and then becomes even more distressed because she’s vomiting.
I’ll have to try a consistent routine again, and same time everyday.

I started this and realised i am in no position to offer advice as honestly my 3.5 dd isnt wildly dissimilar ( my dh is still up there with her!!!)

I think there a few things going on with my dd. She is now acutely aware she is missing mummy and daddy time at childcare and wants to play endlessly. Bedtime is an "attention" flashpoint for sure.

It hard for us as we have an 18m old so cant let her scream it out for 30mins.
We stay in with her and also our door knows are high up (she can reach) which helps

You could put one in her doorway. You’re not far away.

You have my sympathies - my 4 year old is similar. The lack of ‘me time’ is so hard. I used to end up staying up late to carve out some time for myself but then would just be even more knackered the next day.

Have you considered magnesium supplements? I have been giving them for the last few weeks and I think there’s a bit of improvement (could be coincidence obviously). Worth a try perhaps. You can get gummy ones

The supernanny ny method of keep returning them to bed. Ignore the resistance-pick her uo and carry her back without engaging

It’s just a phase and will pass. You can stay and all that stuff, we did but ultimately it comes down to the crunch when you say enough is enough and leave them to cry it out for longer stretches and stick with it….take a break and go into another room , take a deep breath.

do what @ohidoliketobe says

and you can add a 'bed time chart' which is a piece of paper with pictures / words showing the routine. First bath, then milk, then teeth, then story, then bed.

if child tries to go out of routine, you can point to the paper and say 'we have to do the bedtime rules'. and stick to it. even a toddler can't argue with a piece of paper, so it stops them arguing with you.

I've had to accept that sometimes by 2 year old (nearly 3) isn't tired til 9pm. If she has no nap, she crashes out in the car on the way home from nursery and doesn't wake up. There's no bedtime routine, she just goes from car to bed with hardly a twitch.

If she's napped, she doesn't need sleep til 9pm. I don't bother taking her up til 7.30pm anymore, and my husband and I do shifts of playing and reading. Once she is tired, she happily lies herself down for sleep.

The long evenings are hard, but we don't have any fighting over them any more, and I sort of value the time with her. It's rough when we don't see her except in the morning when we're chivvying her out the door.

Is there any way you can reframe this bedtime battle so it doesn't drain you?

Not quite the same but we've had difficulty with our 5 year old DD sleeping at various points of her life, which has been mostly driven by the fact she loves to hold your hand to go to sleep.

Prior to the summer hols we had finally got to a position where she was going to sleep by herself in her room and then sleeping through in her own bed. Going into year 1 she regressed massively to the point where she is still struggling to get to sleep at night and wasn't sleeping through at all.

I'm of the opinion that sometimes you gotta do what works, just to reset, worry about it becoming a habit later. So in our case we have spent the last 5 weeks holding her hand to sleep again, it's not fully resolved the issues and she's still struggling to get to sleep but within the last week she has slept through most nights so I feel that we are making slow progress.

In your circumstances, I'd try getting her to sleep on the sofa if that works, maybe just for a short period of time (a week maybe) just to see if you can reset bedtime, while this is happening I'd try to be as boring as possible to show her shes not missing out on anything (ie sit reading or watch an inoffensive tv show she wouldn't enjoy). If you can get to a position where you're feeling less stressed you can start to create a new bedtime routine that works for you both.

I work full time too, and I know how precious those few hours to yourself can be once they've gone to bed. I hope things improve for you soon!

If she goes to sleep on the sofa can you then pick her up and put her in bed. My DD was like that I gave up and let her fall asleep in the living room then put her to bed asleep. She did still tend to wake up and come into our bed in the night sometimes, but it was so much better than the go to bed battle. She's grown up now but still a night owl, just never seemed to need as much sleep as the books say.

I’d just let her sleep on the sofa.
I used to baby sit a child exactly like this.

No one could get him to bed. His parents told me to put him in his room and then remove the doorknob so he would be locked in. He would scream, cry, and eventually fall asleep on the floor they said.

First night, I couldn’t bear the screaming, it felt unbelievable cruel, so I let him out and he cuddled up on the sofa with a blanket and slept there. He just wanted the security of not being alone. I’d quickly whisk him to his bed when mum and Dad turned into the drive. He liked knowing they were home- he barely woke up but he could tell.

Then over the next year I started to gradually move him to his room & bed earlier and earlier. I started to carry him up an hour before, then two hours before they were due to come home,

The whole time I left his bedroom door open and said if you call out, I will be here in a flash, you also know where to find me and if you get scared you can chill on the sofa until you feel sleepy again. He had a fear of being locked in (yours won’t, his parents caused this fear by locking him in)

By the time he had a baby sister, he would happily go to bed for me and his mum&dad, but no other babysitter. Very rarely would he have a nightmare and want to be on the sofa near me to help him go back to sleep.

Try a tonies/yoto/playing stories
Reward chart/marbles in a jar
Small bribe lol TV in morning or special treat etc
Bedroom shopping for lamp, Big girl bedsheets
Leave light etc on and say she can look at books quietly but can't cry for you
Have a bath in evening and let her stay up if she's calm but not sleepy

What sort of time does she fall asleep? It’s not clear from your posts how late it is but maybe she is craving attention from you and so pushing all the boundaries to stay up. As others have said I would try a reward chart eg with toy or something if she goes down on time every night for a week. Also turn the lights off and play a story that might help, I’d try not to make it a hard line ‘go to sleep immediately’ but wind down with something, or nice lights or something and hope they fall asleep

She knows you'll give in. It's the greatest gift you can teach your kids to self settle at night. No screens at least an hour before bed, bathtime, story, cuddles, drink of water by the bed, nightlight on, stairgate across the door, and "night night". Resist all attempts to lure you back "i just need....". Takes a few nights to crack, but it can be done. I needed my evenings to unwind, not to spend them like a jack in a box settling an over tired child.

I was also going to suggest a Tonie I feel like I suggest the same advice to everyone but it really helped our boy to feel he wasn't alone in his room cos there was a voice talking to him, and the choosing of a Tonie character every night was a distraction and gave him control. You could even record your own voice onto a blank one for comfort.
Expensive tho so see if you could borrow someone's to see if she likes it before committing

I had twins playing this game, it was a long few months of taking them back to bed way very quietly no drama. The novelty wore off and we have a few toys to play with in bed

We did the stairgate thing. It worked. He fell asleep in front of it a few times but he doesn't do that now

😂

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