16 month old early terrible 2’s?!

[Candygurl444]

Hello, my DS will be 16 months next week, we have always been blessed with a very chilled out baby and a toddler who eats what is given and can play in their play pen and be put down anywhere. However, in recent weeks, I feel like he has just changed overnight one day. He has been walking the past couple of months, I can no longer place him in his play pen without an absolute meltdown so that I can go downstairs to prep meals (live in an upside down townhouse so kitchen downstairs). TV use to work but now it doesn’t, have gone from sleeping 12-13 hours a night and a 1.5 hour nap a day to absolute broken sleep (up several times wanting milk and screaming until he gets it) he still has 2x milk drinks a day, and yes I have tried water in his sippy cup overnight but he doesn’t have any of it. He has 16 teeth already, he is inconsolable at night he wakes up screaming the house down, thought it could be teething but calpol doesn’t even touch it or Nutrofen when it once did - so it must he something else? Meal times? No longer eats the things he use to love and tends to be thrown across the place and seems to only will eat quavers, weetabix and bananas. I can’t even leave him alone for 1 second to empty the bath before he has trashed the living room (before, he would sit happily and watch the TV or play with his toys), he has now broken his toys too! What an earth has happened? I am also halfway through my pregnancy with baby number 2 I feel so exhausted. I feel like I am on a short fuse because I can see he’s getting frustrated but unable to speak yet, the winging and crying is all day unless he is asleep or in the bath! Anyone else gone through this phase 🥺

Ditch the TV, it will overstimulate him and do more harm in the long run.

I'm surprised you were ever able to just leave him in the playpen. I never, ever, could more than 30 seconds.

Toddler tower is the answer for the kitchen, we got one at 12 months and it's a game changer. I stick some paper down and he draws, has snacks, I give him small tasks while I cook something quick.

You need to babyproof a room a lot better. So whatever room he is in while you prepare the bath needs to be solidly baby proofed. My toddler's bedroom is baby proofed, there's zero trouble for him to get into in there, so I leave him to play while I prep his bath and bedtime stuff.

Does he have his molars? I found my DS was very unsettled when the last 2 molars came through. No amount of calpol helped.

I’m surprised you can leave a 16 month old unsupervised too.

If he’s frustrated because he’s not speaking have you thought of introducing some signs? How does he do on this simple progress checker?

We have a play pen and he’s only ever been left in there when I pop to the toilet and kitchen, or popped in his cot with toys whilst I shower. obviously this isn’t the case anymore as he hates being placed in either of those before a full blown tantrum. Toddler tower does not work, he tried to get off straight away and any sort of activity we do we just runs the other direction! Days out are hard now as he wants to get out the buggy, but he is still very wobbly on his feet and has had accidents such as running too fast and tripping over or will try and go the other direction. Last night was horrendous he was up for hours screaming downing bottles of milk again when he use to sleep through the night!

He is yet to get his back molars! I checked his mouth and can’t see them yet!

Honestly OP very tiring and difficult but totally normal. Children 'change' all the time, it's their natural development as they learn and grow. The sleep will come back eventually too but it's how long is a piece of string type thing. My eldest is 7 and can go through periods of night waking now and then. There's not really anything you can do but ride it all out.

I think it definitely sounds as though they aren't eating enough in the day if they're drinking a lot of milk at night. However even then there is not much you can do but continue offering a variety of foods regularly. My youngest is a similar age and has always woken in the night screaming loads and having loads of milk feeds (breastfed though). I haven't slept properly since before the pregnancy so yeah it's exhausting but I know it won't last for ever.

@Candygurl444 to me this all sounds very normal. I could never leave my daughter alone and she only slept through a handful of times until she was 5 and even now we sometimes get called in the night 😬

Sorry I’m no help! X