Finding toddler sleep difficult to deal with

[BertieBotts]

Don't even know where to start. DS is 2.4. His sleep has always gone in cycles - he sleeps really well for a few weeks, then has a HORRIBLE few weeks, just as I give up on it he sorts himself out and it's all fine again.

It's not that he doesn't want to go to bed, it's not that he's having nightmares, waking in the night, anything like that. He just doesn't seem tired when he gets to bed and then can't seem to switch off at all. He's always been like this, although he's always been great at sleeping in the day.

I get so frustrated with him taking hours to put to bed. Often I end up in tears, or shouting at him. Tonight I came downstairs (with DS) and he had a huge tantrum, trying to pull everything off my desk etc, kept moving him to the sofa to calm down, screaming at me that he wanted to go to sleep, though when we had been in bed his idea of going to sleep was to lie quietly (nursing) for a while, then swap sides constantly, wriggle around constantly, then kick me and finally repeatedly sit on my head which was what made me have to get up and leave the room. After about 20 minutes of this tantrum, he did come up to me completely unprompted and say "Sorry mummy cry. Sorry sit on head. Sorry mummy." and we had a big cuddle and I told him it was ok to cry if he was sad but that I didn't like him sitting on my head. And then I felt a lot calmer and I think he did too, but I'm just finding this hard to cope with - I know it's just a phase but every time he goes through his horrible sleep phase it seems to be worse than the time before. I can't wait for the day that he's old enough to tell him if he's not tired that he can read quietly in bed or something.

And now he's doing a poo! First one in 3 days that could explain why he didn't feel sleepy I suppose. Aaaaaargh! Roll on potty training :(

Is anyone else waiting desparately for the stage of telling them to read quietly, or just me? :)

Not just you!

Have you dropped his nap yet? My DD is 2.6 and started not going to sleep until 9pm. Dropping the nap brought this forward by an hour and she goes to sleep MUCH faster.

We were also giving DD milk feeds (not bf anymore) at bedtime and I think she had become too reliant on that to go to sleep. We went cold turkey and stopped the bedtime milk a couple of months ago and, bingo. Part of the reason for that, we think, is that she was making her nappies very wet in the night, which was uncomfortable for her to sleep in. She now wakes up with dry nappies and uses the potty straight away, then drinks her own bodyweight in water and juice at breakfast!

She can now self-settle to go to sleep most nights and sleeps sooo much better as a result.

If your DS is having tantrums and behaving like that with you at bedtime (my DD does too some days, BTW) I would see that as a sign he's tired.

I would agree with everything sopukeymum says esp. dropping the daytime nap.

Yes it's annoying, I can see he's tired but for some reason he's just wired and can't sleep. It's exhausting! He's not overtired either, I've experimented with bedtimes and any earlier he won't go to sleep either but is quite happy about it - not tantrumy etc. He just seems to find it hard to switch off, and he always has done. I used to have to strap him in his pushchair before he'd sleep, and transfer him to bed later.

Naps are a pain because at the moment if he has a nap I find he won't go to sleep until 7 hours or so after he wakes up from it. This is with limiting it to an hour - he's difficult to wake after an hour anyway, but impossible to wake before this. I mean literally if I pick him up he stays asleep in my arms, if I move him he wakes briefly but falls back asleep again straight away. He's also very whingey and clingy between this waking up and dropping back to sleep state.

So if he has a nap at 11ish that's fine, also he usually wakes after an hour then as he's hungry for his lunch, but if he doesn't nap in the morning, he's pretty much guaranteed to fall asleep late in the afternoon - which means the only way to keep him awake is play with him constantly and avoid any situation where he relaxes e.g. in pushchair, on a bus, in a car, breastfeeding - which again he often wants when tired, so have to distract him from this. It's ok having the odd day where I have to stay in and distract him from falling asleep all afternoon but it's just not practical every day. He seems better at napping at the childminder's which he does one full day a week.

But yes I think tonight he probably WAS tired and he just had ants in his pants from needing to poo. He's not usually quite as hyper.

Ask the childminder not to let him nap for a couple of days and see what he's like at bedtime. My DD's nursery did this for us quite happily.

The days she isn't at nursery she does sometimes fall asleep in buggy/car but we don't let her sleep for long, 20 minutes at most.

He's usually great when he's been to the CM all day. She only lets him nap for an hour which is fine - the problem is if he doesn't nap early enough it basically means I'm then stuck in all afternoon and can't to anything - or he goes to bed late. I can try to wake him after 20 minutes but as I said it's difficult as he's a very heavy sleeper. And I don't drive so journeys are usually longer than 20 mins anyway if I'm going further than DS can walk.

I think half term is shaking up his routine again. University terms are too short! (Whoever thought a student would say that??)

Just fallen asleep on my lap and he never does that unless he's really tired - I feel bad now. I think he was getting back into it today. Oh well. Tomorrow is a fresh start etc :(

Indeed, once day at a time. Take care!