Please help, why sudden struggle to go to bed....

[LynseyM]

Help, my ds 8 months will not go to bed. He used to be terrible at nap times but now he is brilliant,the only trouble is when it comes to his bedtime he just cries and cries. He use to go down at 6.30 every night and wake at 6.30 but now it can be 11.00 b 4 he settles. He has a bad cold and is also teething but why will he not settle to sleep. I havent chgd the bed time routine and i have tried moving it later but nothing works. I have tried calpol, teething gel, anbesol, drinks, shhhing, but all hewants to do is get up and play. Is this normal at this agefor their bedtimeto be later?
11pm is my bed timebut he sometimeseven wakes after this suddenly screaming. What to do now?

ds it 9mths and from 8mths has wanted to play at bed time, standing up at his cot and shouting but never really cried. i just kept on popping in every 10mins or so and laying him back down tucking him in without talking to him. i also removed his mobile andnight light etc because they seemed to be distracting him into not going to sleep. the light nights dont help much either.

HTH, and i hope someone comes along with some better advice im sure you want your evenings back.

Is he sleeping in the afternoon ie after 2pm? If so, try cutting this sleep out so that he's really tired when it comes to bedtime. You may have to spend more time stimulating him to keep him awake when he'd normally awake, but could be worth it in the end. Good luck.

Yep, same problem here! He's now nearly 10 months and we've hd about 8 weeks of this. I call it 'nine month-itis', because seems to be a bit of a 9 month thing. I've done the same as Jodie - leaving him to his cot aerobics until he starts to cry, then I feed him and usually he calms down then. Mind you, doesn't stop him from a two hour bravura performance at about 2am!!!! I've stopped the night feeds over the last couple of nights, which doesn't seem to bother him, but it doesn't seem to help with the 3am shenanigans either!

Maggie: I have tried to make sure his pm nap finishes early rather than late but even if he goes to sleep at 1 after a 12 o'clock lunch, 2.30 is the earliest he'll generally be awake by. But will start to log the naps to see if the later ones do affect the nights.

6.30?!

Neither of our daughters has gone down before 8. When they're both good and shattered and fall asleep.

Bad cold? Put a Karvol vapour pad in one of those plug-in units, prop up his cot on phone books, rub Snuffle Baby on his chest, and give him some Medised, which also works for teething.

Mine was just the same Lynsey. I think it is a bit to do with separation anxiety. Dd is going down well again now though, but only as she is so tired I think as her napping is hit and miss. She still wakes for a good 2 hrs each night though and I have to strap her in her car seat to get her to nap. I founf playing a lullaby tape helped, probably not dd but gave me something to listen to other than her crying and gave me a focus e.g I will rock her until song 5 before I give up, etc!