3yr old screaming every night before bed

[LadyCatherinedeBourgh]

My 3yo was always a great sleeper. To be fair in the last 8 months we have has a new baby and moved house but bedtime has recently become a living hell and I need some help.

We do same routine as always, yet when it comes to me leaving the room she tries every trick under the sun to make me stay ("I need a poo, I need a tissue" etc) I think this is because for about a week when we moved to our new house I stayed with her until she went to sleep, quickly realised we were creating a bad habit so stopped. This was over a month ago now.

So now every night we have approx one hour of full on screaming mixed in with me putting her back to bed supernanny style. She's currently wailing at the top of the stairs exhausted and I don't know what to do.

Any ideas before I lose my mind? It's so horrible seeing her upset but I don't want to create bad habits after she's been such a good sleeper.

Thanks

I should add she doesn't even stay in bed before I get to the bedroom door and she seems to think its a game, laughing smiling etc.

She plays me up more than my husband, I am a SAHM he works long hours and rarely gets back for bedtime

Have you tried talking to her about it in the morning when she's not upset, to see if she can tell you why she's unhappy at bedtime? We had some sleep issues (not with going to bed but getting up in the night and fussing) after ds arrived, after a few days I talked to her about it in the morning, she managed to say that she wanted cuddles inn the night, I suggested extra cuddles before bed and then coming in for cuddles in the morning and was gobsmacked when it worked! (Dd isn't always the most compliant or reasonable little person!) but talking about it really did seem to help.

100% with DIY. Have a little chat over morning snack time or when she's relaxed and happy. My dd was a toad at bedtimes and she sometimes slips up still (very occasionally I may add). I did find reminding her in the daytime, quite a lot of times, exactly what was going to happen in the run up to bed time and bt itself. "So dd, after your dinner, we will go upstairs, you can take your clothes off like a big girl and have a bath. After bath, brush teeth and pjs on. Then you can come downstairs and watch 2 Peppas and I will take you bed and read you a story. After I've finished the story I will give you a kids and cuddle and leave the room. If you stay in your bed all night like a big girl, you can have a treat in the morning. If you are silly, no treat."
Sorry to waffle but I really did have to go it like this, I couldn't be vague at all, and I did bribe her (she thought it was a reward), what ever you want to call it, it worked. This was when she was 2.
Now however, night time waking isn't an issue unless she needs the loo or is unwell, but if she plays up before bedtime she loses a story (now she always two stories). She has never lost both of them though. Good luck

Similar to atbeckincall - I tell dd what will happen prior to it happening. I'm all about consequences - play up at bedtime = no stories (which she loves).

We get the silliness sometimes and I stuck my foot down only last week. Resulted in lots of tears but I kept going back in and explaining that behaviour like that at bedtime isn't acceptable; stories are only read when she's in bed ready to go to sleep etc.