18mo suddenly refusing naps and bedtime

[zoobaby]

Anyone have/had a toddler refusing naps and bedtime? All advice and strategies appreciated.

DS BFs at bedtime and was settling happily but now 2/3 nights it will be a struggle. As soon as you get him close to the cotbed, he'll go rigid. Then stands and cries, refusing to lie/sit down, which makes it impossible to settle him. If you leave him to cry, he will forcibly cry for however long you let him (30 mins was my threshold). It's now the same for naps, minus the BF, which is a shame because he was such a delight at nap time.

Also, he's being more and more wakeful in the night. He'll have trouble settling to sleep (taking longer BF), then wake after 2-3-4 hours. Chances are he'll then have an almighty meltdown for the next 2-2.5 hours, despite having BF. All he wants to do is get up and play.

It was just such a sudden change. Do you think this is a phase to do with being an active toddler and having his own opinions and expressing them?

I wonder if I'm missing his sleep cues and actually keeping him awake too long. When things were going well, he was waking around 8:00ish, having 5 hours awake in the morning, 1.5 hours sleep (13:00-14:30), then 5-6 hours awake in the afternoon, having his BF by 20:00, so sleeping 11-11.5 hours at night. Obviously this has gone right out the window with his current aversion to bed.

We're having the exact same troubles with our 18 mo. Hopefully this will bump your post and someone might come along with some advice.

Teething? DD was always worse at night. Maybe try some ibuprofen before bed?

I started to cut down length of afternoon maps at about the same age. Nothing drastic but a gradual decrease.

Yes cutting down lunch time nap or bringing it earlier (sleeping no later than 1pm) helped for us. Also if it's teething - we had great results with homeopathy - Here's my blog post if you're interested mydaughterwontsleep.com/2014/02/21/teething-when-pain-relief-just-doesnt-cut-it/ Good luck!!

She is teething and so we've tried ibuprofen. She's just impossible to put down and leave. She screams and screams.

I wish we could get her down earlier, but that seems to make her even angrier. Today she's been awake from 6am and has only just settled for her nap at 2pm.

(sorry to hijack op)

Both my DCs dropped their afternoon naps at 18 months - their choice not mine! One was always a bad sleeper at night and it made no difference. One slept well at night, and had been sleeping up to 3 hrs in the afternoon with seemingly no effect, and then overnight just refused to nap. She continued to sleep well at night though.....