One year old SCREAMING at bed time

[JenG81]

Hi,
DS2 has never been a great sleeper but would always have a breastfeed and then cuddle to sleep ok until the last few weeks when he has a feed and then screams blue murder instead. He won't take his dummy (in fact he throws it across the room!) and won't let me touch him, if I try to cuddle him he tries to fight his way away from me. We usually end up taking him out in the car to get him to go to sleep. He then wakes up every hour or two all night and won't settle back down without a feed (though without the screaming at least!). I'm at a total loss as to what might be causing it or what to try. I won't just leave him to cry but nothing I try calms him down. Anyone had anything similar?

Sounds like he might be overtired. Is he still taking two naps a day?

DD hates bedtime, always has, thinks she's missing out. Now she's 2 she messes around but before she could talk she would kick off at the sight of the cot.

We took the side off the cot and changed the bedtime routine around. That got us out of the negative cycle we were stuck in.

I bet it's teeth. Have you tried a little bit of calpol?

Horrid seeing them in pain.

It does pass btw. I'm still BFing my 2yo but remember him being very upset and hard to settle for a while back then. You might not even see or feel the teeth butthey will be working their way through. Probably.

It might be something else entirely but it sounds very familiar.

He does usually have two naps a day but they're not exactly reliable in terms of either timing or length! I'd certainly agree he might be overtired but can't work out how to break the cycle.

And we've tried Calpol in case it was teeth but it doesn't seem to make any difference. He's definitely teething (he tested them out on me last night, ouch!) but I don't think it's the whole problem.

Thanks

This sounds similar to my dd. She's13 months and has always been an awful sleeper but now screams when we take her up to bed like your ds. We either rock her or I bf to sleep but she gets very angry when she realises it's bed time!

I wonder if it's partly an awareness thing. They've become really aware that they're going into their cot because it's bed time? I don't know.

When my dd is really bad (in terms of constant wakings) we usually give her some infacol in case it's trapped wind which often helps. As for the going to bed screaming, I'm hoping she just grows out of it! She only has one nap a day, if I'm lucky. She's just never liked sleep, which is a shame because I used to love it!