HELP!! 23 mo just moved to bed from cot and won't sleep. Any advice?

[JonahB]

I've just moved my 23 month old from a cot to a bed. He's always been a fantastic sleeper, never woke up in the night. We moved him out of his grobag into a duvet/bed last week. It went really well for a week, now it's all going wrong. He woke at 2:30am last night and took an hour to settle.

Tonight, he refuses to go down at all. If I go in and lie with him on his bed, he'll lie there peacefully, but as soon as I come out, he follows me to the door and stands at the stairgate crying. When I go to him after a few mins, he's standing there, shaking and hysterical. Any suggestions at all? This is a bit of a nightmare.

Also, should i think about re-introducing his grobag? He doesn't seem to like the duvet over him, but its a bit cold for just pj's?

This is a hard time.
Every time he gets out of bed, just put him back. Don't talk to him except to say 'time for bed' in a quiet voice. It's tiring, but if you are consistent and firm without being harsh, then it will eventually work.

As for the grobag - as long as he's got on a vest and warm pjs, don't worry about the grobag.

I find my dds get tangled up in a grobag.

Agree with Belgo. My DS got the picture after two days and eventually used to turn his back to me when I went back to him and 'assume the position' as he knew I would just put him straight back in with NO talking. (often with a kiss though!) He thought it was a great game for about 3 days. Since then, perfect. Give it a week - the number of returns will lessen every night.

Thanks for the advice. I'll give this a go. I can see a lot of traipsing up and down the stairs tonight. He'll lie in bed if i'm sat next to him. As soon as I get up to move, he follows me straight to the door. I'll stop spending time in there with him and just put him straight back. He's currently stood at the door, not crying, just shouting at me. A very awake toddler! thanks ladies...

Okay, are you sure this is going to work? This is absolutely hideous. He is hysterical and not showing any signs of settling.

Have you done a cuddle til he calms down, with perhaps some shhing, but still no talking or eye contact??
Then put him back. It's best to be persistent if you want to get anywhere. When I took my DD1's dummy away, she cried and was up and down for 2 hrs the first night, and gradually got less and less. It took about 2/3 wks, but she got there in the end. Bear with him. A duvet is very different to a grobag. He's just adjusting.
Patience and consistency
YOU CAN DO IT.

can't you just put him back in the cot?

maybe he's not ready for a bed yet

foxinchicks - unfortunately, not an option. No.2 is due in less than 2 weeks and I'd like to use the cot/moses basket combination for daytime naps straight away.
Right, back for cuddle no. 73. sigh.

Our dd has been in her big bed for ten days now and the first few were hard compared to normal - she's 20 months. She has been out of her grobag for a while, but we've friends who've kept the grobag on in the big bed, so if this will help it might be worth thinking about. We had dd awake at around 3/4am ish the first few nights crying hard and we think she just felt disorientated as her bed is in a different position to her cot due to room layout, this has settled now but a friend at toddlers suggested a very dim night light might help this. We just cuddled her then re-settled, it is hard though when you've been jolted awake and are tired yourself so sympathy there. Another thought, are you using a bed guard, dd treats this like a cot side and doesn't tend to come past it once settled - still shouts for us in morning. We've got a double bathroom step at the foot of the bed so she can climb in/out safely if does decided to shift - she's a climber so needed to ensure she wouldn't try to go over guard. Dd is still a bit harder to settle initially than usual but it is getting better - (we have the added issue of a new baby du in 6 wks), I'm sure things will improve - all the best.

have you got a bed guard on the side of the bed? sometimes they like that as it feels 'safe' like the side of a cot.

x-posts - the iminent arrival may be part of the issue, our dd has been unsually clingy, she's just recently started to understand that there's a baby on the way. A friend at toddlers this week said she had similar behaviour with her ds when she was expecting - sensing a change etc. Dd usually settle great at this patic playgroup while mums have tea and bible study in another room, but she ended up clinging to me for over 15 mins having a hug when they bought her through - she's cuddly but way to fidgety to sit that long normally. Lot of changes coming for your ds and again I'm sure it will all work out beautifully.

maybe that's it, maybe he can sense the change.
We do have a bedguard in place. He crawls out either above or below it.
Thanks for the encouragement - it does help. Unfortantely, i'm on my own tonight as DH is working until the early hours. Can't even share the workload. I'm currently feeling like terrible mum of the year.....

HUGE, HUGE sympathies, its really tough but it does work.
We started by returning DD to bed everytime she came downstairs but soon felt that she was getting a bit too much attention from that - she kept trying to turn our faces towards her as we carried her upstairs. Ended up standing just outside her door and turning her round and taking her back to bed - as someone else said she started to 'assume the position' quite quickly and head back to bed on her own.
It took over 3 hours the first night but by the 4th we'd cracked it and haven't had a problem since - she's now 4.3.

HTH - good luck open a bottle for when he finally does settle tonight!

JB - I'm right with you on the feeling rubbish over this whole thing, dh was away from Weds until this afternoon and it feels soo much harder when there's just one of you, just relieved he's home now. Any signs he's clamer now?

Really feel for you, I've been the world's most impatient mummy the last few days at bedtime as have just been exhausted come 7pm and desparate for it to be easy, being heavily pg and hormonal just adds to the preasure, I've even shouted a couple of times and then burst into tears coz dd's cried and it's not really that she's being naughty, just little and copng with come changes. Big hugs x

Sorry I posted earlier then went away. Try not to beat yourself up and don't underestimate the impact your pregnancy has on your DS. Our DD was born last October and we had some very out of character behaviour (tantrums, clingyness etc) from DS, then 2.
He's so settled now. Just remain calm (!!!!) and be persistant. Remember that children thrive on continuity and he will feel secure if he knows what's happening.
Remember, the three things you cannot do for them is eat, sleep and poop so they are the three areas where they will try to flex their will.
Good luck and remember that loads of us have been there - you're a great mum!

Think i've cracked it! there's been silence for about 10 mins!!!

Really interesting that a few of you talk about the impact of pgy. It hadn't occured to me that could affect his behaviour. I just assumed I had a clingy, shy toddler, but it could be more than that.

Again, thanks for supporting me through tonight!! It's reassuring to hear i'm not the only one who's been through this and I needed people to be strong with me. Hopefully, I won't be back here at 1am this morning!!

JB - go grab a cuppa and get your feet up! If I don't "see" you on the sleep threads again (fingers crossed) all the best for about 2 weeks time.

Just for future reference,I read that it takes them 3 months to understand that baby is staying and to 'forget' about life before. You could virtually have set a stopwatch in our case. Ds has loved his sister from day one and has never been unkind to her but myself and DH .....

He used to walk into the room and you could almost hear him thinking "right, what can I do now". DD is now 7 months and life is DS is a dream. All I have to do now is to get him to pooh in the loo but I guess that's a whole different thread...

Take Twiga's advice and grab a cuppa

DD1 started waking a lot in my later months of pg, you know, just when I was exhausted and needed more sleep. Sometimes 10 or so times a night. not much, quick settle, but sometimes nightmares. It took her ages to stop doing it and is only really, after moving again and taking dummy away, the last couple of months that she's been sleeping consistently thru again

I used the two weeks before my DD was born to play 'babies' with my DS (2 and a half at the time), put his fave teddy in baby clothes let him help change teddy's nappy and put teddy to bed in the moses basket. Get him to help with all the last minute things you're doing and the change should be easier.

It was still a massive shock for him when the novelty wore off and agree with rebeccalm that 3 months is about right for things to become normal again.

We also got him loads of posters and new bedding so his room was really fun, I was very worried that he might be jealous of the new baby in our room and he's on his own, but he loved his new big boy bed!

JonahB - how was your night?

Belgo ? it was fine until about 1am, when DH came home, DS heard the noise and that set him off again. We finally got him down again at about 3am.

Today?s daytime sleep was fairly hopeless as well. He eventually fell asleep (out of sheer exhaustion) after about 45 mins at the foot of the stairgate in his bedroom, waking up with a rather attractive Burba carpet mark on the entire side of his face .

Just tried again tonight and he?s back to standing at the door of his room crying for mummy. At least there?s 2 of us tonight?.

Hi JB, sorry to hear you were up in the night last night, just rotten. Hope things settle quicker tonight and that you're not too exhausted by it all. Put dd down about half hour ago and she's currently chatting away to her baby doll. Thinking of you x

Oh Jonah...you already know from the June thread I haven't found it easy either! Mind you, he has now managed three times to go straight to sleep when we put him to bed. That's three times out of a month... I hope your Junie gets the hang of it more quickly than mine, the whingy whiney sleep deprived toddler thing is reeeeaaaallly getting me down atm!

But the good news is that it's not as bad as it was at first. We kept putting him back in bed and putting him back in bed, until he learnt to stay in bed. Then it was keeping on lying him down and lying him down until he learnt that. Now when he goes to bed he usually just lies talking/singing to himself until he (eventually, a couple of hours later) falls asleep.

We've done the keeping calm, just repeating "it's bed time, it's time to go to sleep" every time we put him back.

I wondered about the sleeping bag too, I kept him with a duvet as I was afraid if he got out of bed in a bag he'd fall over and hurt himself, but dsis kept her dd in the bag and hasn't ahd a problem and I wondered if it would have given some sense of continuity to ds1...However, he is now used to the duvet and recognises that ds2's bag is "for babies".

Sorry, long post when what I really just wanted to do was give moral support...there's no point me telling you what to do, though, since I clearly have no idea how to get a 23m to sleep in the big boy's bed

Hi Twiga, hope things are improving there.

2Happy, good to hear from you, although given the circumstances, wish I didn?t need to . Hope these 3 times are a good sign of things to come! How long did it take DS to adjust to the duvet? It was quite cold here last night, so I popped a jumper over his pj?s to keep him warm and planning to buy some vests today. I wouldn?t like to sleep in a cotton pair of pj?s with no covers, so I don?t feel that I can expect him to.

I got DS to go to sleep on the 2nd attempt last night. We then had to go to him once at 11pm (not so bad) and then on and off for about 2 hours, starting at 2:30am. We tried things a little differently this time, leaving the light on in the landing, which seemed to help. Until now, we?d always done the blackout curtains/sensory deprivation route, but for some reason, the light seemed to comfort him. Although, it clearly didn?t work THAT well, judging by the 2 hours.

The good news is that after the 2nd attempt, he slept properly for his lunchtime sleep today and was duly showered in praises.

G-d, this is so hard, isn?t it?

I'm listening to him not falling asleep right now, Jonah...

He got used to the duvet in I guess maybe a couple of weeks. Up to then he just lay on top of it and we'd have to pull it over him when he was asleep (trying veeeery hard not to wake him). Now he cuddles right under it.

Initially we had the light on outside the room as he seemed very anxious about the switch, and we hung around outside too (mostly for a quick return to bed, but partly for reassurance). Now we know that he's used to the change but is just in bad habits, we have the room just how it used to be before the switch (with a very dim night light), and the door is pulled to. Have you got a stairgate to keep him in?...oh yes, see from your first post you do.

ds1 has cracked afternoon napping in the BBB much more easily, sounds like yours has too. Don't know why that should be, but I did what you did and totally overdid the praise every time he managed it.

Good luck tonight anyway x