Oh the temper and the constant shouting!!!

[fruityb]

My son is 2 years and 4 months and used to go to bed like a dream. I’ve posted before about all this changing since two. It got better for a while but just lately it’s got a whole lot worse. He now refuses to walk upstairs and has to be carried up resulting in a temper before we even get there. He sometimes will walk up but more often he’ll just lay down on a step and refuse. He’s currently standing on the landing screaming daddy over and over again in a voice I don’t actually recognise as his. He will do this as long as it takes for one of us to break. It’s sheer complete and utter temper.

Before anyone says it we have pretty much dropped the nap. However he was knackered at bedtime so went up a little earlier than normal as he was nigh on dropping off downstairs. He’s had a busy day today and was fine and dandy playing with his new stuff. Bedtime just unleashes a child I can only describe as an absolute shit!!

He’s got everything he needs up there - he’s got his teds and his dummies and his bedroom is warm. This is nothing but complete and utter kicking off and screaming. My husband is very firm and tells him to get into bed but he won’t. The rapid return just doesn’t work and he’ll keep getting out and getting out and screaming.

I can’t cope with the screaming and have lost my temper with him before when he just refused to go to bed. I have to leave my husband to sort it.

What the hell can I do?? I absolutely refuse to sit in his room while he goes to sleep and so does my husband - we cannot do that and will not do that. We havedone that and I was in there for an hour and a half before his lordship decided to go to sleep!!

Is this his age?? Is this a phase?? I can’t even blame lack of Christmas routine as he was like this before!! It’s horrible and I actually feel sick when bedtime rolls round as he becomes absolutely awful. He’s such a good boy all day and so polite and smart but bedtime makes him an utter fucking nightmare and I don’t know what to do!!

I know this isn't going to be much help but my son is exactly the same. He can be the most delightful little boy, he's wonderfully behaved for everyone, except when he's having these wild tantrums and he becomes unrecognisable as you say, sometimes all day, it's painful, I think it is just his age, he went through it at around 18 months but calmed down at around 2 and he's just turned 3 and has got worse again in the last month or so.....! My eldest wasn't like this!

Have you tried shaking up the bedtime routine? What is your bedtime routine at the moment? Could you get him a CD player in his room and say he can listen to stories while he falls asleep, works well for my boys, or calming music?

Routine is generally pyjamas on around half six and then we put toys away and just has a chat and a chill out on the sofa. Sometimes he watches a short cartoon or others we just have cuddles and sing nursery rhymes or watch the bedtime story. He always gets bedtime warnings - that it’s bedtime soon. He used to pick a toy and go upstairs and then that would be it! Lately it’s like he’s a child possessed - I actually don’t recognise the sounds coming out of them! It’s pure tantrum and as a kid who generally doesn’t tantrum it’s weird!

He’s a good boy all day generally - we have the odd kick off of course but absolutely nothing on the same scale as bedtime. It sends my anxiety and blood pressure sky rocketing!!

I don't know if it might help, but we do bathtime and put PJs on and then neither child (21 months and 3.5 years) comes back downstairs. They get stories etc in their rooms but they do not come back down and watch tv or play or anything. We started this because my eldest used to come down after his bath but then he'd get hyper again and want the tv on or toys etc, so now once they are up for bath then they stay up.

If he's not going up 'to bed' but for his bath or to get PJs on (and then go to bed) maybe he might not fight as much because he'll know he's still got more time once he's up there?

How much exercise is he getting? I know this sounds hugely patronising but my daughter was very similar for a while and we used to walk her (like a dog ) four times a day. She is now a very active five year old who does numerous sports. All her friends parents tell their children sleep on the sofa after school but she just bounces off to her sports club.

I’d say it’s his age. His job as a toddler is to push for independence...he’s realised he can opt not to fall asleep and it’s become the latest battleground. It will pass. It may help to try a nap some days if he’s ending up in bed v late as he will be overtired.

Also worth bearing in mind that nightmares, awareness of ‘bad guys’ and a second load of separation anxiety can all kick in around this age. One thing I found helped: tuck him in, say you’re off to do some jobs and will check on him. Potter upstairs making no attempt to be quiet and do check after 10 mins. Do that a few times and hopefully he will relax enough to fall asleep, a bit quicker each night.

My husband went up and gave him a cuddle, settled him, stayed there for a minute and then left. He’s not made a peep since! Maybe I’ll try the pottering about upstairs or taking a story up so that he can get settled and comfy and then stay there.

It’s a bloody lottery at the moment!! He either goes up without a sound and wakes up fresh as a daisy in the morning or we have to fight him and sometimes his sleep is then broken because of it. He came into our room at one this morning - I only know because he cuddled up to me in bed! If he hadn’t I’d have woken up to find him there! He stayed there all night as I dozed off - fully intending to have moved him but then didn’t as I slept all night. We all got a good night 🤷🏻‍♀️

I cannot wait for this to pass - it’s not my idea of a good time at all!

Why can’t you wait with him until he falls asleep? At the minute he associates bed time with rage and temper and a whole host of unpleasantness. He might just need you with him.

My first 2 children would go to sleep by themselves. My third needed (needs) the security of us there. You say he’s got everything he needs, but he’s not got you. Are you honestly saying an evening of listening to screaming is preferable to sitting next to the bed and holding his hand?

PP have reminded me of another thing I used to do with DS1 - get him in bed, tell him he doesn't have to sleep he can just lie there but I need to do a few things and I'll pop back in ten minutes to see him. Nine times out of ten he was asleep when I went back in.

My dcs always needed a settling routine once they were in their bed. Be it drink, story or whatever.
Thinking about it yourself, do you go straight to sleep once in bed, or do you need some time to wind down from the day?
I think a story in bed would be a good idea. It is soothing, but has a natural end where you can say 'time for sleep now' - and then potter. It sounds like he needs to know you're around.

Similar to PP my DS (2 years 4 months too!) goes up for bath at about 6:30, then isn't allowed back down. He has his pjs done, then we do a couple of books upstairs in his room with a warm milk and then light off and we have a cuddle standing up in the dark then I pop him in bed. On the rare occasions he's somehow been able to come downstairs he gets hyper again and it takes him a while to switch back to sleep mode. Also, occasionally I let him watch CBeebies/ bedtime story in my bed as a treat but have cut that completely as tv in general seems more provoking than relaxing for him!

Same here with DS, we had the screaming, crying rages. He now chooses stories for me to read to him rather than me just picking one. I sit and read to him and more often than not he is asleep by the 2nd or 3rd book but it's because he wants me there with him.

I'm not going to lie, some days it's all the books and he is still bouncing off the walls but sitting in his room once in a while until he falls asleep is much better than him screaming blue murder whilst I despair about how to get him to sleep

I am taking his books upstairs tomorrow morning! I suppose I’ve just not thought of his awareness of his surroundings or anything. He just used to get in and sleep and that was it! He has shelves so I’ll just take them up and we’ll have wind down upstairs a bit more than down.

Dropping his nap hasn’t altered his mood in the day to be fair. I’ve let him have one in the car while we’re out and about but otherwise he’s been ok. If he wants one he tends to lay down on the sofa and have one - I don’t put him in bed anymore.

It’s so blooming difficult this!! I just don’t want to sit in his room all night as quite honestly I need that wind down time myself. And during term time I have school work looming over me. I end up behind and that just adds to the stress!

Great idea taking bed time wind down to his bedroom, also have you tried playing with him in his room in the day, songs cuddles etc calming things, so he knows his bedroom is a 'nice place' (not that he doesn't think it is!)

Pottering around upstairs is good too. I say to my son 'mummy is just going to the toilet then I'll come back and cuddle you' I go back in and cuddle him a minute later so he knows I'll always come back. You could do this a few times, over 10 mins or so, then say you'll be back when he's asleep to cuddle him?

He’s 2 FFS, he’s a baby in the great big world - sit with him. Read him a story. He’s not a fucking robot.

Tell your Dh that being firm IMO is also code for being a massive bullying dick. HTH.

Well thank you stubble I will remind him of this later. He’s firm in the sense that it’s time for bed and won’t bring him downstairs. He actually sits with him where I can’t as I find it difficult to cope with it. So no, he’s not a massive bullying dick. I’ve not dealt with tantrums like this with ds and because I find it incredibly stressful needed some advice.

HTH.

OP, I feel your pain. My DS was like this for a while around the same age as yours is now. Every night was a huge screaming battle and I was at the end of my tether. He's now 2 yo 7m and is so much better at going to sleep, though still with a very rare mild bedtime tantrum (less than once a week). Sorry no advice, but for us it did get easier eventually.

Ignore the posters going on about bullying and rubbish like that. Children need sleep and it’s our job as parents to ensure they have the right amount of good restful sleep. Sitting with him doesn’t work. You tried it and he was awake for 90 mins. So that’s not a good option anyway.
My daughter did a similar thing at that age. I think it might be developmental. We trieda nightlight that changes colour but that became too exciting and she’d sit up shouting Red! Blue! Yellow! Which wasn’t quite the idea.
So in the end we did what a previous poster suggested. Very active afternoon (trampoline/swimming pool/races with daddy/family disco) and then a super calming bedtime routine starting at 6 with no screen time.
Into bed at 6.45 and say I’ll just do some washing up and then I’ll be back.
Also she got a star sticker in the morning if she had been good going to bed and after a week she got a new toy which she picked out herself.
I did not allow any screaming or shouting and if she did that, no sticker.

I’m getting a sticker chart for tooth brushing so can add that on. I think he’d get it now.

It’s so hard!! He’s such a gorgeous funny and pleasant polite little boy but it’s absolutely mental at bedtime! I don’t know where it came from - I know it’ll pass but now he has an opinion it’s quite hard to work round it lol.

I don’t think wanting some child free time for self is such a bad thing in the evenings! He’s taken to getting in our bed and going back to sleep in the mornings while we’ve been off so it’s not like he’s down on his hours but I’d just rather he went to bed as good as gold as he did before and then wake up all chipper!

So tonight was interesting! We’ve been out all day at a friends house and he’s played all day and been such a good kid. We got home and got his pyjamas on and pretty much took him straight up. I took his new books with me and while he kicked off at going to bed (possibly to do with the quickness of it but that was more DH than me for once!) he happily laid and listened to two stories (I had to read one twice) and I got quieter as I did. He was properly chilled out after that and so i stayed in his room with him. I got up after ten minutes to turn the landing light off and then stayed another ten. While he shuffled around a bit (he’s such a fidget) he then laid there and nodded off. Could hear him snoring and sucking his dummy and so I snuck out and am now downstairs half an hour later!

If he did this every night I really wouldn’t mind! But I’m going to try wind down in his bedroom more and definitely reading him stories at bedtime as he listened and loved it. Here’s hoping he stays there all night!

Aaaand two nights where it’s taken 90 minutes to go to sleep! Fuck me when does this end??

We’ve had stories in bed and then last night I sat in his room thinking he’d be asleep in ten. We’ve been out and about today and yesterday and he was wiped out by bedtime. Or so I thought.

I listened to him moving about, swapping dummies, checking I was still there, slinking out of bed when I didn’t answer him.... I moved into his doorway which then resulted in him sitting up. Attempts to lay him down again just made him laugh so I got up to go. He then followed me out onto the landing. I had to call my husband up to help - this was after an hour. He went to sleep 20 minutes later.

Tonight it was the other way round: however he was absolutely hysterical as husband came downstairs before he was asleep. Ds went out onto the landing and screamed. We gave him a couple of minutes but then the stairgate on the landing went crash and he started trying to come downstairs. I took him back up - dh came upstairs and the hysteria started again: he screamed for me constantly. Dh brought him down to me only then he just screamed for daddy!! I took him back up where he carried on screaming for two minutes then all of a sudden just stopped and laid down! Like someone had skipped a switch! It took him twenty minutes but he then passed out asleep. He was calm as anything while he was laid there - it was weird. Needless to say I now feel like I need to go to bed myself...

Dh is in a mood with me though for not going up when ds was screaming for me - even though I knew he was only doing it because I wasn’t there. It would have been the opposite had roles been the other way. He gets so arsy considering he reckons he’s mr calm about it all!

I am hoping beyond hope that when I’m back at work on Monday and he’s back at CM that all this moves on. It’s becoming stressful and I just wanted to sob my eyes out earlier. I’m going to have to be honest at work and say I’m struggling right now - I’m a teacher so bringing anything home is just too unpredictable right now. This has been more on than off since he turned two and I’m finding it hard to cope.

Thank you all for your suggestions and I’ll keep trying to keep trying!

We go through phases of this - DS is 2 years 3 months.

When he goes to bed he gets a story and a bottle of milk (I know, I know, his teeth...) and either me or my husband lie with him in bed, in the dark, til he drops off (we cosleep, just because I’ve found he sleeps better that way. I am the furthest thing from a crunchy mum ). Some nights, like tonight, he moans a bit and then falls asleep in a few minutes, other nights it’s an hour and a half of ‘more book mummy’, ‘NO! NO LIGHT!’ (ie don’t turn out the light), ‘Ooh la la! Sausages! Trucks! Mummy no willy!’ alternated with hysteria and attempts to jump on the bed. It’s super fun.

Clearly I have no idea how to solve this but we’ve found that we need to really tire him out. Nursery does that, thankfully, but we quite often take him to the park or for a run about outside in the evenings. We live in a flat so I take him into the corridor outside with his little ride-on car and make a twat of myself running and jumping up and down repeatedly until he’s knackered. We’ve also found that porridge gives him a nice full stomach for bed. He still has a dummy too.

All this stuff is based on compromise. It’s not ideal but we need sleep and time alone, and it’s not forever.

Thank you! Yours sounds a lot like mine lol. We are working on the wearing out and at the moment I’m sitting in his room as I write this. Like you say it’s not forever. I just find it so so hard some nights - particularly when he’s never been like this till recently. Being stuck here an hour and listening to the blood curdling screams - you’d honestly think he was in agony! - has really tested me but it’ll just have to be for now I think. He won’t want me here one day.
I forget I had my twin brother there so we went to bed together and were each other’s company.

My main worry? When he needs a sleepover on a rare night out! Will he do this to them?? And honestly that’s a constant niggle which I know is ridiculous!

Well I spoke too soon because it’s now 1am where I am and he’s still awake, cycling through every word he knows (sandcastle! Lollipop! Miaow! Aeroplane!) and deliberately banging his head on the bed so that he can say ‘oh no! Bang head!’ We have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Count with the Teletubbies, a book about colours, and Pip and Posy; he has got back up and watched CBeebies, then got back up again later and watched Transformers; he has had toast and milk and water and done a poo and played with his trains and made us all dance and jumped off the sofas. He is not tired.

I’m hoping it’s jetlag as we arrived back from the UK yesterday and we live in a different timezone. I suspect I have handled this very badly tonight

My husband is trying to settle him now - we’re kind of taking turns - and I can hear him squealing as I type. Long night

He went back to CM on Monday and was fast asleep in five minutes on Monday night. Last night and tonight I’ve been stuck in there for 40 minutes and he just won’t sleep. Tonight he went quiet and then would start saying mummy mummy mummy mummy- if I answered he just kept saying it. If I didn’t he just kept saying it. Dh has taken over and he’s still shouting mummy. I feel like I’m being controlled by him now and it’s just doing my head in. He starts laughing when I tell him to go to sleep.

I think we’re going to start CC which isn’t ideal but I just can’t be sitting in his room with him constantly checking I’m there or refusing to sleep or starting to play. It’s not fair on anyone and he’s not sleeping which is making him arsy. He’s also coming into our bed in the night - I don’t mind if it’s after half five as he just comes and snuggles before I get up at six but it’s been 2am once or twice and that isn’t happening as it keeps me awake.

I need this to stop! Nap has been dropped, I’ve laid in there, I’ve read him stories, I’ve cuddled him, I’ve ignored him.... it’s like I’m not allowed to leave and how dare I imagine I could! I don’t mind sitting there till he sleeps if he’s settled and quiet but if all he’s going to do is keep trying to talk to me or check I’m still there every two minutes it’s not going to help matters at all. He got into bed and went to sleep for two years!!