Last straw for toddler sleep he just bit me

[User24689]

Just end the end of my rope now. 2.5 year old has never slept. It gets better for short periods and I consider him finally sleeping through then slips back again. We've had periods of cosleeping in our bed, periods of me falling asleep in my bed.... Aside from the bedtime routine which hasn't changed since he was a baby, consistency hasn't been great because I am so fucking tired I do whatever works at the current time, until I'm more rested, then get really firm and get him out of habits, then he slips into a different habit and before I know it I've made a different rod for my own back. Never done any sleep training as felt it would be so distressing for him as he is so, so attached to me.

I'm absolutely fed up with it. For the past few weeks he has slept through with maybe one wake up but then woken at 5. I then get into his bed and he does another hour cuddled into my neck. During that time I have to sleep with him constantly pulling my hair. He has done this his whole life and I have been really firm about stopping it but I am so tired and so used to it I can actually sleep while he does it so during my most tired times I drift in and out of sleep while having my hair pulled.

This morning, at 5.30, I was deep asleep and woke up because he bit me, hard, on the nose. I know this sounds ridiculous but it was honestly terrifying and made me cry. I didn't know what was happening. It was only momentary and then he was grinning at me and I was so shocked I asked him if he just bit me and he said yes. I told him how upset I was and how much he hurt me and that he must never, ever do that again. Then I left the room and he started screaming.

I feel utterly shit this morning. I feel like I have poured everything into getting this boy to sleep for the past two years while DH is totally unaffected (he won't accept DH in the night) only to be treated like that. I know he's only two. Am I overreacting? Where would you go from here?

How do I get him to fucking sleep on his own.

Sleep training for sure. Being a parent is about love but it's also about discipline and boundaries. Yes he'll howl and hate you for a week, but what's that in the 18 years he'll be with you? And you'll be teaching him a really important at life skill, sleeping. And you'll be a better mum - you must be exhausted. Work with a consultant, ask on your local mums Facebook or through nursery friends to get a good recommendation. Good luck OP you can do this

Hi OP

I understand what your going though. My DS is 3 and still doesn't sleep through the night.

I would suggest this (I'm not expert obviously as my son still doesn't sleep)
7 or 7.30 up to bed with a book. One night it's mummys turn, the next night it's daddy turn. We do this with our son. He prefers his dad to put him to bed and really kicks off when it's my turn. I just ignore the tantrum, tell him the if he continues to scream at me then we won't have time for a story and I will leave the room. He cools down eventually.

If it's dad's turn to put him to bed then he does the night walking, no matter how much he kicks off and vice versa.

When he wakes up in the morning whether it's 4, 5 or 6 am just get up with him. If he needs to nap just let him have an hour around lunchtime to prevent him from getting over tired. He will sleep in later eventually but it won't be straight away.

Keep it consistent but do share bed times with his dad. One night on, one night off.

@divgirl I think in that situation where you genuinely think they might hurt themselves you wouldn't use cry it out, you'd probably just keep returning them to bed. Endlessly.

You sound utterly worn down by parenting. No one gives you a handbook on this crap.
You definitely need to have a crisis talk with DH and decide what part he is going to play in the revised sleep plan. It sounds as if your son has attachment issues around you and you need to break that. He has 2 parents who he needs to be able to feel offer him comfort and security.

Honestly though, you need to be stricter and more consistent with the kids. Your child will not love you any less, in the long term, for being firm and setting out your expectations. It's time to step up and love your child enough to be the adult in the relationship.

Sounds really hard op!
Mine have all slept rubbish as toddlers but finally got there, one was 3 before he slept through. My dd is only 3 now and still wakes up in the night and comes to find me.
When she was 1 she had lots of trouble with her ears, she didn't sleep properly for months on end and was on (felt like) endless antibiotics. The Dr gave her piriton to try, he said it can have a sedative effect, but not with everyone, however it worked with her and she did get some sleep. Might be worth asking gp about.

I will add she only had it at bedtime for a week or so and seemingly helped her settle into a routine.

This is what makes me so angry with the "all sleep training is cruel" evangelists. You end up with people like the OP with awful sleep deprivation, utterly miserable. Of course leaving a 3 month old to scream is cruel. But using gentle techniques to teach a 18 month old to sleep through the night without needing assistance from a parent is NOT cruel. It's good for them and good for you. (Caveat: I know it doesn't work for all children.)

for you OP. I hope you find a technique that works and DH is supportive.

Hear hear peach. Sleep training saved my sanity.

I think you'll get there now, you and your DH need to be 100% united going forward, toddlers can be so crafty and manipulative and we don't want to believe it of our babies. I think you've reached that point and it's time for a bit of toddler tough live. Children like rules, firm boundaries and consistency. He might kick off at first to try his luck as it's always worked in the past but he WILL settle in time. And you will feel so much better when you've sorted this.

Don't be so hard on yourself op. This stage will pass. Defer to your DP if needed and get him to step in at night until it's more manageable. YOU ARE NOT A SHIT MUM!! Nobody knows what they're doing. It's all trial and error. You will get there, unfortunately you'll have to let your DS be upset if needs be. He'll get over it and life will be better for it. Good luck op.

@Hercwasonaroll

Hear hear peach. Sleep training saved my sanity.

Totally agree here. I had no choice, I was so unwell at the time with depression if I'd continued my kids would have ended up with no mother at all. I am not being dramatic at all - it was a close call.

@Hercwasonaroll

Your lack of back bone it the problem. He's 2.

Sleep train him now while there's no school for 4yo. Sometimes as parents you have to be cruel to be kind.

Awful to say but this is what you have to do for everybody's sake.

Don't be so hard on yourself OP. Stand up for yourself. Your DC need to see that you are a person with feelings as well. You are important and you matter as well. Do you believe that you are?

I didn't have the sleep deprivation (thank God) but I did have the kids trying to test me at every opportunity, wouldn't do what they were told etc and it totally ground me down. Even now my youngest still comes to me before DH because they think I am the weak one. I tell them to ask dad and I know they don't even bother!

You need to be the mum who says no. No to hair pulling, no to hitting, no to getting into your room, no to five million breakfasts, no to not putting their shoes on. Keep saying no. To MN, it is a complete sentence. No negotiation. No bribery, no cajoling.

Do your youngest and eldest share a room? Can you put a stair gate on youngest room to stop him coming into your bed at night? Send DH in at night when you are here. He will cry and be awake and probably keep the whole house up for a week or two, but you need to just do it until he learns.

At breakfast, put two options out and let them choose from those. If they don't eat, then they don't eat. If they complain, they complain. If they don't put their shoes on in the morning, make them walk to school with no shoes on. I haven't actually had to do that although I very nearly made my eldest go to school in his underwear because he wasn't dressed in time.

You do have to be strong and prepared for tantrums but the short-term pain is worth the long term gain.

I agree with PatchworkElmer , I think it should be both parents sleep training him, so he knows you are both on the same wavelength. Take turns if possible, shows a united front.

And ha ha to Fatted. I did once put my DS’s school clothes on the front door step as he just would not put them on. It worked, he put them on in his bedroom after breakfast every day after that!

Thanks everybody for the supportive comments and also the harsh ones, which I also needed.

Yesterday was a tough day but DH and I tackled it together and enforced all boundaries with DS who pushed back against us all day. Refusing to follow instructions got one warning and then a toy taken and we now have a line of diggers on the shelf in the kitchen. There was a lot of wailing.

At bedtime, DH gave DS a peptalk and said that mummy would not be getting in the bed tonight and he would not be in our bed but if he cried daddy would come and check on him. Of course he cried in the night and we had an almighty tantrum but DH stayed with him until he fell back to sleep and he then slept until morning.

Just need to keep it up now, I know. I'm very emotional at the moment for a lot of reasons and think I've been taking th easy way out with behaviour and they have started to rule me without me really noticing. We had also got into a good cop/ bad cop situation as parents completely unintentionally and we are going to really work on being a united front now.

I've read all your comments thanks for the tips. I will definitely look into some of the sleep consultant recommendations if we don't manage to crack the sleep ourselves x

Brilliant job @upthewolves! This parenting malarky is a tough gig. Solidarity.

Well done OP and good to hear you're in more of a parenting team than a lone night shift worker now.
Best of luck going forward.

Fantastic!

I'm not sure if anyone will still see replies to this thread but just thought I'd update that we have done 4 nights and it is an absolute battle.

The first three nights he woke at 1, had a screaming fit and then eventually asked to go for a wee. DH took him and then he went back to sleep. The mornings (when I was always in his bed) are hard. He wakes at any time between 5 and half past, really sleepy and miserable, and we send him back to bed if gro clock isn't yellow. He comes back in every 10 mins or so to tell us what colour it is so has now lost that sleep and starts the day whenever he first wakes up.

Last night he woke at 11, 1 and 3 and had a meltdown each time. Huge sobs about wanting mummy. I ended up going in last night and hugging him, kissing him then walkjng out (but didn't get in his bed and left room while he was still awake each time). He was then up at 4.50 and I have been listening to him chatter in his bed for an hour now.

We are exhausted, feels like we have spent all night taking him back to bed. I know he is going to be shattered today and probably fall asleep when we go out which will then have knockon effect on tonight. Feeling pretty despondent as I am getting much less sleep than before we started.

Any tips? How long does it usually help to break these sleep 'habits'. As my son has never reliably slept through I'm wondering if maybe he just can't do it.

Behaviour in the day is also worse, just constant disciplining atm. Probably because he is tired though

Gosh. Right. What do I think... That's a tough one. But I think this is my view. First up, don't worry if he falls asleep in the car, let him catch up. Poor sleep effects behaviour, so help yourselves out. And also being overtired can make sleep worse because the body will release stress hormones that make him fight sleep. For this same reason, can you bring his bedtime forward a bit earlier to compensate for the early starts temporarily?

Then I think it's up to you and your partner to work out whether this is working for you. The advice I've had from sleep consultants (I've worked with one twice) is to stick with things for 2 weeks. But personally I think that you need to call it, do you think this is going to work?

Just to give an example. My daughter hit her sleep issues at age 4. The advice online was to return her to bed endlessly. However she's the most amazingly strong willed child. I spent hours every night doing this and i didn't like how it would make things physical, I would end up picking her up to return her to bed, she'd get more and more irrate, and eventually I'd lose my cool and either haul her downstairs for a bollocking or shut her in her room. It wasn't working for us. So I stopped. I worked with a sleep consultant who helped us come up with a psychological route.

Do you think this is the route to better sleep? How is your son feeling, is he protesting, cross, how are his levels of stubborn, do you need to keep consistent, and see it through, or is your son emotional, sensitive, upset, what are the alternatives you could try that would keep things calmer? Have you tried a reward system? Gradual retreat? Could you pop in to check him but not get stuck in there? Whatever you do, don't go back to how things were because that wasn't working for anyone either.

Just thinking what your toolkit could be...

What worked for my youngest at age 2 was classic ferber type timed checks. He wasn't necessarily crying but liked the reassurance of me popping back to check him. You could tell your lad you'll check up on him and you'll be really pleased if he's asleep before you come back.

Second one I can think of would be just sitting in with him to keep the calm, but then you need an exit strategy to reduce this input and ought to let your dh do at least 50/50 if not 100%.

Thirdly a reward system if he's open to bribery. You'll need some clear rules that he stands some chance of achieving such as going back to sleep when he wakes in the night and waiting for his clock, emphasis not on him sleeping through as that's not realistic at this age. I will admit that even at age 5.5 my daughter has a maoam sweet first thing in the morning if she sleeps through, which is about 4 times a week. Reward could work in conjunction with check ins.

I think I typed a post explaining bedtime tokens previously, but I'm not sure if he'll grasp it at 2.5.

I'll come back if I think of more... For now more tea required!!!

You are getting there, honestly

I know it doesn't feel like it but you are

You know you can't go back to the way it was - that was destroying you

Keep going. It will be worth it, I promise

Can you put on some soft music or am audio book to keep him in bed feeling more sleepy when he wakes too early? My daughter has a rock a by baby cd that plays xylophone versions of the Foo fighters!

Totally normal - when I did this with my 4 year old I put her back in her bed Over20 times on the first night. What you absolutely must not do now is go backwards, waver, compromise. That will send such mixed messages to your child and undermine any attempt fixing the problem. This is why most people use a sleep consultant- they keep you going and on plan. Sounds like you've done really well by yourselves. Don't give up at this point.

I would leave your dc with your dh or a grandparent (or both) and go away for a long weekend.

You have to withdraw from him, it won’t hurt him.