18 month old suddenly refusing to go in his cot - why oh why??

[ceebee74]

DS has always slept well - he has gone down for naps awake since he was very little and for the last few months, we have been able to put him down awake at bedtime and he has gone to sleep without any fuss (before that, he was falling asleep on our bed with me next to him then I moved him into his cot). He has generally slept through more often than not since a very early age - but these last 3 weeks, things have gone pear-shaped and he screams whenever we put him in his cot for naps and bedtime - I have no idea why.

Is this a normal phase at this age and what should I do?

Bump

how old is he?

He is 18 months old

Hi, I've no answer for you but my almost 11 mo ds started doing this a few weeks sgo after being a generally fine sleeper. He now only goes to sleep on top of me or dh then we have to put him in his cot. He's started wakening twice in the night and will not be soothed back to sleep unless practically attached to me or in our bed, arrgh!

In ds case I think its a mixture of teething and separation anxiety, and hope its just a phase - which it possibly is for your ds.

Do they not start to realise that they can have some control of what they do at around 18 mo / 2 years? Maybe this is the case with your ds and he's deciding he doesn't want to sleep / be in his cot?

I've tried shh / pat with ds, going back in every 5 mins but he just cries and cries until I pick him up. I'm now sitting with him on my lap in his room until he falls asleep and put him in his cot, and try to avoid taking him back to my bed during the night - much as I quite like it I want my bed back!

I read somehere, Dr Sears?, that the best thing is to restart whatever you did at the stage you and ds were happiest at and work from there with gradual retreat over a period of weeks. - e.g. go back to letting him fall asleep next to you and then put him in cot in same room as you and stay till he falls asleep, then gradually move away then out of the room, then put him in own room when he is comfy being on his own.
Hope this makes sense, sure there is advice out there that will work for you. I just keep repeating to myself that it won't last forever

My DS hated his cot from the start and by about 10 months old was so determined not to sleep in it we let him sleep in his Travel Cot.

He always slept so soundly in it while we were away we gave it a go.

Maybe it was the soft sides he liked - or maybe he was just being awkward.

He went into a bed quite early because of this - at about 20 months in fact - with a thingy to stop him falling out.

It wasn't the ideal answer but it worked for us (and more importantly him).

Mine is the same age and about 2 or 3 weeks ago started hating being put in the cot too.

We have dealt with it by not forcing the issue. If she doesn't want to go to bed she doesn't have to. If she's happy with that we're happy(ish). If she's tired and grizzy and obviously does need sleep, we either cuddle her to sleep or play for 10 minutes and then try again (and again and again... no stress though, just a laid back, calm approach and if she still screams at cot approach we don't force it).

It seems to have worked and she's going down fairly easily again now. I am starting to believe that everything they do is a phase and you can either rail against it, or relax and wait until they move onto the next thing.

Quite possibly teething. It's the right sort of age to start getting canines or even back molars, which can be pretty traumatic coming through for some.

Thanks for the replies.

Florence - if DS was teething, would this not affect him during the day? He is such a happy toddler up until the minute we try and put him back in his cot.

We have tried the falling asleep on our bed with me next to him and that worked fine (although not ideal) up until 2 nights ago when even if he appeared to be in the deepest sleep, his eyes popped open and the screaming started as soon as he saw I was moving him into his cot!

Last night, I ended up leaving him in the cot to cry as I was so frustrated - he fell asleep after screaming for 5 minutes and we didn't hear a peep from him all night - but boy do I feel guilty this morning and think that he will hate me if I carry on doing that.

we've had great success with adding toys to my son's cot. He plays with his stuffed animals as he falls asleep and it's made him much happier about bed time (he's 18 months too). We tried letting him sleep with his beloved football for a while but he would wake up in the night and heave it out of the cot and the noise kept waking us up!