18 month old HOWLING at bedtime

[Fluffypeach]

My sweet little 18 month old DD cut her first 4 molars all at once about a month ago and ever since is a NIGHTMARE to get to bed.

I have tried everything from just putting her to bed and walking straight out to spending quite a bit of time reading books and cuddling beside her bed and no matter what I do she is sobbing when I go to leave the room.

I have now mainly just left her to cry (she's not hysterical by any means but I feel horrible about it) and normally within 10 mins she has stopped but after a few weeks of this i expected this phase to have passed, sigh.

I'm thinking separation anxiety but what can I do to help this? If i go back in after a while and try to leave again it's back to square one!

Oh this is horrid - and in this heat too.

I found that my toddlers were essentially random, when it came to things like this. One thing would happen - like teething or a cold - and they’d be seemingly permanently knocked off their routine.

What worked (sometimes) was bringing bedtime forward a hour, for a while. This meant they didn’t get so tired they resisted sleep. Of course, it could all go horribly whiny and toddler might just scream for an extra hour… I promise it gets better.

Thanks for your reply! Yes it is awful and the heat definitely isn't helping! Will try to juggle bedtime around a bit and hope it passes!