Help - Bedtime Nightmare!

[Megaannn]

My LO will be 2 in November and about 3 weeks ago we moved her from her cot to a 'big girl bed'.

Prior to this, she would sleep like a dream. We would put her to bed around 8pm, she would self settle herself and sleep 12 hours minimum through the night.

This was also the case for the first week or so in the big girl bed however, it has now turned a corner and we are getting NO sleep. We have to sit with her until she falls asleep, if she hears us move she is hysterical crying and if she wakes in the middle of the night she is inconsolable.

When we are in her room she will stay in bed but if we aren't she gets out to find us.

Is this separation anxiety (which is not an issue during the day at all) or is it because we have changed her bed? Can someone please give me ANY advice on what to do as I am honestly at my wits end!!! Especially having such a fantastic sleeper before!

We are having similar issue but removing dummy seems to have been the trigger. Was hoping some one would have replied to your message. Did it get better ?

Hey!

So it was VERY painful for a week or two but I eventually followed super nanny’s advice and did the below:

• first time she got out of bed, take her back and say nicely ‘it’s bedtime, mummy will see you in the morning, night night’ and the usual going to bed speech.
• second time she got out of bed, take her back and say sternly ‘it’s bedtime’
• everytime after that don’t speak at all and just put her back in her bed

she would continue to get out of bed honestly about 30 times but eventually gave up and went to sleep. If she woke in the middle of the night I would repeat the above.

eventually I was at breaking point and decided to get a cheap stair gate to go over her door so she couldn’t get out (knowing she was safe) and repeated the process for 2/3 nights. After the third night, she climbed into her bed herself at bedtime and was sleeping all night again!

I did also introduce stickers so if she slept all night and went to bed well she would get a sticker in the morning!

I’m really glad things have improved for you.

You know when you would take them back to bed, what would they do ? My LO just gets right back up and I think it would literally be up and down for hours on end

Yeah she was the same and it was very difficult to keep my calm and continue putting her back into bed 638292 times.

supernanny also said to double the time between going through to put them back in the bed so first of all do it straight away, then after 1 minute, then after 2, then after 4, then after 8 etc.

this worked for us!

Hi @Megaannn
when did you start noticing improvement ? Were on night 3 and we’re down to one wake up but it’s a bad one, screaming, crying etc, I put her back in bed she goes like jelly and gets back out so as long as she is in her room I’m leaving her for a few mins, she eventually will get in bed but after a huge fuss, just not sure I’m going this right. I sit outside her room, repeat it’s night time go back to bed, when she eventually lies down and settles I give her a kiss and cuddle before she goes to sleep, as I don’t want things ending on such a negative note. So far, once she settles, she has gone to sleep and stayed asleep (after about an hours battle). I’m definitely going to jinx that haha, currently in this process and she’s been sat up in bed the last 10 mins

Maybe she's just not ready. My son ended up staying in his cot until nearly 3. He'd climb out of.the bed into his cot. He later said he was frightened of his duvet cover as it had a large picture of Thomas the tank on it.