Is it possible for a 2 year old to have a bed/sleep phobia?

[fizzbuzz]

Dd will not settle at night. This has been going on for about 3 1/2 months and is getting worse.

Last night she was screaming until 11.00pm. She was put to bed at 6.30 to give her time to settle Four and a half hours later.....She is hysterical, I am shaking and dp is exhausted.

We have tried everything, calmly returning her to bed, wind down time, stories etc. She has a good bedtime routine, but this just seems to alert her to the fact she is going to bed.

As nothing seems to work, is it possible she has developed some sort of phobia about it all, and if so what on earth do we do?

We can't carry on like this, she is so tired she is hardly functioning. Medised works, but makes her really unbearable the next day

Can anyone advise or help, am dreading tonight. She is 2.2 btw, and has always been an awkward sleeper, as many threads on here will attest to

Having 7 children, we have never come across this problem I'm glad to say.

We generally keep the kids downstairs until they're tired rather than putting them to bed hours before they're ready to even think of going to sleep.

How about keeping her downstairs with you, until say about 8:30 - 9:30 pm.....?? you may think that's way too late for her at her age, but if it means she goes to sleep rather than being hysterical in the early hours - you will have solved the problem.

We have NEVER botheres with wind-downs, bedtime stories, games or any such nonsense....to our way of thinking it only creates problems by 'fussing' at bedtime.

We reserve playtime for daytime...and for our 7 its worked.

Good luck..hope it helps xx

At this age any daytime sleep meant DD wouldn't settle at night -even a 10 minute nap put normal bedtime back from 7 until 9 or later (even if she was tired). We used to adjust her bedtime accordingly, otherwise it would be exactly as you describe. Without a day time sleep she would be shattered by 4, but go straight off at bed time. I think this all happened when she reached 2- before that she could have loads of sleep in the day and it made no difference to going off at night. Its hard though - coping with the serious grumps for about 3 hours in the afternoon. Good luck

Go with interflora's ideas?

You are not getting an evening anyway are you?

Try putting bedtime back until 10-10.30pm for a week or two to get good settling habits.

Then work on bringing it forward by 10-15 mins a week to a more reasonable time.

You will prob then find her natural "drop off easily" time - but I hope it's not 10.30pm!

And how about story tapes? Either shop ones or ones you have recorded yourself (she can then listen to your voice when you are not there).

agree with nomorelostweekends - you need to drop the nap - she isn't OVER TIRED, she is just NOT tired IMO

I would start by cutting the nap back to 45 minutes, then see how that goes

dropping the nap is hard work (for you mainly) but I bet will result in earlier bedtimes overall

I also agree that I would keep evenings quiet but there is no point putting her to bed at 6.30 - leave it until 8 or 9ish if she is still awake. Wait until she is exhibiting signs of tiredness e.g. yawning and then start your bedtime routine - even if that is at 8 or 9 pmish

It will take a while to address it but you are letting her nap in the day when she doesn't need it, IMO

Tink slept with her dad last night, I went to my parents so I could have a full nights sleep. She slept through but always does when she's cosleeping.

Why not just let her co-sleep for a while? One of you sleep in her bed. It isn't forever. But if you are all getting a solid night's sleep with this arrangement, I would continue it for a bit. It isn't forever.

Tinkerbells mum: I don't mean to be harsh, but drugging your child to sleep on her own, when she will sleep perfectly well in bed with you, is a really bad idea. She doesn't have sleep problems per se - she just doesn't want to sleep by herself. Drugging her to sleep won't encourage her to sleep by herself.

we have had this with ds1. some night she's ok some nights he comes down with us around 2am. we have a dusk to dawn nightlight that he loves and also a ladybird that shines stars onto the walls and ceiling. and also bunny and monkey that he sleeps with. all have been introduced gradually and he is generally much better.

sympathies - i know how tough it is, and totally agree with all the advice about dropping nap, bed later to start off with etc.

we also don't really have a wind-down - it's bath then into bed!

Fizzbuzz, mine has this problem too - wants me in the room but can't settle if I'm there. I think getting them into the habit of lying quietly while you stay, and going if they wriggle, is the way forward, but have only managed it once or twice! How about cutting nap once or twice and seeing if you can score an early bedtime to catch up, to break the routine? Story CD? (would send mine wild I know) Glowstars on the wall? Leaving the room for 'just one minute' and keep on coming back (extending the intervals with lots of praise for lying still) til you've tricked her into dozing off? I do feel for you, this is a horrible one - holidays messed us up too, last year and this!

Sorry to hear you're going through this, fizzbuzz. You must be feeling exhausted, physically and emotionally.

I'd second the scrap-the-nap advice. DS started to drop his at around two, but I didn't realise; I thought all kids napped until they were three or four, so this couldn't be happening! So he kept napping, and then going to bed later and later for a few exhausting months until it dawned on me. We dropped the nap, and he'd go straight to sleep between 7 and 8pm and sleep all night. We also found the transition fine - no tough tired spells later in the day. A few years on, if he has even a 20-minute afternoon doze now, it'll put bedtime back by a few hours. It isn't worth it.

And I'm with morningpaper on the cosleeping front. It isn't forever, and it can be quite lovely, providing you all have enough space.

If staying in with DD all night doesn't appeal, can you at least lay quietly with her until she settles? I've been doing this with DS (4) for the past couple of years, which has been an unsettling time for him. Providing they're tired out, it only takes about 10 minutes for them to fall asleep. And as they get older, you can reason more: I now read a book next to DS with a dim light on, or listen to a CD, and he nods off next to me. He knows I'm staying in there for him to go to sleep - faffing about isn't allowed. It's a nice bit of time for me, too. He's also increasingly fine with me popping out of the room to do some housework; he's becoming more secure.

The primary objective here is that you all get a good night's sleep with minimal (ideally no) distress. It doesn't matter that much how you achieve it.

HTH. Wishing you all some sound sleep soon.

my 2 yo (25 months) is the same...he has just started this awful won't go in his bed thing...and also an habitual wake at 2am, where he won't get back to sleep unless its in with us...and then if i move him while he sleeps, he wakes the moment we get into his room....

in my experience, i think if we sort his evening out, by getting him to settle himself to sleep in his bed again in the evening, then i'm hoping he'll be able to resettle himself when he wakes in the night....

take comfort in the fact you are not alone!

I agree with the co sleeping idea. We did this with DD at about the same age.. we put her in our bed - some nights it did take an hour or more of her messing before she settled down. I just lay really still with eyes closed until she was sound asleep but after a week or so, it took about 10 mins tops and then I'd sneak downstairs.. we did this for about a year until her understaning was better and she actually transferred to her own bed pretty easily at age 3.5. We now co sleep with ds whi is 1.5 and will continue to do so until he is 3 ish (or wants his own bed if that is sooner). Actually I love co sleeping.. with ds he is fast asleep within about 5 mins now so it realy doesn't affect our evenings at all,, plus he always goes to sleep with a smile on his face!

Sorry but I completely disagree with dropping the nap. She is too young to go 12 hrs with no sleep and I always found overtiredness made my DD's sleep worse at night. DD2 was a nightmare to put to bed but with a nap and slightly later bedtime of 8pm she was tired enough by the hour and calm from earlier sleep. The sleep chemicals toddlers produce (as heard from Robert Winston) are probably not kicking in at 6:30 because it is still daytime at 6:30.

farfaraway I disagree with your post

Both of mine dropped their day-time nap around 18 months - it is quite common.

The sleep chemicals toddlers produce (as heard from Robert Winston) are probably not kicking in at 6:30 because it is still daytime at 6:30.

Eh? Mine are now 3 and 6 are are both asleep by 7pm - regardless of time of year.

I wonder if it would be possible for you to move her bed/cot into your room??

Our children slept in our bedroom until around 3 years...maybe that's the solution?

As for allowing or not allowing her to have daytime naps......I honestly would not interfere at all with that, so as not to make a fuss of it, which she will definitely react to!

If she sleeps in your bed, then its quite likely that she'll sleep in her bed in your room - worth a try? if all else fails - how about getting a single bed and place it next to yours? So she will feel as if she's in 'your' bed, but in fact, will be in her own!

As for lights/nightlights etc. we do not leave lights on in bedrooms - we leave landing light on all night, and the bedroom doors are open.

Really feel for you, its must be so tiring for you.

But I honestly feel that the more you make of this, the longer it will continue....I definitely would not bother with playing music/cd's etc. or altering anything other than moving her bed into your room if its possible to do so. And rather than buying a new 'unfamiliar' teddy, I would rather give her one that she already owns and has already made 'friends' with!!

Up to you of course, as no matter how much well meant advice you get on here, only you know your little girl at the end of the day.

Hope you get it sorted out soon, so all three of you can have a much deserved nights' sleep!!

Good Luck x

DS1 has been difficult since March. We are still doing repetition and sometimes get imrprovement...then regression!

Maybe to nap or not to nap is not the question - its adapting bedtime according to whether LO has napped or not that might help. It might be that a nap and 6.30/7.00 bedtime in combination is contributing? If her 'natural' falling asleep time is later on days she's had a nap, by the time she gets to that point she might be too worked up to sleep, so misses her 'window' so to speak.

Regarding your original question, i doubt its a true 'phobia' - i would expect that to impact on any sleeps in the same place, not just at night time. Sounds horribly stressful though and to that extent i guess DD might be getting a bit anxious because its got a bit stressful for everyone. Really hope things get better soon.

fizzbuzz, have't had time to read allthe thread but huge sympathies. I think you probbly should drop her reduce her nap but if thigns are still difficult, these are the things that worked for us:

Quick return: I would pop out to get the fairy dust. First night I was literally gone for 10 seconds to get a spray bottle of water with a few drops of lavender in it. Spray that on her pillow. Then take it back to the fairies for her cousins. Again, only left her for 10 seconds. Then I would pop out again to the loo, back really quickly. Over the period of a week or so (although the no cry sleep solution where this was taken from says it could take weeks) I lengthened the time I was away until one night, I left her for 20 minutes and when I got back, she was asleep.

I also put on story CD for her or a tape of lullabies and brought her a nightlight that she could cuddle that changes colours.

She went from being an absolute horror to being put to bed, given a kiss goodnight and left to fall asleep. I have my evenings back and its amazing.

The other thing is we moved the story telling to the living room rather than her bedroom. THat way she couldn't keep asking for another one - the bedroom is for sleeping and listening to CDs on her own. Not with me.

Sorry its a bit garbled, in a rush but wanted to post. We still use the fairy dust but now she says "go and get the fairy dust mummy" which is my cue to leave because she wants to go to sleep.

Fizzbuzz, I'm sorry for your problems. My Lo is a cruddy sleeper too but wakes in the small hours after settling easily.

I was, according to my mum, a TERRIBLE sleeper at two and my parents caved in and allowed me to stay up with them until relatively late. T
hey ignored me as much as possible while I played with toys. I then settled easily when really tired out. it was only a temporary phase.

Could you try something similar?

We are having the same problems and I think it maybe the nap thing. I am so reluctant to drop it as I was hoping he would keep it up for another year at least .

It sounds like she is falling asleep for her nap with no problem because she's exhausted but then not tired enough at night. Try dropping it or limiting it and see what happens. DS didn't sleep at Nursery on Tuesday for the first time (not sure why) and was asleep by 8. We give bath at 7, then stories. I think 6:30 maybe a little too early, especially in summer.

I've also found things are much worse if we stay in the room. We have a stairgate at his bedroom door and leave him to it. I go back every 10-15 minutes or so but eventually he gets bored and puts himself back in bed. The whole rapid return idea just turned into an elaborate game.

I'm waffling now!

Has she got a light? I didn't want night lights, but it reduced the problem for us.

DS still naps at 2.4 (45mins, very physical child) and a friends DS still naps at 3.2. I think the nap thing varies greatly between children, but is worth a try.

I tried reducing DS's nap, but it made no difference to night time and led to a grouchy run up to bedtime.

DS has alsways gone to bed late compared to friends, but this means he does sleep. He goes to bed at 8pm after bath, story and milk.

My dd 2y also going through this after a great track record. Take heart you are not alone. I know it feels like it with a screaming toddler all evening!
Things that have worked for us, stick with usual routine. Bath, story bed. Now I sit by her bed pretending to be asleep until she is asleep. If she gets up or plays/talks I leave the room and wait till she is ready for me to come back. Then we wait it out till she is asleep. Also sticker /reward chart proving helpful.

i still try to get an afternoon nap for myself but do stay up late... DH is out early in the day and home late at night so this routine works for us. hopefully i can get new one on the same schedule. would hate to miss my afternoon naps.

My two and a half year old is also in the process of dropping his nap. But he does sometimes drop off in his pushchair at around 3pm. Then he's in and out of bed like a yo-yo.

Put him down last night and ran myself a bath. Knock at the door and a low voice saying can I come in.

"Coming darling," I said hastily putting down book (cursing DH for disturbing me again) and unlocking door.

No DH - looked down and there was DS beaming. Marched him back to bed uttering all sorts of threats. But secretly wondering at his powers of imitation (and my failure to distinguish between 45-year old man and tiny boy).

I personally don't think that medicating your two year-old is a good idea. Better to try some routine changes before heading down that route. I have never had sleep issues with my two (other issues, of course!) I am very strict though as my H and I need and appreciate our couple time in the evening.

I would second dropping the day time sleep. A nice relaxing wind-down, bath, milk drink story and cuddle all lovely things. Kiss and cuddle and good night and that's it. What kind of attention is she getting from you while all this is going on?
Gradual withdrawl could be a good start, could you not just sit in the room, look away no eye contact etc? Or controlled crying if you are up to the task.

This will be a hard habit to break at this age but you need to really try hard or it will just be the same/worse in three, six months or a year and the effect of no ''couple time will be damaging to your relationship with your partner.