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

Forgot to mention is your getting exercise every day, running around, fresh air etc? They do need it.

I was going to suggest leaving her door open. It worked wonders for my dd who also had trouble settling ( and i can sympathise with the over tired hysteria too, and the farting about if you stay in the room with them!) amzingly she didn't see it as an open invitation to wonder through to the living room, she really does 'stay put', but she can see and hear us moving about which reassures her. other idea, if you've room, might be having a spare mattress in the room which you can pull out and lie down on, and play dead (as one other poster mentioned) until she settles. Good luck, it really is a proper pita when they won't settle

oops i meant wander

Hi fizzbuzz, I really feel for you. I am lucky that both my DDs are good sleepers (2.4 yrs and 4 months old). On the rare occasion they don't sleep well I always wonder how on earth people with poor sleepers cope.

Anyway, I am currently reading an excellent book all about sleep, it may be able to help you. I know it's not a quick fix but it might help you long term if you say she has always been problematic with sleeping??

fabulous book all about sleep Only £7.49 incl P&P!!!

The book strongly advocates making sure they get enough naps in the day so that they are not overtired when they go to bed, so I really wouldn't think about dropping the day time nap tbh.

As an example, my DD1 who is only a couple of months older than your DD, sleeps for 2 hrs in the day. She goes to bed between 6-7pm (5:45pm tonight cos she was so tired!!!) I realise this is probably more than the average 2 yr old (from talking to friends).

How good is her vocab? Could she tell you if she was having bad dreams or anything??

I have only skim read the whole thread so sorry if I have repeated anything anyone else has said.

My DD has just turned 4 and has the same 3 lullabies every night, 'sung' by yours truly , followed by a backward countdown from 99 to zero. Providing she's not nodded off during the day, she's usually sparko by the end of our little routine.

PS - don't for Gawd's sake try knocking her out with Piriton. I resorted to it in sheer desperation when DD was having an awkward phase a few months back , as I could put it in the mint/yogurt dip she likes and she can detect every other medicine going. I have never seen her so hyper, it was truly horrendous!

Well, thanks for all the posts There are loads of ideas

Naps have been dropped, but she still mangages to sneak 1/2 an hour in here and there.

Sitting with her makes her giddy. Lying with her does the same (unless it is the middle of the night when she comes into our bed, so we do co-sleeping there)
Sitting outside her door keeps her trotting in and out of her room, and trying to have conversations even if you ignore her
Shutting the gate (yes we have resorted to this) on her door, involves her screaming until she is sick
Light on can help, or not dependng on mood
She has lullabies
She has been marched in and out of her room at leat a zillion times over the last few months, quitely, calmly with no response.

Horrible grizzly bad tempered dd was put in bed at 7.00pm. Still screaming away upstairs.

Dp wants to drop her nap, I feel less convinced, she is just so tired and awful ATM. She seems to ne like me in pesonality, and I when I get overtired, I get really giddy, and find it impossibe to get to sleep

She always seems to fall asleep about 9.00pm. I am interested in the prospect of putting her to bed later. But when she falls asleep at 9.00 she is always tired next day (we get up about 7.30am). However at weekend she will sleep to about 8.30 am-9.00am. So she still needs 12 hours somewhere.

Total confusion and chaos in this houshold ATM.

My DD2 (24months) is a problem sleeper too, so complete sympathy to you.
She does still nap, but more than an hour and we are in trouble at night.
No amount of routine negates a bad night, BUT lots of fresh air during the day and a (very) cool bedroom at night seems to help. Or if we are fed up of putting her back into bed we just let her sit on the settee with us without paying her much attention and she generally falls asleep quite quickly. Then we can carry her upstairs without waking her.
We do have more good nights than bad now, and it is improving all the time, so hang in there and keep going with the mantra " This won't last forever. This won't last forever." Unclench teeth and repeat until you believe it.

It does sound like your dd's body clock is on a 9pm-9am cycle. Maybe you should go with this this weekend, then gradually bring sleep time earlier during the week (say 15mins every few days) until it's at a more acceptable time for you. Remember the clocks go back end of october so a 9pm bedtime then will miraculously become 8pm. you should leave her daytime nap for now (but don't extend it to compensate for lost hours of sleep and hopefully she'll be so tired from going to bed a 9 and getting up at 7.30am that it won't be too difficult to bring bedtime forward, gradually).
I think the key is to believe that something will work (really hard i know)and to consistently apply whatever you decide, even if it apperars to not be working, for at least a week - 10 days. Trying to change sleep habits isn't easy and may take a while but if you are consistent then it will hopefully eventually work. Good Luck!!

Are things any better fizzbuzz?

Yay, clocks going back, forgot about that, that will help loads, although normally hate dark nights.

Dp hit upon putting her to bed later, and going with it instead of strssing. Did this, and she was asleep but 8.45pm. Time not much better, but no screaming and lots less stress all round. She will just have to stay tired until we can change her body clock.

Dp is an owl (late to bed,late to get up, so perhaps she is like him)

I am having similar problems with 18 month old. Tired but won't go to sleep. I read that daytime sleeps of 2 hours approx are good but never after 3.30 in order to ensue that 7pm ish sleep wasn't disrupted. Can't understand why she isn't dropping on her feet!

my 18 mth old was also taking hours to fall asleep. We tried everthing,except medication but it was all getting extremely stressful and knackering 4 all. For last 2 wks she has not napped in the day,just wouldnt go,but remained busy and cheerful all day. Guess what? She has fallen asleep instantly, with a smile around 7p.m for a blissful 12hrs. Last night it was 6.30pm til 7.30am.