Pllllease help - bedtime has become a total nightmare - took 2.5 hours tonight

[yipeeforthesun]

DS has become a total nightmare to get to bed. Tonight it took 2.5 hours in the end which I just can't cope with anymore. I'm having our second DC in 7 weeks and I just need him to go to bed like he used to, so ANY advice please, i'm getting desperate. He will scream unless one of us is standing in his room but even if we stand in his room he won't go to sleep, we've tried playing music to him, settling him and then leaving and keep going back. Just seems that nothing is working and he is getting worse rather than better so it's not just a phase. Please can anyone offer any other suggestions we can try. Thanks

any more info: age of ds, when he changed, any factors, what was / now is bedtime routine?

how old is he

he is probably feeling unsettled and nervous, perhaps magnifying what you are feeling? ooh 'scuse the pun... anyway, one of these teddies went in his bed and the other went in mine. he cuddled it when he went to sleep on the understanding that I would have the twin bear. I'm trying to remember whether the teddy was "his" or "mine" - I have a funny feeling we told him to mind it for me so that it wouldn't get lonely. You get the gist.
Is he getting over-tired? They are all hot and grumpy in this weather and finding it hard to sleep even though they're completely exhausted, so don't feel like you are alone. We have just moved our whole bedtime routine half an hour earlier for this week - believe it or not my now 5yo ds2 suggested it, the poor sod's knackered!! Then they get a milky drink, two stories, then goodnight. Tonight there's a fan in the boys room as it is so sticky in there.

Sorry I should have given more info, i typed that last night when I was totally desperate... He is 22 months old and his bedtime routine has been the same forever really, he has supper, a bath, runs around for 5 mins after the bath, then pj's, books with DH, I say goodnight and we used to put him in cot and that was that but for about the last 2 months maybe a little longer it gets to the goodnight part and all hell breaks lose! I end up really dreading the evenings now as I know it is going to end up with hours of either screaming or one of us standing in his dark room while he doesn't want to go to sleep. I'm just getting really worried how I am going to cope with this and a newborn in 7 weeks time. Thanks for your suggestion gigglewitch, he has a teddy he likes and we have tried the approach of saying goodnight to the teddy and cuddling teddy so he can go to sleep but he just keeps picking him up to check if he is asleep!! I would so welcome ANY advice of what I can do. thanks

My DD's bed time has also gone a bit rubbish recently, she is also 22 months. We moved her into a big bed so we partly have ourselves to blame. If I can get her to sleep by 8.30 we're doing well.

I sit on a bean bag next to her bed, if she gets out of the bed I put her back in.

I bought this (Tomy starlight dreamshow - projects teddies on to the ceiling and plays twiddling nursery rhymes, for 10 minutes at a time) and it does entice her to get into bed - usually takes 3 x 10 minutes to get her to go off but we have a lot fewer tears.

Remember ds1 at a similar age inventing more and more complex bedtime routines (verging on obsessive compulsive behaviour). Coincidentally, 22 mths between ds1 and ds2.

By now your ds knows how to go to sleep on his own, so I think you (or your dh if you're too soft - I was) need to brazen it out and let your ds know that bedtime routine is going to be curtailed.

I'd get rid of the running around after bath - do it before. And check that dh is very calm at bedtime book time. Dull books, even the same one for weeks on end if necessary, to get the routine in your ds's head.

let him choose light on/off and music or quiet, but he can't keep changing his mind or his bedroom environment. Good luck.

And remember, you'll be too busy with ds2/dd1 to keep going back to ds1 in a few weeks time, so it will work out somehow!

Back molars making an appearance?