19month old clingy non sleeper

[fio2]

ds is driving me mad he has always had a good bedtime routine bath, story, milk, falls asleep put him up to bed. But just lately it doesnt matter how asleep he is -he still jumps up wide awake as soon as he is in his cot. I am having real trouble settling him, so much so I have given up and let him sleep in my bed. This is ok in the week as dh works away but dh is back tommorrow and hes going to go mad. ds is also going through a very clingy stage at the moment wondered if this had anything to do with it?

Any suggestions would be appreciated to nip this in the bud, thanks.

Hi fio2

This just sounds like my ds who is also 19 months old. He will not go to bed before 10pm and won't go into his cot until he is absolutely fast asleep. Then when he wakes a few hours later he has to come into our bed with us and won't entertain going back into the cot. The problem is with him is that he doesn't sleep in our bed properly, he just thrashes around and nobody gets any proper sleep. My dh has to get up at 5.30am and me an hour later, so we aren't surviving very well at the moment!

I hope someone out there can help us!

Can't help you unfortunately, as I am quite a "selfish" mum who, once bed time arrives, nothing on earth stops it happening.

I have never put any of my children in their cot/bed already asleep - they have always been aware of being put in their moses basket/crib/cot/bed awake and have to get off to sleep themselves.

Some people enjoy having their children sleeping with them - I never have ... I am a selfish person who needs their sleep and can't bear the thought of having a disturbed night with my child in bed with me, although saying that some people seem to enjoy it.

If I was in your position, even now, I would knock it on the head - you may have a week or so of "bad bed times" and it depends whether you want to put up with this.

The only time I am every a bit complaisant (checked dictionary for correct spelling/meaning) is when they are ill, poorly, upset, etc. but the still never get out of bed/cot.

I am quite a laid back mum (or so my friends tell me) but not when it comes to bedtime - I need my time/space and have never had more than one bad night when one of the children has been poorly.

You poor things. We went through something very similar when ds2 was 20 months. He had been a model sleeper (apart from early mornings) till then - would go into his cot for his nap and at night with no problem and could be left quite happily till he fell asleep. Then suddenly he needed me or dh to sit in his room or just outside his open door till he fell asleep - which seemed to take forever. He also woke every night crying until we took him into bed with us. If we didn't he was hurling himself out the cot. However 4 months on and we are now back to normal. The only thing we did was night by night go slightly further away while he was going to sleep (on some occasions this meant sitting at the top of the stairs eating my dinner so it didn't go cold !) As long as (at first) he could see us, and then later hear us he was reassured and eventually went to sleep. At the end - this went on for 5 or 6 weeks - we just had to call back upstairs "night-night- go to sleep" when he called out to us. It was the same for waking in the night. We would get him to lie back down and then sit/stand with him, each night a bit further away. Eventually he did stop waking, or if he did wake, he obviously went back to sleep himself as he had always done in the past. Now he is completely back to normal and I had forgotton all about the episode until i read your postings. I do know though that at the time it seems like it would never stop.

Was there any trigger for the change in behaviour. i wa pretty sure my ds was upset after an ear infection and as it had hurt to lay down while the ear was infected he may have got it into his head it was going to hurt again.