For the last two weeks, he has refused to nap at home and it takes him 2 hours to wind down to fall asleep. If we end bath time at 7:30 p.m., he's usually asleep by 9:30 or so. Tonight it went as late as 10 p.m. And he was up at 5:30 this morning.
From my research online and from talking to parents with other 2 year olds, this doesn't appear to abnormal, but MacTroll and I do find it frustrating. X-man wants to lie in a big bed with us to fall asleep, except when he's in the big bed, he does everything NOT related to sleeping.
We've tried some classical music, like they use during naptime at school. We've gotten him a soft Bob the Builder and Thomas to sleep with and chat with. We've tried talking to him about how if he stays in bed, we're happy to leave the door open.
But I fear, what this comes down to is me erecting a baby gate at the door and telling X-man that he's got to stay in his room. And I hate to do that after 2.3 years of him going to bed so well. But 2-2.5 hours at bedtime is really hard. It leaves no energy left in MacTroll or I to get other stuff done (dishes, laundry, etc.) that usually gets done when X-man goes to sleep.
We even ran him ragged from 6 p.m. until 7:15 p.m. at the park. He took a nice bath and got his two bedtime stories. So, I'm just at a loss as to what the change could be besides some kind of mental or physical development going on. Any child development experts out there?
6 comments:
Let me know if you get any good advice. Bubba isn't nearly as extreme as X, but it's definitely taking longer and we're getting more protests about bedtime than normal. And it's not being in a new house, because he started this at the s-hole.
But he's also still in his crib, so we've got it easier than you. So no advice - just a sympathetic nod.
I'd say normal, because we've gone through it too. We did put a gate up and it seemed to help for awhile, then Henry discovered he could vault over it. Henry has never been an easy sleeper. We have given up for now and we all three lie down between 7 and 8 in our bed until he goes to sleep. Bob might get back up while I tend to get up at 5 and do dishes or sort the mail.
No advice but I'm sure it is normal. Rowan was an AWFUL sleeper until about 2.5yrs he spent some part of every night in our bed, cause I was too tired to fight him. He now finally goes to bed and sleeps all night in his bed! Good luck, hopefully it is just a short phase!
WW has the same issues. She used to be such a good sleeper and then we moved to toddler bed since she was scaling crib walls. Even in the beginning of toddler bed she went right down. Now I have to talk up bedtime for at least an hour, read about 5 books, put on soft music and give her ump-teen warnings about getting out of her bed but it doesn't help.
She always gets up and we have to put the gate up for her own safety. I don't want her wandering around the house while I'm not watching her. Usually while the gate is up she destroys her room so maybe you have that to look forward to (lol)
Hang in there...this is totally normal. We went through this w/ Bug - to the Nth degree. (Examples of failed attempts to keep a 2 yr old in his toddler bed/room: 2 baby gates stacked on top of each other in the door, bungee-corded the door closed, we removed everything from his room except his bed, we slept on the floor/chair, crawled out on our hands and knees, we tried soft music, timers, dim lights, etc.) I'm considering buying a dog kennel for Amelia.
But the real story is...You're little man is discovering that he actually does have some control over his body and his life. He has discovered that mommy putting him in his bed does not always equal night-night time. I recommend working your way through the list of recommended bedtime suggestions/routines (to give yourself the illusion of trying to solve the problem): i.e. music, soft light, songs, checking in after 5 min, etc. But the bottom line is he is going to find a different way to beat the system...It might help you to consider 8-10pm as lesson time. He is learning how to control his body, manipulating outcomes, testing parental limits, etc. The good news is, eventually he will grow out of it, try to be as consistant as possible and one day you will realize that he's back to his good old sleepy self...except now he's doing [insert new annoying habit].
Agreed with all of the above. The Boy was the world's best sleeper (has been from day one) so we never had any issues with him. Ms Thang has never been a good sleeper and that "2 year old bedtime BS just put us over the edge" I would lay down in her bed with her until she fell asleep. It started taking longer and longer each night until most nights I just fell asleep and several hours later (because she couldn't get out and had nothing better to do) I would wake up to find her asleep. This sucked for many reasons. It meant she wasn't able to fall back to sleep on her own the many many times she woke up each night, it meant I spent a fair amount of time sleeping on the worlds most uncomfortable mattress and I meant I never did anything in the evenings.
Eventually, I started setting a timer for how long I would lay down with her. Then I would scoot to the end of the bed and sit there until she fell asleep. When she got used to that, I set the timer and then sat on the floor next to the bed. And so on until I left the room. She hates having the bedroom door shut so all I had to do was threaten to shut the door and she tended to stay in bed. Of course, then her klepto habits kicked in and we ended up with a gate anyway.
Good luck helping X-man to get some sleep.
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