Bedtime regression

[sarahandeddie]

Avery has been pretty good about staying in bed once she's been tucked in since we moved in June. Then in the past two weeks she's suddenly getting up 10+ times and taking over 2 hours to get to sleep. Since DH works nights I'm on my own to deal with it and I'm at my wits end. I even tried bribing her tonight and it didn't work. I have no idea what has caused this suddenly change or what to do to get back into our routine. Anyone else going through this? Any suggestions?

[barefoot84]

Welcome to the "sit on the floor with your child till they fall asleep club"! I really wish I had advice for you, but all I have is empathy.

[cbear]

Yes! Elise has been doing this for the past two weeks or so and it's just now getting a little better. I've tried a few things: bribes and threats telling her she can't go to school since she's not being a big girl lol. What really helped though is I taped a calendar page on her wall and every night that she stays in bed she gets a sticker! She loves stickers so she's fine with just that but you could also say if she gets 5 in a row she gets a toy.

I also told her she doesn't have to sleep she can sit quietly on her bed but it is quiet time and she usually ends up passing out within 10 minutes.

Good luck it's been ridiculously frustrating!!

[Riverdong11]

I'm still trying to figure out a solution. Liam started doing this back in March. Sorry I can't offer more than comradarie.

[bliz1712]

Hanna has her moments, but I can usually bribe her. Some nights are really great, like last night where she doesn't get up once and goes in without a fight. Then some nights she just fights or throws fits and then comes out every 15 minutes. On the nights that I can't I just have to wait to go to bed until she finally stays in bed to go to sleep. I think it's mostly the age and testing their boundaries and trying to get away with whatever they can.

We have incorporated glow sticks into our routine. We have discussed that if she is good about getting into bed then she gets a glow stick. I bought a ton at the dollar store and a bulk pack at Walmart. They are so cheap and they seem to occupy her or something just enough to keep her in her bed and for her to go to sleep. She also has a flashlight and is usually allowed a toy in her bed. Also, we play a Dora DVD every night that has 44 short songs that distracts her. Otherwise we just deal with whatever excuse she comes up with: drink, potty, hungry, music. Also, sometimes talking about what's going to happen tomorrow will convince her to go to sleep. EX. on Saturday we discuss that we get to go to Sunday School and then she's excited to go to bed.

She also fights naps just the same!  And then in the morning she fights waking up!

[summergirl1211]

Ugh, I've got nothing. Riley's awful during bedtime and MOTN. Luckily my H is willing to sit with her until she goes to sleep and then sleeps next to her when she wakes up MOTN. If we don't, she freaks out and destroys her room. We are determined to "fix it" when we move next month, but I have no idea how we're going to do it.

If someone would have told me my kid would sleep better at 6 months than 3 years, I would have laughed in their faces.

[roo1582]

Kayleigh begs us to stay with her pretty much every night. It takes her forever to actually go to sleep because everything is a fight about how she is scared of the shadows, she wants water, to read more books, etc. I've been really enforcing not staying in the room with her to get her to sleep because she will wake up in the middle of the night. If you aren't still on her floor, she comes to our room to make us go back in there. But again, she freaks out if no one is there with her. I've resorted to making the dog stay in the room with her until she falls asleep...

[tribute17]

sarahandeddie, is she scared of something? Patrick was and we have slowly started getting better about it. He will now go to bed after I leave. I stay for about 15 minutes, talk about what we are going to do tomorrow, check his room for "bad guys" and turn his closet light on. He has a flashlight and whatever toys he wants (paw patrol pups usually). Sometimes we have to go back in and check his room again. When I go to bed I turn off his flashlight but leave it in the bed so when he wakes up middle of the night he can turn it back on. He still yells for us some and we just go in. It is a phase but a hard one for sure.

summergirl1211, my kid also slept better at 6 months. I must have jinxed it by thinking I had a good sleeper. It all went really downhill around 18 months.

[origamimommy]

Sept 28, 2015 21:41:35 GMT -5 barefoot84 said:

Welcome to the "sit on the floor with your child till they fall asleep club"! I really wish I had advice for you, but all I have is empathy.

This.

[lainikins]

For us dropping naps made all the difference. If he does not nap he falls asleep in less than 10 minutes, but when he does nap (like yesterday) he is up for 2 hours after bed time saying he has to go potty, needs water, needs more hugs, he is scared, whatever he can do to postpone. There are days that he just needs the nap (like yesterday) to make it through the day, but I know we will all suffer at night.

[xanthepants]

Has something changed that lately that you can attribute it to? Have you an your H had any arguments in front of her? I bring this up because that was the root of some of our problems lately. Coco was worried about that stuff and it was clouding her head a lot at night. I don't give her enough credit for thinking/worrying about the same stuff I do. Anyway, I know you've mentions some struggles with H so I thought I'd throw it out there. I just reassured Cosette a lot and it went away FWIW.

[heatherbee]

We had a brief period like this and what worked for us was completely ignoring him if he got up more than once. We have a gate at the top of the stairs so he would stand there and try to tell us every excuse possible about why he needed to be awake, but eventually he got bored and went to bed. After a few nights, he went back to staying in bed after being tucked in.

[sarahandeddie]

This is such a frustrating phase. She doesn't appear to be scared of anything. She tells me she just wants me to hold her. I don't mind the extra snuggles but I worked so hard to break her of getting rocked to sleep within the last 6 months. Nothing has changed since we moved either. She started out sleeping in her room without any issues. The only major change is DH has been gone even more than usual but we're used to him being gone. He happens to be home tonight and I left him to deal with it since he seems to think tough love will work. It's been 30 minutes and I can hear her crying from her room on the 2nd floor and I'm in the basement. Clearly his approach isn't working either.

[aimeefarrahfowler]

Current status: laying on the floor waiting for kid to fall asleep. So annoying.

[justbeth]

Like cbear, a sticker chart got Emma's bedtime regression back under control.

[heatherbee]

Sept 29, 2015 20:29:41 GMT -5 sarahandeddie said:

This is such a frustrating phase. She doesn't appear to be scared of anything. She tells me she just wants me to hold her. I don't mind the extra snuggles but I worked so hard to break her of getting rocked to sleep within the last 6 months. Nothing has changed since we moved either. She started out sleeping in her room without any issues. The only major change is DH has been gone even more than usual but we're used to him being gone. He happens to be home tonight and I left him to deal with it since he seems to think tough love will work. It's been 30 minutes and I can hear her crying from her room on the 2nd floor and I'm in the basement. Clearly his approach isn't working either.

Do you think a timer or something would help? Setting it for 5 minutes or so if she asks for extra time to snuggle?

[sarahandeddie]

She finally fell asleep after over an hour of crying. We'll see how tomorrow goes when I'm by myself. I may try a timer and/or sticker chart.

[snickers4everyone]

In the same boat. I end up staying in there repeating "Emmy, be quiet" and "be still" over and over until she sleeps. We're going to start trying to help her go to sleep on her own, but nothing's worked in the past and I'm not looking forward to it.

[xanthepants]

Honestly I always do lay down with her. Some nights I can tell it's going nowhere fast. So those nights I just get up and leave and tell her I'll be back in 5 mins when she's ready to settle down. Usually she cries. It sucks, but when I comes back she knows I mean business. If she starts messing around/playing around I leave again. I tell her I'm not there for playing, it's time for quiet snuggles and silence and sleeping. Usually she will then roll over and seriously try to fall asleep after one or 2 episodes. It has cut our time down a bit. I get less frustrated too. Maybe worth a try?