When does bedtime get easier?!

[skiesthelimit]

I hate bedtime. Hate it. I can't do it alone. A goes to bed between 6-8 and will only stay asleep for 30 minutes before he wakes up and I have to go nurse him again. X screams and cries every bedtime. He doesn't want to sleep, wants more stories, wants me to sleep with him. He sees me nurse A in bed and doesn't understand why I won't sleep with him. X has always screamed and cried at bedtime even before A was born. We've tried earlier and later bedtimes. I don't know what to do. There is always one or both kids crying. They both want and need me but I can't be there for both. It breaks my heart and I cry every single night. A is up again crying after 7 minutes of sleep and X is screaming "mommy!". DH is trying to help but he doesn't have boobs and X only wants me. A will only sleep if I'm beside him or nursing him which means I have to go to bed when he does which means I have zero time with X let alone do anything for me. This is hard guys. I never thought having kids would be this hard

[skiesthelimit]

Oct 21, 2014 18:53:42 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

I'm sorry, that sounds awful.

A has played up more at bedtime since j was born. We had a really bad few days when I laid down the law and ten things got better. He know it is bath, Dora, books and bed and then I'll stay for five minutes. I had to sit inside his room keeping the door shit while he cried for three nights but he now knows.

If I am on my own now, I bath J and A. I take J out first and get him dressed then get A ready for bed while J rolls around. Then A gets tv while I nurse J to sleep. Sometimes it fails horrifically but most of the time it works.

I need to get A on some kind of schedule. Some nights he's exhausted by 6 and others he stays awake until 8. It makes trying to do X's bedtime routine impossible. Then A won't stay asleep unless I'm beside him or nursing him. So if I leave to settle X, A starts to cry. It's like I have to choose one or the other and I just can't.

[Deleted]

William has become progressively worse about sleeping lately. I think it's natural for them to go through phases. I know your situation is an extreme case. I think I would have pulled all my hair out by then. Hugs!!

[carawestt]

OMG sounds like here, bed time is awful. Lincoln fights bed time so hard and cries at his door, "mama lay with me!" for an hour+ each night. And Calvin won't sleep longer than an hour unless he's with me.

I'm sorry.

[dixeedeluxe]

I am currently in bed with Edie. Luckily, Adeline goes right down.

Bedtimes are a breeze now that I've accepted I have to lay with her.

[spaghetticat]

I'm sorry. I hate bedtime too. I think I'm going to have to lay down the law soon because the stalling is out of control. But then I feel guilty because she's crying for me and saying she wants to cuddle and I wonder if she's getting enough attention from me. Can your h help with X?

[Faevantastic]

Going through the same thing. E will stall every time but he has gone through phases where he'll eventually give up and fall asleep on his own or like lately, cry himself to sleep. It sucks.

[dixeedeluxe]

When our book reading got ooc, I told edie she could pick ine more book and then I leave or no more books and I'd lay with her. She's older but it wouldvew worked with Adeline too.

If A was bad at bedtimex H and I would've divided and conquored.

Laying in bed doesn't suck. It's part of the deal that I play on my phone.

[formerlyllizzyb]

This makes me nervous for two. I do bedtime solo quite a bit. G currently goes down like a dream but with my luck he'll regress the instant she gets here.

[raynes]

I don't know. Things have been rough for us since we brought Violet home. I'm dreading the first night I need to do bedtime by myself.

[breezy8407]

I'm sorry I wish I could offer some good advice.

Lately my two have been stalling hardcore at bedtime. They both want one million hugs and kisses, so we say okay this is the last one, then we leave the room. They cry. Last night it was about 10 minutes. I hate it, but I Know it has to happen.

[bigapple]

It's 10:30, and I've been sitting in the dark with a wide awake child for 1.5 hours, so I clearly have no advice to offer here.

I hope you work something out soon.

[lolaburns]

Come over to my house and we can just drink wine together.

I keep telling myself he has to sleep eventually.

[jsillyfun]

This is my future. I'm so sorry.

[puppylove64]

It makes me feel slightly better that I'm not alone I at a loss and don't know what to do. I'm not willing to lock him in and let him scram for an hour.

[skiesthelimit]

Oct 21, 2014 20:24:29 GMT -5 spaghetticat said:

I'm sorry. I hate bedtime too. I think I'm going to have to lay down the law soon because the stalling is out of control. But then I feel guilty because she's crying for me and saying she wants to cuddle and I wonder if she's getting enough attention from me. Can your h help with X?

He does. He helps every night. I told him I cannot do it alone. X just wants me, though. He screams and kicks and cries and yells non stop "mommy! Mommy! Hug mommy! Kiss mommy! Come sleep with me mommy!"

[sandj82110]

What about maybe changing his routine a little? Before A was born once we went upstairs that was it, we didn't come back down, all the routine was done up there. Now H brings his pjs down stairs, he has a snack, watches an episode of Mickey gets his pjs on and goes up to brush his teeth, some nights they will come in and say good night to us but lately he doesn't ask, so we just skip it because it often wakes A up anyway.

It definitely doesn't work as well on the (very) rare night I have to do solo bedtime but nothing about those days are normal anyway.

Would having your H do something special with him distract him maybe? Maybe come up with something fun they can do while you're tending to A?

I hate that you have this struggle on top of everything else.

[dixeedeluxe]

Are your littles still napping? They are at an age now that maybe longer naps (or naps at all) are affecting nighttime sleep, methinks.

[laurack]

Both mine cried themselves to sleep last night. Bad solo bedtime

After 45 minutes of nursing and rocking William I just left him to cry. By then Matilda had had twice as much peppa pig as usual and her bedtime was pushed back so she was overtired and there were meltdowns. So much screaming. I couldn't even read her books to her because she was hitting me and pushing the books away then screaming "but I WANT BOOKS" umm ok. In the end she went in her crib and I sang but eventually I just had to leave her crying, 9 o clock I have crap to do and I want to go to bed myself!

Aaaah I dislike bedtime alone

[laurack]

I definitely think you should try to get him in a routine for bed time though. Does he wake and nap at different times every day too?

[christidee]

Hugs. Hopefully your answer is very, very soon. 

[skiesthelimit]

Oct 22, 2014 7:29:11 GMT -5 laurack said:

I definitely think you should try to get him in a routine for bed time though. Does he wake and nap at different times every day too?

Ya he has no routine or predictability at all. Like not at all.

[skiesthelimit]

Oct 22, 2014 7:28:04 GMT -5 laurack said:

Both mine cried themselves to sleep last night. Bad solo bedtime

After 45 minutes of nursing and rocking William I just left him to cry. By then Matilda had had twice as much peppa pig as usual and her bedtime was pushed back so she was overtired and there were meltdowns. So much screaming. I couldn't even read her books to her because she was hitting me and pushing the books away then screaming "but I WANT BOOKS" umm ok. In the end she went in her crib and I sang but eventually I just had to leave her crying, 9 o clock I have crap to do and I want to go to bed myself!

Aaaah I dislike bedtime alone

This sounds exactly like my house.

[skiesthelimit]

X is up at 6am and naps from 1230-230 at dc. He will usually ask the dcp for more sleep but she tries to keep him up at 230. Maybe he's overtired by 7? I don't know. Last night he didn't fall asleep until almost 9. We start his routine at 7 and try to have him in bed by 730. It never works.

[helicase]

Yeah, you guys need a routine. For us, it's: dinner, bath, brush teeth, PJs, stories (5) and a song (1). It's the same every night, so he knows what to expect. At the end of the song, we (either my husband or myself) leave the room, even if he is crying/complaining for more. He'll protest for ~1-2 minutes, then fall asleep. Same thing, every night.

[dixeedeluxe]

Oct 22, 2014 8:54:33 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

Oct 22, 2014 7:12:58 GMT -5 dixeedeluxe said:

Are your littles still napping? They are at an age now that maybe longer naps (or naps at all) are affecting nighttime sleep, methinks.

Kids are so different! Bedtime is worse for us if A doesn't nap as then he is over tired. He naps from 2-4 most days and bedtime is 7:30. 

Yeah, I don't have a frame of reference for this age because Edie dropped naps so early. But we also have a super strict routine (because we have to).  So that's probably the biggest thing in our house. 

The bedtimes being described here mostly sound horrific.  So I did think about the over-tired thing making them bad.  But since they are already so bad, I dunno. 

[twirlermom]

We just had to go Super Nanny on them. DD1 never went to sleep well. She didn't stay in her room all night until she was a little over 3. That is when we moved DD2 in the room with her. Even with her staying in her room, I had to sit next to her bed and she would hold my finger while she fell asleep. Sometimes this would take 5 minutes, sometimes it would take over an hour. Once DD2 climbed out of the crib and was in a toddler bed, DH had to be in there as well sitting next to the other bed. We would switch off who we sat next to.

This started getting out of control and they would take forever to go to sleep, so we had to go cold turkey and just kiss them goodnight and leave the room. It was about a week or two of struggle. 1-2 hours of them coming out and us putting them back in their rooms. Some nights they still come out, but only a couple times. It is much better now, but we worked really hard to get it that way.

I think if there was a way for you to get the baby on a schedule, it would make things a little easier. It might still be a struggle, but maybe not as much of a struggle.

I know sleep problems are rough, I lived it. Good Luck!

[nannerl]

You exactly described our bedtimes three weeks ago when my DH was out of town. It was total hell. But there is hope! Yesterday all four of us sat on A's bed and I held an awake but mellow H while DH and I traded off reading stories. A brushed his teeth and settled down with DH to fall asleep and I left to put down H. It took us almost 8 weeks to get here, but hopefully this sticks!

[laurack]

I've been reading lately about kids and sleep and overtiredness ruining everything.

There is a woman in my area her company specializes in sleep for kids. Like, sleep consultants. Anyway people rave about it. I've read some of the articles and it seems her suggestion for toddlers is to put them down for bed 4 hours after they wake from their nap. So if he napped 1-3 then 7 would be the sweet spot for bedtime I guess. For infants she says 2 - 2.5 hours after waking from last nap they should go to bed.

I don't see us doing this but then Matilda is normally a great sleeper now (830-730ish and takes a 2 hour nap) so I don't feel we need to change her schedule for the most part. William does seem to be doing better since I started watching the clock and putting him to bed earlier. It does seem like there is a "window" in there where if I catch it, he goes down easier

it's just a bit freakin hard to pay attention to and then act upon these "windows" when you have two children of different ages alone for bedtime though

I think maybe if X already wakes at 6 no matter what it wouldn't hurt to try the four hour thing. So whatever time he wakes from his nap (say 2.30) put him down 4 hours later at 6.30. I know a few ladies in my local moms group have started putting their troublesome sleeping toddlers to bed at 630pm with good results (like they go to bed easier, and wake at 6 like normal)

[formerlyllizzyb]

I was going to suggest similar to Laura re: X's bedtime. We start bedtime routine at 6:30.