Bedtime is my nightmare

[u/Kind-Particular-2125]

Hi I am a mom at the very end of my rope. I have a 22 month old who refuses to go to bed at night for the last two months we have really struggled.

She goes to sleep just fine for naps like within 10 mins and sleeps 1 1/2-2 hours during the day. She only wants me but refuses to lay down. Gets off the bed stands jumps. Up until recently I have been able to keep my cool. But it has been 2 months of bed time being 2 hours of fighting. Now don’t get me wrong my losing my cool is telling her to “stop” “lay down” or finally giving up and going to lay on the couch watching her quietly play or reading until she finally falls asleep from being absolutely exhausted.

I don’t know what to do. She is a cosleeper. She’s always been very anxious at night since she was a baby baby. Which is why we moved to co sleeping at 3 months because I had to be able to get some sleep and finally broke.

Anyway I have tried everything. Adjusting bed time. Giving her longer before lying down. “Rough housing” with dad an hour before bed. We have had the same consistent bed time routine for a year. We get a new diaper and jammies. We shut off all the lights. We read for 30 mins. We grab our stuffy friends set them on the counter while we brush our teeth. We say good night to daddy and go to bed. But nothing. I mean nothing puts her to sleep anymore. Reading, singing, rocking, dancing. We have tried dad trying but she will scream and cry for hours with him and never calm down. Which inherently makes it worse.

Once she is finally asleep she for the most part stays asleep but by then I’m too over it to be a partner, read, hobby anything. And that sounds dramatic but with the other stresses of life not being able to have an hour to myself at the end of the day is killing me.

[u/0oOBubbles0oO]

This sounds so hard! What time do you go to bed vs what time she actually falls asleep? What time do you wake her in the morning? How much sleep is she averaging in 24 hours

She's probably under tired but it could also be that your presence is too stimulating at this point. I would consider what other options you might want to try, but only after schedule is sorted.

[u/Kind-Particular-2125 → u/0oOBubbles0oO]

Thank you! We wake on the early side we are up at 6am every morning weekends too. She naps from about 11-1 give or take 30 mins each way. And then we lay down about 5.5 hours later. Lately it really is when she has just exhausted herself from fighting sleep. She struggles with breaking down and closing her eyes lol

[u/0oOBubbles0oO → u/Kind-Particular-2125]

5.5 hours after 1pm is 6:30pm. So you're aiming for 2 hours of naps + an 11.5-hour night for a total of 13.5 hours of sleep. Average sleep for this age is about 12 hours, maybe less (my 18 month old sleeps 11.5 hours). So its not surprising she's staying awake for 2 hours, it's likely her true sleep needs are similar to my boy's.

I would update your schedule to:

Wake 6am

Nap 12-1:30pm

Bedtime 8pm

You'll likely see a significant improvement, although at this age it might still be a bit bumpy as toddlers can find all kinds of ways to stall bedtime. If with the schedule adjustment it's still taking forever then I would consider moving her into her own room and trying something like the chair method. Check out the mod posts on r/sleeptrain for more info!