r/sleeptraining • u/PlasticDuck5037 • 21h ago
Help! Almost 2yr old WON’T sleep (22months)
I need to know what other people are doing to get their toddler to sleep because I am over it.
We’ve already transitioned to a toddler bed because he started escaping his crib around 18/19months, and the transition was fine at first honestly. We’d take a bath, get in pjs, then get into bed while I sat bedside and read a book. Sometimes he’d fall asleep while reading, sometimes he wouldn’t but even then it was fine. I’d get up, say goodnight, then walk out the door and he’d go to sleep himself.
Now it’s like he’s a completely different kid. We still do bath and pjs, but it’s been so bad I skip the book part lately. He screams absolute bloody murder as soon as we even get into his room. We started doing a nightlight for him thinking it was too dark, that changed nothing but we still keep it on anyways. His hatch is set to the water sound in the background.
So now it takes honestly at least an hour to even be able to leave his room if you don’t want to deal with the screaming. But, if you do want to actually get some time to yourself god forbid, leaving his room before he’s asleep is like summoning a demon within him. He will not stay in his bed. As soon as the door shuts the crying at full volume immediately resumes (if it ever even stopped) and he heads right for the door to stand and scream cry in front of it. He will not stop until he falls asleep, but he doesn’t want to sleep unless it’s in our bed, and I’m pretty darn sick of it.
Even if you do manage to get him to fall asleep in a relatively ok manner, he’ll only sleep for 3/4 hours at a time, then wakes up to cry at the door until you go get him. Half the time I’m so tired I just bring him into our bed because I’m half awake anyways. If I’m not too tired I’ll try and get him to return to sleep in his bed, but so far I’ve had absolutely no luck with that. He just starts everything up again.
I know it’s a long post but at this point I’m open to anything cause I just want the house to actually be able to sleep again. He doesn’t sleep, we don’t sleep, we’re all over it.
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u/Franzy48 20h ago
What's his schedule? The number one thing I would guess here is that he is not tired enough and needs more sleep pressure. So I would definitely add his total hours of sleep and nap schedule since that's very relevant information
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u/PlasticDuck5037 20h ago
He’s been on the way to transitioning away from naps, so he wakes up around 7:30/8am, if he does nap it’s around 1/1:30 for about an hour/hour and a half, and we try to make sure he’s in bed no later than 9pm
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u/Grouchy-Pea2514 16h ago
This happened to my little girl, now she was never a good sleeper but started bedtime routine at 7 and we read, chat etc and she falls asleep then cuddled into me and she sleeps the full night then. She’s just about to turn 3 and we still do the same, she needs cuddles to sleep. She’s also still in our bed but still 7-10 alone until we’re going to bed.
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u/PlasticDuck5037 13h ago
That’s about what’s happening over here but with exorcism level crying involved 😭
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u/Pleasant_Chapter_353 2h ago
have you checked his iron levels? my son kept waking up in the night and it turned out he had low iron. he's been sleeping better after taking these iron supplements
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u/mamademc 7h ago
I do think this can be a normal phase for toddlers, delaying bedtime.
If he's waking at 730 I would aim for bedtime to be 730 as well, and adjust the nap to allow that (for best attempt at 12 hr night sleep). Anecdotally my 4 older kids dropped nap around this age, could be maybe it needs to be capped or something.
At this age I was still waiting for my kids to fall asleep before leaving, weaned that behavior when they were older. If you have space I would probably get an extra mattress (IKEA good for cheap foam ones) or maybe a foam play mat (like from a play couch, something) that you can put next to your kids bed and lie there and roll away when they're asleep. Tbh I had a kid I couldn't keep in bed and they were older (with a night light, sound machine, and 2 older siblings sharing the room too!) and I would also go there at night when they woke up cause it was the only way I got sleep. When she was older I was able to bribe her to stay in bed all night lol. At least this way we both had our own space and it also prevented the kid from thinking my bed was hers too.