21 month old suddenly not going to bed

[ashersmom]

Hello---

I have a 21 month old DS who has been on the BW routine since he was 8 weeks old.  We have been able to lay him down at nap time and bed time NO PROBLEM and walk out and he puts himself to sleep usually right away.  If he's not quite ready for sleep he'll lay in there for 1/2 or so and then drift off.  For the last week he yells for us and eventually cries as soon as we walk out of the room.  As soon as we walk in he lays down...and then the moment we walk out he's up and screaming again.  Last night I rocked him to sleep because I couldn't do it anymore (after 45 min.).  He sleeps pretty well through the night, although he WAS doing this in the middle of the night weeks ago---but not anymore.

He doesn't communicate very well, as he had 7 months of ear infections and then finally tubes.  He's WAY behind on language so he can't tell me what's wrong.

Also, I'm expecting twins this week.  We do talk about the babies...but I haven't mentioned that THIS is the week that they'll be born.

His schedule looks like this:

6:30AM wake
12:30-2:30 or 3:30 nap
8PM bedtime (but he's not been to sleep before 9PM for days!) 

Any help would be greatly appreciated----we're losing our minds knowing that we're bringing home 2 more in just a matter of days!!!

TIA.

[Layla]

It could be that he is picking up on your feelings about the twins??? The fact that you mentioned he was doing this a few weeks ago at night might also suggest that he is overtired. The effects of not enough sleep might not show straight away and it could have accumulated over weeks.

I think you should bring the bedtime forward, to 7ish pm (especially since he is not getting the full sleep he needs at night at the moment). Also you might want to limit his nap to 2hrs otherwise a 3hr nap can interfere with night sleep. Dd's schedule at 21months was 6-6.30am (wake), nap at 12ish (1.5-2hrs) & bedtime at 7 (asleep in 20mins or so). I would do wi/wo to get him to sleep. Here's a link if you want to have a look at different sleep training methods for toddlers: - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63896.0

Try spending some more time with him at bedtime routine, more kisses and cuddles. It really could be that he is getting the "feeling" that something new is about to happen. My dd is extremely perceptive and her sleep went all wonky just before dd2 was born. I was cutting her wind down really short (mainly cause I was sooo tired at the end of the day and just wanted to go to sleep myself but it had the opposite effect on her).

hth
Layla

Congrats on the twins!!!