Bedtime is not going well here, probably for several reasons. C was fed to sleep at BT for most of his life. About 6 weeks ago, we dropped a couple lingering NFs and in the past few weeks I've been more careful to make sure he doesn't get too drowsy/fall asleep while nursing at BT. Now that the feed isn't coming right at BT, he's not very interested, so we've given it up.
However, it seemed that the feed relaxed him and now he's struggling to settle (most nights taking 30+ min and some taking over an hr). He's in a bit of an OT pattern (I think), so is also likely going down a bit late and hitting a second wind. And, things aren't often quiet around here before bedtime, so I think he's also wound up from DH and the other two kids being around.
At nap time, I just bring him to his room, turn off the light, turn on the fan (white noise) and sing and sway with him for a minute or two before putting him down. He generally goes right to sleep, sometimes takes up to 10min to settle. The same thing doesn't seem to work at BT. My mom mentioned that she started reading him a book before putting him down (she babysits every now and then in the evening and can put him down for a nap too) and that it relaxed him (She does rock him to sleep, however, and he often holds onto the book the whole time
). I tried that, and he was quite relaxed as we were reading (he loves to read books), but he didn't want to put it down and then got really mad when we had to stop!
So, we were already behind and once he gets upset, he tends to get more and more mad until sometimes he's hysterical.
We also haven't been super consistent in settling him. I tend to go for WIWO, as it's what I feel most confident with and he often gets distracted by my presence. DH often chooses to sit by his crib. Sometimes that works quickly and well, but others he starts acting silly and not settling at all. We're also guilty of changing our tactic partway through, in that when he's taking a looong time to settle, we'll stay and hold our hand on his back longer just to try to get him to sleep, as the other kids are then getting ready for bed too. We're committed to now doing it more consistently with WIWO, but I do think a lot of the stuff leading up to actually putting him down needs to be consistent as well.
Sorry, that got much longer than I intended. Any good tips for winding down a spirited toddler? (I just took the toddler quiz last night and got 12 spirited, 3 textbook, 2 touchy, 2 grumpy, and 1 angel.)
