We just can't win!

[Lindsay27]

We've been struggling with DS's bedtime pretty well since we moved him to his BBB at 2.5 in the fall.  When we moved him we pretty well stayed with him until he was asleep and gradually moved to a kind of WI/WO scenario and now he is well established in his bed and has been for the last 6-8 months.

But every.single.bedtime is a screaming battle and I am just so exhausted I can't deal with it anymore.  I suspect a lot of it is needing to drop the nap/UT but our issue there is that rest time is mandatory at preschool and given the opportunity to sleep there he will. I spoke to his teacher last week and she said he will nap up to 2hrs so I told her to cut it back to 1.5hrs at the absolute most and we'll go from there, and she did.

A normal routine on weekdays is:
WU 6:45am
Nap 1.5hr (12-1:30) - nap times at preschool are set
BT 8pm

Our bedtime routine is bath at 7pm, PJ's, brush teeth, potty, 3 stories which takes us until 8pm, however most nights it's 9pm before he's asleep.  The battles we face are 1)Most of the time he only wants mommy to do bedtime routine and raise hell if for whatever reason I can't do bedtime 2) after stories are done he want me to lay with him, and I do oblidge for 5mins then I leave, but this is a battle getting myself out the door and is usually a while of some kind of WI/WO 3) on any given night he will come out of bed 5-10 times asking for one thing or another.  The problems can start at early as bath, screaming that he doesn't one (we don't do one every night), or screaming getting his PJs on, refusing to brush teeth/do potty etc.  we've tried some 'hard' consequences like failure to brush teeth (or cooperate with PJs etc) means 1 story is taken away and there have been many nights he doesn't get a story and it makes no difference.

This weekend we had a few NND and tried for earlier BT and we still fought the same battles.  It feels like we can't win...nap/no nap, later BT/earlier BT, it doesn't matter.
I'm  I am struggling to think how I am every going to have the capacity to do this with a newborn!  He is an independent sleeper and when he does finally go to bed he falls asleep on his own.

Is this just the way it goes until he drops the nap completely?  I just fear that will be a while given the rest period at daycare, though I can ask them to cut him back further.  I am just tired

[goldmom]

I can relate to a lot of what's going on. Must be a 3 yo thing  . One thing that started working for us a bit is I let DS1 read a book in bed a bit if he wants, so he has to stay in bed after I leave the room, but only has to fall asleep when he's ready. I let him have the book right away (it's like an incentive to go nicely into bed). There's enough light coming in from the open window shades for him to see the book (I close them later). You could try a positive approach such as for each thing he co-operates with he gets to read another book, so starting at no books, if he takes a bath nicely = 1 book, brushes teeth/potty = 2 books, pj's nicely = 3 books, and if he lets you leave the room right away he can keep a book with him in bed. Maybe he could also choose at the beginning which book he will read if he does each step. I also find the resistance so draining, so I try to do whatever works (to an extent  ) to get him to co-operate.

Dropping the nap has helped us the most with bt resistance, but I see you're a bit stuck with that, DS1 slowly dropped his nap at his playgroup by occasionally skipping days, and just about completely stopped only now at 3 yrs, 5 mo (they always offer it, but he wouldn't always sleep). We also found that nnd didn't always get us an early bt either, some days it did and lots of days it didn't. I also found that surprising, I can usually tell by his behavior if he needs an ebt, but even then he sometimes keeps resisting it. We just ride it out the best we can, and his sleep is slowly settling a bit better now, but each kid goes at his own pace, iykwim. There's a great nap dropping support thread here you can join for advice and hand holding on this time period.

[Lindsay27]

I like your reversed/positive approach with the books, fantastic idea!!  I do find my DH tough to deal with sometimes and his approach to things can sometimes be negative.  He can be a 'tough love' kind of guy at times, but bless him he has the patience of a saint these days dealing with this, while me on the other hand...one day a few weeks ago I literally ran out of the house and drove away because I was afraid I was going to do something I regretted and I needed to walk away. 

He does have a little lantern in his room perfect for reading so tonight I actually tried giving him some books to read in his own because I could tell the EBT was failing and it did work for a period of time, but then he called me back up to his room about 3 more times after than and I struggled to leave again.  I think he did fall asleep at about 7:45/8pm though which isn't too bad, especially because he had a big sleep in this morning.

I do get that nap dropping is a process, and I think I could gague it better if I were home, but so much of it is left for preschool.  They don't 'have' to sleep but they must lay down and rest, but like I said he will sleep if given the opportunity, and honestly he does play hard and learn a lot at preschool so I think he does need some form of nap.

[koe2moe]

Hugs, Lindsay.  It was like hell for us at that period.  Nap refusal saga.  Then daycare dropped the nap because they wanted the bed for the younger kids and DS refused nap, too.  Then I discovered we needed SEBT.  5:30 became bt and wake at 7 as long as he didn't fall asleep in the car after pick up and no later than 5:30 in bed.  Not saying that it is the bt for your little guy, but if on NND, bt really needs to be earlier in at least the same amount of time as the missed nap.  (To keep the total A not too long for the body to handle.).  That bt lasted us a good 4-5 months and I missed the long evenings .

[Lindsay27]

So funny story...

Tonight I tried the method suggested above - to start with no stories and use adding a story as a reward for something good accomplished. So I said going potty = 1 story, brushing teeth = 1 story, and getting into bed = 1 story. It went relatively well considering it was the first night and he even announced "I'm being a good boy!" Lol.  The funny part was, he thought the more times he went potty the more stories he would get.  So he went potty for real, and then ran into his room proclaiming that if he went potty again he got another story lol.  So he made about 5 fake trips to the potty thinking he was getting 5 more stories.  Too smart for his own good!!

[goldmom]

LOL! He won that round

[eva026]

lol Lindsay:)))
The method that Cathy suggested a while back to give them a choice still wrks well here - most of the time.
It's a bit nutso but we have like 2 of everything out: 2 toothbrushes, 2 bubblebaths, 2 PJs etc. When she throws a fit about going to bath I say she can choose the bubble bath herself or I will choose for her. Works like a charm, little miss drops everything and stands there humming and hawing over which bubble bath she wants today or which tooth brush she will use.

[Lindsay27]

We do give lots of choice, and to be honest, I think most of the time it backfires.  Picking out PJs for example - we always let him pick, but then he gets stubborn and says "NO!" or just doddles around forever until we give him his last opportunity to choose himself, then when he doesn't...game over, we pick the PJs and the screaming ensues.  And once that starts every.single.thing from that point forward is a battle.

He won that round

I think we both won!  Honestly, the best/most calm BT we've had in a while

DH was home late from work so when I told him how I did the stories he said "we really should have been doing it that way from the start", and he's right.  I think sometimes we are quick to jump to consequences vs rewards iykwim?

[goldmom]

So glad it worked for you and hopefully it'll continue. We also find that it's so much easier to get DS1 to co-operate without resorting to consequences, but towards a goal instead. Consequences tend just drag us all down.