Terrible Two's?

[E-Ray's Mom]

Hello,

Yes, I'm back again. I'm not sure if Sleeping for Toddlers is necessarily the place for this post, but the behavior mostly affects sleep. I have a 22 month old son who has slept poorly his whole short life: the first year, due to acid reflux, and the second because of accidental parenting and gas problems combined.

After using gradual withdraw, and then wo/wi, we were really making progress on sleep. However, the last week or so, I really began seeing the temper tantrums flaring up during the day as well as at night. He's become ultra clingy to me (mom), and doesn't want much to do with dad (some days are worse than others). I'm a SAHM, so he's always favored me, but it's turning to the extreme.

As is suggested by Tracy & the boards, my husband and I take 2 nights on/2 nights off with bedtime & night wakings. When it is my husband's night, Eric has really intensified the tantrums he throws at bedtime and during nightly wakings. It seems that it is because it is DH, and not me, although he has done it to me at times, too.

To help with the issue, I have private snuggle time with him for a few minutes when it's DH night, and DH has private snuggle time with him on my nights. It seemed to help for a bit, but lately it's been worse again.

I don't know if he's starting to have night terrors and/or nightmares; maybe he's getting 2nd year molars; maybe it's some sort of separation anxiety... just not sure.

Has anyone had this issue? If so, how do you tackle it? Should I just do bedtime for a while, or should we stick with what we are doing? It's really hard to listen to him scream at the top of his lungs.

Also, any suggestions to get dad back into favor? ... Please - I'm in need of more me time!

thanks!
Deb

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

Not sure if this will be a popular bit of advice or not. But my feeling is that you've obviously given it a good go at switching who puts him down with no effect (if not worse). I think you should go back to you doing it until things calm down. For the issue to rectify, I believe you need to give him the full security that he needs (in this case you - this is not to say his dad isn't providing that, and it's not something that needs to be taken personally but just a case of not knowing how a 2yo's feeling are triggered) and it will right itself or you can try it again in a few months time. I believe pushing him before he's ready is not going to make the situation go away. My dh was the one who needed to respond to ds during the night for a loooong time because while I was pg with dd he tackled all night wakings and got really distressed when I attempted it. So we laid off and let dh do it and then I gradually put myself back in the picture, but if he wasn't happy or asked for dh we just went with the flow. Now he's cool with either of us or will randomly ask for the other parent.

JMO and HTH

[Florencia]

At least the good news is that you were seeing progress in the right direction as for wi/wo and gradual withdrawal approach... that is always good to hear around here.

I totally agree with Nikki's point of view and was about to suggest you another possibility that has had great success in my home: try doing the bedtime routine both of you for a couple of weeks. If he wants to be on his own with you, let him be, but try dh to be with you for most part of it. Then gradually try again the switching of nights and you might be able to find some "me" time then.

HTH and good luck!