About to run out of the house screaming.

[dexlor]

My husband is working tonight. My almost 2 year old dd started a whole new nighttime routine all of her own and it stinks big time. I am so lucky to have a partner to raise her with. She is a wonderful, smart, sweet, loving little girl but tonight I wanted to quit. I have had a cold/cough for almost 3 months now and some days it is worse than others. Last week she started waking up in the middle of the night and staying awake...wide awake. Won't nurse. Nothing works to get her back to sleep. Some nights she is up way past her 8/8:30 bedtime like tonight. Wide awake, refused letting us put her in her crib. Tonight, she nursed, I sang and read to her. She got in her crib and when I went to leave, stood up and wailed. When she has gone to bed not entirely asleep, she is okay with us leaving and eventually falls asleep. I am so tired tonight and I've had it. I just want her to sleep but after yelling at her...yes, I am awful and after she crawled out of her crib and I closed the door which she screamed and banged on it. I brought her down here with me. I told her I will not hold her because I am so mad and tired. I know I'm being awful. I've never done any of this. But no, but I don't know what to do. I am very lucky that she sleeps through the night most of the time and I am amazed at parents that struggle with that and somehow cope. Why is she doing this? I know there's possibly developmental milestones and teething and whatever. But 8:00 at night is the only time I have to do bills, relax, watch a movie or go to bed early and now I can't. I just want to ignore her and wait till she falls asleep sitting there on the floor. I hate that I am like this tonight and feeling this way towards her. What happened to my patience? When she has woken up or not wanted to go right to bed before I am fine with that and will hold her longer or sing to her. I don't know what to do.

[claddaghmom]

It's so hard when they change on us huh? I remember during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season DD just tossed her pattern out the door. It was hard.

You mention 8ish for bedtime...when does she wake up? How many hours a night does she get? Does she nap?

If you keep her up, what happens? Will she just play quietly while you relax?

[elleystar]

No advice, but I know exactly how you feel. You're not a bad parent for feeling this way, at least I hope not, because then I'm at least as bad! I too have told DS I was too upset to hold him or read to him or whatever. Usually I cool off quickly, I just need a couple of minutes alone to regroup, so he's learned to go in the other room and play quietly for a little bit until I join him. Thank goodness.

[nycmom18]

im feeling the EXACT same way tonight and felt very bad for yelling at my almost 2 yr old. have no advice, but sympathy! tomorrow will be a different day, hang in there!

[babygirlie]

commiserating. my 10month old has decided to stay up ALL night. I have to be on schedule as I'm driving early in the morning this weekend and need to be awake all day and I have cfs. I can't be napping (sleep yeeah right i wish) from 9am-pm every day. I did yell at her. Finally got her dad to give her a bottle around 8am and she calmed down. and guess what she's sleeping right now at 6pm. I forced her up at 4pm and myself and bam she's out grr. I have music screaming from the laptop but she looks wasted. Oy. I NEED to sleep at night. Just this week and then she can do whatever she wants for awhile

[granolalight]

BTDT

It is so hard. I don't have advice to give at this moment. Just wanted to show support.

[dexlor]

Take 2

Wow! I am so amazed and relieved I got such quick and supportive responses. I did dread that someone might want to lecture me. I feel bad for even thinking that

So, she quietly sat there after I told her I was too upset to hold her--this was as I was typing. I wonder what she was thinking? Confused, scared? She never just sits there. She tried to pretend she was a doggie at one point but I said "no playing, if you're not going to sleep, you're not going to play". I don't want to be this way. And I'm not but tonight, I flipped! So, she sat there and when I was done, I had calmed down. I picked her up and told her how sorry I was that I yelled. She said "sorry mommy, sorry" which made me want to cry. I said "Mommy is sorry, baby is not (refers to herself as 'baby')"..."you didn't do anything wrong". I asked her if she was scared when I yelled and closed the door and she said "yes". I told her how sorry I was and that if I do get upset I should not yell at her and never never close the door on her. She wrapped her arms around me and I told her we could go upstairs and she could lay in bed with me till she fell asleep. At first ,she cried and didn't want to go upstairs (probably because of the recent bad associations I just created for her?) but she let me carry her up and she got in bed, pulled the covers over her and held her Elmo while I read my book. We hugged and kissed and she pointed out words on the book (er, not that she could read, that is) and when I turned out my light...she was out like a light. Before she fell asleep I told her I'd bring her back to her bed when she fell asleep. She is now in her crib and fast asleep. So, I guess we just do this until she gets back on track. It just means we can't watch our scary movies right when she goes asleep at 8ish...but we can get our bills done, read, get in bed with her, etc...

She naps at daycare (3 days a week) and at home around 1:00ish every day for almost 1.5-2 hours typically. She wakes up around 6am every day (even weekends). Others have suggested shortening her nap but this new pattern just started last week and I just want to give it another week to see if she returns to an 8pm ish bedtime. Any thoughts?

And thanks again. It's funny how calm I am now. Why didn't I just do this to begin with? If I just told her what the plan was, brought her to bed with me till I fell asleep...this wouldn't have happened. But it did happen. I yelled. I became a pretty scary person. She was scared, confused. But I know what I did did not make things better, did not get her to go to bed when I wanted her to and only made me and her feel worse. I get that. I own up to it and I hope I made it up to her. That's the best we can all do as parents, right? Realize we did something hurtful, take responsibility for it and hug and kiss and learn.

Hugs to us all!

[claddaghmom]

Well I had to remove DD's second nap for her to get to bed on time. It took us a while to catch on, but it definitely made a difference.

In fact, we had a really, really off day today and she actually just woke up from a nap. But I'm not going to stress b/c her friends just turned up sick yesterday so maybe she is coming down w/ the same thing.

[just_lily]

Could you try moving her nap earlier in the day? Will your daycare work with you on this? At this age toddlers usually need 5.5 to 6.5 hours of awake time before they are ready to sleep again. So if she is napping until 3pm, she may not be ready to go back to sleep until 9 or 9:30. In my house we nap at noon and it works great. Maybe try moving it up by 15 minutes every couple of days and see how it goes.

And be gentle with yourself, mama. We have ALL been there when we are ready to give the kids to the neighbours. My DD is 20 months and she is old enough to be stubborn, but too young to reason with and she drives me batty all the time!