Ideas for speeding up bedtime

[Angelorum]

My 22 mo DS recently started rejecting what had been our bedtime routine.  Since he was about 9 or 10 mo I've been strapping him in a Mei Tai and bouncing on an exercise ball while nursing until he's asleep, and then transferring him to our bed.  This is still working perfectly fine for naps, but at bed time, he'll get really sleepy, and just when I think it's about time to put him down, he wakes himself up and starts protesting and asking to lay down in the bed.  So I lay down with him in the bed, and maybe he nurses for a minute or two, but then he starts climbing all over the bed and will not lay still.  He begs to go potty, for water, for a tissue, to go bounce some more.  He lays in bed and plays with his toes.  Bouncing used to take 20-40 minutes at night time.  Tonight it took me 2 hours to get him to sleep.  I expected him to go through some transition when we stopped bouncing him to sleep, but it's been about a month of hour + long bedtimes and I'm frustrated.

I've read all the sleep books, but our problem wasn't getting to sleep when I read them, and I got them all from the library so I can't go back and remind myself very easily. 

I'm trying to keep bedtime and nap time very consistent, and I'm doing better than I have at that in months because I'm not in school anymore.  It's possible he needs an earlier bedtime, but I really struggle with getting dinner done early enough to get him to bed any sooner. 

What else can I do?  How do I handle the stall tactics (water, potty, etc)?  The potty is especially frustrating as he is potty learning right now, and I hate to ignore a request for the potty, but when he's just gone and I know he's just trying to delay bedtime....  He's taken to trying to pee himself if I tell him no more potty.   Sometimes he succeeds in squeezing out a few drops, but he's still in a diaper for nighttime, so it's not a big mess, but I still have to change him.

He's developing in leaps and bounds in other areas (language, going to other care givers without a fuss, potty learning), so I suppose it could be just a phase, but he's sleeping at night better than he ever has, I think he's only waking up once in the night to nurse, which is a big step up for us.  His naps are better too.  It's just the bedtime. 

TIA

[littlegreenlady]

We are in the same boat.

Some nights I can handle it better than others.

So I guess I don't have any helpful suggestions.

But tomorrow night when I'm struggling I think it will help to know there are others out there.

Tonight it took an hour, but he was pretty determined to stay awake and play a little longer.

[mrskatiekuj]

We are going through the same thing, although my daughter is 18 mo. I really feel like an impatient parent when it comes to bedtime because I've just become so frustrated with her. With us, it has come to me laying next to her in bed while she cries herself to sleep. It sounds awful and I feel like there has to be a better way, but I can't figure out what that is.

I'm sorry I don't have much advice for you. When my son required us to lay next to him for a long time while he fell asleep, I use to bring in a book with a small reading lamp so that the light wouldn't bother him, but then I wasn't feeling frustrated by just having to lay in the dark when I wasn't ready for bed.

[goldenwillow]

Same boat here too.  23 month old that is also doing very well with the potty, diapers at night. 

Night time has pretty much always been a struggle in our home.  Seriously, I feel we have done a good job trying to get a routine.  We play in the garden, have dinner, go for a bike ride, take a bath which usually amps my kiddo, not like others I read that their kiddo gets sleepy.  So we have tried taking showers in the AM instead. 

My kiddo doesn't eat sugar, fruit sugars though in the AM and mid-day.  We watch that closely. 

This past week, we have been being pretty loud in the AM while DH gets ready for work, up by 6:30 7ish in the hopes that he would be tired earlier in the day, not so.  In the past I wanted to have some time to myself in the AM, then started feeling selfish.  So, up early, have breakfast, go do an activity out in the world.  Home for a nap then it is on when DH gets home.  Again, play out in the garden/yard, errands, bike ride, etc...

Yesterday...  kiddo woke at 7, breakfast, played outside for hours, nap at 11 for 2 hours.  Up around 1pm, played all afternoon with a snack and dinner .  HE STAYED UP UNTIL 10PM!  House was shut down, lights low, reading, all of it. 

I really don't get it.  Feeling like a failure!  I have read in another thread... a poster said that maybe a "need" is not being met as a suggestion to another mama.  I am so in my head about that.... am I possibly missing something?  I don't think so, but.... 

My hope is a sleep faerie comes and posts some really good advice.  Reading other threads around this forum freaks me out, back and forth banter!  I am open to any suggestions! 

littlegreenlady...  I thank you for the lovely thought that we are not alone, thank you!

Happy Solstice everyone!  Enjoy!

Edited by goldenwillow - 6/21/11 at 8:08am

[Angelorum]

This thread is really old now, but I thought I'd come back and update with some things I've figured out in case it helps anybody.

Bedtimes are still taking longer than I would like, but usually not much more than an hour, and only 30-40 minutes if I'm lucky and that's only occasionally. 

I've switched from starting off bedtime bouncing to starting off by nursing in bed.  Ds is pretty wild when we first lay down, but he is getting better at not getting up.  I let him kick his legs (as long as he's not kicking me) and roll around but if he sits up I lay him back down.  Sometimes it takes me laying him down 10-20 times in a row before he will just lay there and wiggle, I remind him the first few times that we lay down at bedtime, but after the first 10 minutes or so I try not to talk to him at all, otherwise he just wants to keep chatting.  I let him nurse as he wants, but he's more interested in playing half the time. 

He usually asks to go potty or for his water, and I've been purposely not putting those things in the bedroom before bed, so he can practice staying in bed when I'm not there, in hopes that someday I can tuck him in and just check on him every few minutes instead of laying there the whole time.  He's getting better at this, sometimes when he wakes up to pee in the middle of the night he'll even fall back asleep on his own while I'm dumping out the little potty. 

I recently figured out that he was getting frustrated with his pajama shirt getting bunched up underneath him and so I switched him to onesies for bed.  The onsies are annoying because he's potty trained, and so when he needs to go in the middle of the night I have to make sure to snap the crotch off to the side so it doesn't get in the way, but I think it's helping him fall asleep faster. 

I let him have his water while we're in bed as long as he's drinking it, if he starts to play with it I take it away.  I tried letting him have his favorite stuffy to sleep with, but it was just distracting him from going to sleep.  sometimes his blanket becomes a play thing as well, and I haven't really figured out how to deal with that yet. 

We always take him potty before we get in bed, and I let him go one other time during bedtime if he asks, but I usually limit it to 1-2 minutes sitting on the potty, so he's not just sitting there playing. 

The one other thing I've found that helps sometimes is if I put my hand over his eyes.  We have a lot of bright lights right outside the bedroom window, and even with the blinds closed and a dark grey blanket over the blinds it's still not very dark in the bedroom, particularly not at 8:00 in the summer.  Also, ds doesn't seem to really realize that closing his eyes helps him fall asleep when he's tired, he'll even sometimes grab my hand to put it on his eyes when he's having trouble.

If he asks to bounce after we've been laying in bed for a while, I will put him in the mei tai, but I won't put him down again until I'm sure he's asleep, because it was becoming a game for him of just going back and forth between the bed and the ball when I was trying to follow his lead. 

Anyone else have any tips they've figured out?

[Angelorum]

Forgot one thing, and that is that I've discovered that if I take him for a walk, the next time it's time to sleep (either bedtime or naptime) he falls asleep quicker.  I tried taking him in the stroller to the park every day, but he's too timid at the park to really wear himself out.  But if I let him walk (which takes a lot of patience, it's best if I don't actually want to get anywhere in particular) then he tires himself out pretty well.