Bedtime shouting

If you follow Bubbablue and me on Facebook or Twitter (if not, why not?), you’ll have heard my angst over N’s change in sleeping and his tendency this week to have been doing a lot of bedtime shouting.

For seemingly no reason (although we did wonder whether it was prompted by the chainsaw incident at nursery), the week just gone saw N hating going to bed in the evenings.  He’s always been a good sleeper and happy to go to bed if he was tired, or even just to go and chill out in bed if he needed a rest but not a nap.  But this week has made me want to shout at him (I have great admiration for any parent who has bedtime nightmares with their children all the time!).

We’d do the same bedtime routine as usual, maybe ten minutes or so later, with sit down, bath, story and bed, but as soon as we were out of the room, he’d start shouting ‘Mummy cuddle me, Mummy come here, Daddy come here, Daddy cuddle me’ depending on who was in the house.

The first night it was just me as the OH was still out working.  So I went into him for cuddles a few times, asked him what was wrong.  He couldn’t tell me, just didn’t want to go back into bed.  He wanted to go in the other room to lie down on the bed.  But didn’t want to stay there.  Didn’t want to sit in his chair, didn’t want a drink, didn’t want the door open…or closed.  Eventually the OH came in (an hour after N had gone up to bed, and an hour of shouting), went into him, and he was fine.

The other nights last week were similar – shouting, no attempt at climbing out or even standing up, but wanted to go in the bathroom with his Dad while he showered.  After that, he’d go to bed.  Of course, with the OH coming in at any late time, we don’t want N up at ridiculous hours.  Especially as he’d also been waking earlier than normal at around 6.15, shouting in a similar way.

What I couldn’t understand, was why he didn’t climb out given he can quite safely.

This lasted 4 nights, with the funniest happening when I’d left N in bed, gone downstairs, and OH had gone for his shower.  Next thing I heard a little knock on the bathroom door upstairs, and OH came out to see N scoot past him into the bathroom.  I got the blame for getting him out of his cot!  Think OH will just need to start showering earlier again before N goes to bed, otherwise he’ll just climb out to follow his dad.

Since then though, N’s gone to bed more happily. No more shouting or crying, although he’s still waking up much earlier than his old 6.45-7am wake up.  This means he’s climbing out and coming downstairs to find (and annoy) me while I’m doing my exercising.

He didn’t have a nap yesterday (other than 5 minutes in the car in the morning), so I thought he might have slept longer, but it was a 6am wake and a post 7.30pm bedtime.  We’ll have to see what happens this evening, as I totally forgot to ask nursery not to put him down for a nap just in case he needs to be stopping those.

It’s definitely a minefield having children, especially when they and their habits change so frequently.

Have you found the same with your children – that previously good sleepers would all of a sudden change?  What was their trigger?

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8 Comments

  1. My 20 month old has just started (this week) saying no, when I say bedtime. He used to happily go up to bed for nap and bedtime but this week he has been more relunctant. I don’t really know why, possibly just testing his boundaries. Luckily he has been ok once we get up to bed, but I hear what you say about their constant phases and changes – it is hard to keep up sometimes! Do you live in MK?

  2. Have you spoken to him about the chainsaw incident? Sounds like it spooked him. Children’s psyches are so mouldable at that age. Maybe introducing him to a chainsaw on the farm and showing him it is nothing to worry about might help. 🙂

    1. Turns out he was scared of his uncle using the chain saw on the farm before when he was at my SIL’s. One of his cousins was the same at a similar age but is ok now, so hopefully he’ll grow out of it.
      I tried to ask him whether he didn’t like it, but he doesn’t really get likes or favourites or scared yet so just didn’t say anything.

  3. Thanks so much for your comment on my #saidItSaturday blog post. I hopped straight over. I thought you were the lady I drank with with Fi after Cybher, but she was pregnant, and if you are excersising at 6 a.m. that doesn’t sound like you could be…. Sorry for being dopey. I will read some more posts so that I can stop mixing you up with someone else.
    Back to your post, Aaron sleeps for 12 hours but that is only because we co-sleep. He gave up afternoon naps ages back, but he is 3 and yet he had one today… sometimes they are predictable and sometimes so so not. I really really must decorate his bedroom.
    Liska xxx

    1. Ha ha, N has an undecorated bedroom too. It’s on my list when he’s a bit older!

      We met i the coffee place before Britmums and were chatting in the queue before we were all let in. Too many events and too many faces.

      1. Now it all makes sense. I think I included the photo of you guys in my BritMums Live post *runs to check* xx

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