Managing 2.5 year olds

They have finally driven me to complete madnesss. This is the first time in a long long time that i'm actually not enjoying being a SAHM or enjoying them.

During the day, the tantrums i can deal with. It's the constant whinging and demanding and being needy and "up up up" all the time. and when one starts, the other follows.

I think it all stems from their sleep, or lack of. The last month has been awful with their sleep. I honestly have no idea what to do. At night they get in and out of bed 500 times. Even if they are really tired and i ask them "will you get out of bed" they innocently say "no only in morning" as soon as i turn my back, they get out.

If i stay in their room until they fall asleep, they wake up at 1 or 2 or 3 am, come into our room and hop into bed. My DH sleeps on the couch because we cant all fit in the bed and no one has a good sleep with all the wriggling.

Then during the day, either 2 things happen:

I walk them in the pram to sleep and they sleep for 2 hours.
I dont do anything and they crash out on the floor at 4pm or 5pm.

Either way, it takes 2 hours to put them to sleep at night, which is around 9.30pm

what happened? it used to be so smooth. We do routines. dinner, bath, 3 books, milk, bed. they know the routine. the whole way through i ask them are you going to cry? are you going to get out of bed? they always say no, but do the opposite.

we are all sleep deprived. i need help......

 

I wish I had advice to give, but mine still sleep in a crib so I don't think I would be very helpful. But I hope things get better!!

 

Mine are also sitll in their cribs for that reason...can you put them back into cribs? You can still milk a bit more time out of cribs to avoid the sleepless nights until they are a bit older and stay in bed. Mine are 2.5 and they would never stay in a bed right now.

 

Are they in the same room? We were having issues when we went to toddler beds, so we separated them. If that is an option, do it. The other thing we have is gates at the door. If they get up, they can't get out. We are fortunate that our kids sleep through the night for the most part. If they do get up, we either let them CIO (which lasts only five minutes) or I go to them. I think since they know they can't leave the room they just go back to sleep if they wake up.

 

If you let them take a nap, shorten it. I found anything over 1 hr would make the bedtime routine awful. maybe try that for a while -- shorter nap, awake no later than 230. then to bed by 730-8 no later than 830. just a suggestion off the cuff. I do this and mine usually sleep thru the night, and wake up around 7ish each morning. if you skip a nap, feed them, and put a video on during the time they would fall asleep, maybe that would get you thru till 630 or 7 pm and you can then put them to bed for the night. ???? again, just suggestions, things that we try.

 

Maybe a shorter earlier nap schedule?

I hope you get things figured out soon.

 

OK, you might think this is awful, but we put a doorknob cover on the inside of the door, and superglued it together, because they figured out how to pop it off. That might sound bad to some people, but the thought of them wandering the house at night is not safe to me. Bedtime routine is pretty much the same as it was when they were in cribs. We do our normal wind-down stuff, turn on their white noise and nightlight, hugs and kisses, they get in bed, I put their blankets on, and that's it. I sometimes go back in a few times, but I put a limit on the nonsense. I don't require that they stay in bed, but they need to be quiet and keep the rowdiness down. If things are getting out of hand, I start taking away their "Friends" (lovies/stuffed animals). Also, I don't know if yours are still napping, but mine have pretty much stopped, which has its downside, but the plus is that they normally fall asleep pretty quickly.

I am willing to bet their whining and such is due to lack of sleep. I would work on the bedtime stuff and see if things improve. I also do "ask me in a nice voice" "I can't understand you when you whine" and things like that to help with the whining.

 

Honestly, I think alot has to just do with it being that age. My girls went through all of that back at that age...thankfully they are "outgrowing" some of it (at least I think so...lol). I transitioned them to twin beds at 2.5 b/c we were having anoght baby and I need the crib, so we had the constant fights at bed and nap time, the constant whingin, etc...I think they just kind of outgrew it. MANY hugs to you!