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Toddler up all night - help!

Posted May 9, 2017 - 10:51pm

Hi, I'm a dad of two 2.5 year old boys.
One of them refuses to sleep. He has a restless leg. And he will play, make noises, and go on and on until he is delirious.
My wife lays next to him in his bed, and sometimes it takes over 2 hours for him to fall asleep.

Then my insomniac wakes up consistently through the night and often has night terrors

Please help.

Current routine.

5:30 or 6 pm is dinner.

Dinner is unruly. I have a hard time keeping the boys in their seats, and eating. Many times they will need to go potty, then come back to the table. Or go to the fridge. Or go to a toy. It's chaos, however I've actually managed to get them to sit about 80% now.
Hence, dinner takes too long and is over at 7pm.

7 pm - bottle of milk

7:15 bath.

Fighting with kids to get out of the bath, toys or no toys, there is always something they want to play with.

7:45 - reading kids story, this is sometimes calming.
more milk

8 pm - get kids to lay down. Then they start to go crazy again.
I'm hungry. I have to potty. I want my toy. I want more milk. (sometimes almost two bottles of milk before they stop)

each kid goes pee. Then goes potty. Then goes pee again.

Start over the calming routine, get kids to lay down again. Won't lay down without someone in the room. 1 son goes to sleep right away. My other continues to fight .
(getting close to 9pm)

Wife and I fall asleep trying to get them to sleep. Son tosses and kicks and enters delirium until almost 10pm.

My wife and I are beyond exhausted doing this.

I've tried to put the kids down by 7:15, 7:30, - it is possible. But the minute they have to go potty, and they get hungry, the nighttime routine can extend to 9 or 9:30 pm again. I've never had them fall asleep before 8pm.

Sorry for the long description, but the night routine spirals out of control almost every night, and it's not healthy for my kids, or ourselves.

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Last post

Renata Lander

Hi! It's good that you have painted your routine, it's good that it is. Perhaps children are not tired enough, and therefore do not want to sleep. Or the evening is too busy that they can't calm down. Perhaps you spend too much time on it, and you should not try to put them to bed. You can't do it. Sometimes, if I see that I spend more than an hour on it, I let the children not sleep. Think about yourself, you can stay awake even if you are tired, but children will not do this. They will want to sleep - they will go to sleep, you are only wasting your energy.