Desperate to Get a Handle on Night Time Tantrums!

My son did a similar thing. We slept in the same room for the first two years of his life. He had his own bed, but due to lack of space his bed was in my room. When I finally moved him out he couldn't sleep unless I was in the room. END OF STORY! I tried the walk him back to bed without talking for two nights in a row....I literally walked him back to bed over 150 times (no joke) in two nights. Finally I decided that was not working for either of us. I sat in his room and slowly, very slowly each night moved closer to the door. The first three nights were spent simply not touching him while he fell asleep. Then each night after I moved closer to the door. So he could still see me, but I wouldn't look at him or pay attention to him, just was in the room. FINALLY about a week or so later I made it to the door. A week after that I was walking away from the door and walking back to make kissing noises (if he made them back he was still awake, if he didn't then I knew he was asleep.) It took more work than it would have when he was younger, but after about 3 weeks he was in a great routine and for the first time ever I enjoyed bedtime. Now I HATE to give it up! I don't think anyone can put him to bed right :) And he's 6--he can tell them how to do it! LOL

um...your toddler is NOT a monster, as the previous poster said. She's a toddler. You just took away her bottle, cold turkey, of course she's going to be upset. I'm a little more "touchy feely" than a lot of your responders. I co-sleep and don't believe in letting my children scream for hours when it's not necessary. Talk to your daughter. Explain to her that she's a big girl and she needs to fall asleep on her own. I know she's not going to "get it" right away, but she will eventually. My 2 1/2 year old has to have book or story at bedtime, in her bed, read by her daddy. She gets to pick the book or the story, but then that's it. He tells her "OK, I'll tell you the story of Goldilocks, but then I'm going downstairs." Usually it works pretty well. Of course, she asks for another story, but he will just tell her "nope, one story and that's it." Then he winds up her music box and comes downstairs. Most often, she's asleep by the time he gets downstairs. Try to make bedtime fun and not a nightmare. Make a game out of it. Have him tell her "OK! Let's see how fast you can fall asleep tonight! Can you fall asleep BEFORE XYZ!?!" Any maybe offer her a small reward for falling asleep in her bed by herself. Maybe do a sticker chart or something? If she sleeps without daddy in her room for a week, she gets a special treat? Good luck!!! We all need our sleep :)

Don't give up hope! You must be exhausted, but I have a couple of suggestions you might try. Remember that everything has to be tailored to fit the personality of your little one, but these are techniques I know have worked in the past.

First, recognize that it's hard for adults to quit cold turkey, too! Try reintroducing a sippy cup of lukewarm water that your daughter can suck while going to sleep, and see if that helps her relax a little. You could also try a cup of warm milk before she brushes her teeth for the night.

Next, it's not too late to establish a bedtime routine. This will help your daughter get sleepy. My son takes a bath, brushes his gums, we read a story together, he has a drink of water, we say our prayers, turn off the light, I sing him a lullaby while rocking him, we turn on his "sleepy-time" CD, and I put him in bed. I follow the same pattern for nap beginning with reading the story. No matter where we are, what time of night, when it's time for him to go to sleep, we follow that pattern. It will take a little while to establish a night-time pattern with an older child, but do so now! And never deviate from it! I may be bored sick of my son's sleepy time CD, but that music is his cue, so I still listen to it every night!

Also, no matter how late at night your daughter goes to bed, she should get up at the same time the next morning (don't let her sleep in). If she's overly tired, let her make it up the following night.

Finally, make sure your husband isn't doing more harm than good when he hangs out in your daughter's bedroom. Once you've said your good-nights, turned off the lights, and completed the bedtime routine, there should be NO FURTHER COMMUNICATION with your child. No telling her to lie back down, no reminding her it's night-time, nothing. If she needs Daddy in her room, for now, he can stay there, but if he interacts with her, she will never allow him to leave. So take a couple of nights (probably about a week) with Dad sitting in her room until she falls asleep while you establish the night-time routine, but make sure you don't reward her with attention for staying up. If he wants to stand up to lay her back down or pat her bum or something to help her sleep, that's fine, but he shouldn't make eye contact and he shouldn't say a word.

Hopefully, once she realizes Daddy won't engage with her, his presence in her room will become slightly less important. Once you notice that happening, the next step is for Daddy to slowly begin moving away from her bed. Every night, he should sit a little further from her bed (but still in her room) until she is comfortable with him at that distance. Hopefully within the period of another week, Dad will be out of the room.

One more resource that might help if my advice doesn't work is Supernanny, on TV. I'm not a huge fan of all of her techniques, and of course she picks cases that make great TV, but she often deals with sleeping issues and you might be able to find some advice there that will help you out. I really hope this helps! You must be so exhausted. Good luck.

You said it started when you took away the bottle. What about a sippy cup with a little water?

This may sound crazy... but you may want to pull-up some archived episodes of Super Nanny. Unfortunately - for awhile - you're going to have to let her scream it out. You've created this monster and you're the only one that can fix it... and trust me... you want to fix it now! It will only get worse and then this behavior will transfer into other areas of her life. She is learning that if she cries and screams loud enough she gets her way. Trust me, you don't want to go there.

You didn't mention how old she is, but I'm guessing since you mentioned a bottle she's still rather young.

It could be she's really testing your limits, BUT it could also be that she's hit a growth spurt and really is hungry or thirsty. NOT a battle you really want to have to fight every night. At this point, you really can't let her win by giving her the bottle back, BUT you can offer a peace flag by offering that poor girl a sippy cup!!

Actually, to get our oldest off the bottle at night, we did this: we have a dorm fridge in our laundry room next to our bedroom. We kept a bottle and some 8 oz. bottles of water in the fridge, along with some straws nearby. At night, we'd ask if she wanted "the good stuff" (the bottle) or water. One night, she picked water, and never looked back.

Both our daughters love drinking water out of those bottles (with a straw, of course - helps minimize spills, and the bottles are pretty much the perfect size for their little hands).

Or maybe even offer her a graham cracker too. If giving my daughters a snack right before bed means they're going to sleep better, then more power to it!! (Fight the fights that need fighting, and that ain't one of them!) We've noticed that with both our daughters, when they go through growth spurts, they'll eat the house down, and when it's passed, they won't want the snack and/or drink. SO, set limits on what sort of snacks/drinks are available. We had to quit giving our oldest drinks 1/2 hour before bed until she had a better handle on getting up in the night to go potty, but that's okay now....so that might be something to consider too.

For what it's worth, and good luck!!

Hi M.,

I know exactly what you are going through. My beautiful, happy daughter turned into a screaming nightmare over night. It was like a switch had been turned on. We tried everything until eventually we ended up putting a toddler proof handle on her door knob, child proofed her room and just let her scream it out. This was only after we tried the "nanny 911" way which was a joke with my daughter and every other method in the book. She was just extremely strong willed. Eventually this worked and now we can leave her door open, tuck her into bed and give her kisses like we always wanted to do at the end of the day. Hang in there, it will get better.

If it is a bottle she misses I wonder if giving her a bottle of water at night might help. Both of my boys ages 2 and 5 sometimes sooth themselves to sleep with a sippy cup of water. (I know 5 is a bit old for this but oh well). When I took the binkie away from my two year old (he ripped a patch of hair out with it) he transitioned to using water at bed. The 5 year old stays dry despite this crutch (I don't think he uses it much). The two year old isn't dry at night either way. Might need to switch to huggies overnights or pampers extra protection to compensate for the extra water. Try having your husband give her a little bit of a bottle of water at night for a few nights, then ween her of him. Leave the bottle with her. Or just go cold turkey and give her the bottle and try leaving. I hope this fits with your situation. And remind yourself often that she will not be doing this when she is 18 years old (sometimes that is the only comfort I can find :)

You must be exhausted!! Try a bottle of WATER, not milk or juice, at night. Water will not rot her teeth. She may just need more hugging at night, since you took away the snuggling source with the bottle. She may need a nightlight or something also, since at this age it may be fear of "monsters". I read the other day that you put the pillowcase opening AWAY from the door of the room, "to keep monsters out of her pillow". The adult who wrote it said it worked for HER for 50 years! Best wishes!!

You saw how well letting your second child cry it out worked, so why not try it with your toddler? I did the EXACT same thing as you as far as my first child vs. my second child. I learned what NOT to do when it came time to have my second. I was worried that my first child would wake the baby during her crying it out nights, so I put a fan in the hallway and had it on high enough to drown out the crying so as not to wake the baby. It worked great, and 3 days later, my first was sleeping through the night.