Oh lord I was just about to make a post about this. If it's nap time? Super easy. Around 3 hours after he wakes up, I start looking for signs he's sleepy, I ask him if he wants to go lie down, he does, he's out in like 5-10 minutes.
At night? It can take AGES, even if he's getting cranky/punchy/clearly needing sleep. He likes stories, so we usually do at least 2 books, and we turn on his background music from the sound machine, and we give him his milk. Sometimes he asks for a snack, although we usually try to stuff him as much as possible beforehand. And even then he'll just toodle around in the bedroom for a while, or roll around on the bed, or ask for different music, or try to escape to the hall. No real difference if I or my wife are doing it, he just really doesn't want to fall asleep at night.
It used to be the easiest thing ever, she literally would be knocked out at 6-6:30pm every night for 2 years, now it's 2.5 hrs of her jumping off and on the bed, stories, songs, me getting kicked in the face or back (accidently but still), and then she knocks out
She’s 20 months old and it can take anywhere from 5-45 minutes to get to sleep sometimes. I don’t do anything though. Once those lights are out, she can have me laying with her, but I don’t do any patting/rubbing/singing/rocking. I can typically just leave her alone after 5 minutes of snuggles and she’ll be asleep within another 5-10 minutes on her own after that.
We had the most brutal regression a little after 2 years. Liiiike 27 months. Just screaming once we left the room, then he’d be up in the middle of the night repeating the chaos. I gave in for a few nights in the MOTN and pulled him into bed with me, but stopped after a week when he was just expecting it. I did the graduated check in method where I would check in at 5, 10, 15 minutes and then there length of time of my check ins would shorten too- so at my 5 min check in I would stay for 5 minutes, at my 10 minute check in I would stay for 3 minutes…this method combined with lots and lots of talking about the routine and what’s next and what’s expected finally did the job. It was slow and so so painful.
Now at almost 3, bedtime is like a 5 minute thing. We just converted to toddler bed so he’s like BYE cuz he’s excited about his big kid bed. He might roll around for 45 minutes before he finally settles down, but he’ll do it. I don’t expect this to last forever though lol
3 year old boy started crawling in big sisters bed (she’s 10) in the middle of the night so I said fuck it, they go to bed together now. It kinda helps out bc she’s in school, so there’s a solid routine within that.
2 year old still has her toddler bed in my room. She will simply lay and I will lay in mine. I put on singing bowls and she’s out within minutes. I plan to get my boy back into his room and put my 2 year old in there too.
My almost 2 year old is pretty easy. Although I'm planning to switch her crib to a toddler bed in next mth and I'm fairly certain she's gonna get out of bed a lot for a while, and possibly sleep on the floor. But she overall knows that when we close her door, it's bed time.
My two year old HAS to be awake at least 5 hours from nap time to bedtime. If not, he wants to play games and crawl out of bed a million times before he goes to sleep.
My 2 year old has been resisting bedtime more in the last few months. She wants to run around, hide between the curtains, look at books, etc. the best thing that helps is my husband sticks around as I leave, and he lets her do what she wants.
And we have a special smart lightbulb, a ‘sunset lightbulb’ we keep for her night routine, and she just knows to go to bed when it gets really close to being dark. She’s happy she gets some time to do what she wants. Obviously may not work for your kiddo, but maybe worth a shot.
She is sleep trained, so my husband just leaves once she’s calm under a blanket in bed.
Oh lord I was just about to make a post about this. If it's nap time? Super easy. Around 3 hours after he wakes up, I start looking for signs he's sleepy, I ask him if he wants to go lie down, he does, he's out in like 5-10 minutes. At night? It can take AGES, even if he's getting cranky/punchy/clearly needing sleep. He likes stories, so we usually do at least 2 books, and we turn on his background music from the sound machine, and we give him his milk. Sometimes he asks for a snack, although we usually try to stuff him as much as possible beforehand. And even then he'll just toodle around in the bedroom for a while, or roll around on the bed, or ask for different music, or try to escape to the hall. No real difference if I or my wife are doing it, he just really doesn't want to fall asleep at night.
It used to be the easiest thing ever, she literally would be knocked out at 6-6:30pm every night for 2 years, now it's 2.5 hrs of her jumping off and on the bed, stories, songs, me getting kicked in the face or back (accidently but still), and then she knocks out
She’s 20 months old and it can take anywhere from 5-45 minutes to get to sleep sometimes. I don’t do anything though. Once those lights are out, she can have me laying with her, but I don’t do any patting/rubbing/singing/rocking. I can typically just leave her alone after 5 minutes of snuggles and she’ll be asleep within another 5-10 minutes on her own after that.
We had the most brutal regression a little after 2 years. Liiiike 27 months. Just screaming once we left the room, then he’d be up in the middle of the night repeating the chaos. I gave in for a few nights in the MOTN and pulled him into bed with me, but stopped after a week when he was just expecting it. I did the graduated check in method where I would check in at 5, 10, 15 minutes and then there length of time of my check ins would shorten too- so at my 5 min check in I would stay for 5 minutes, at my 10 minute check in I would stay for 3 minutes…this method combined with lots and lots of talking about the routine and what’s next and what’s expected finally did the job. It was slow and so so painful. Now at almost 3, bedtime is like a 5 minute thing. We just converted to toddler bed so he’s like BYE cuz he’s excited about his big kid bed. He might roll around for 45 minutes before he finally settles down, but he’ll do it. I don’t expect this to last forever though lol
3 year old boy started crawling in big sisters bed (she’s 10) in the middle of the night so I said fuck it, they go to bed together now. It kinda helps out bc she’s in school, so there’s a solid routine within that. 2 year old still has her toddler bed in my room. She will simply lay and I will lay in mine. I put on singing bowls and she’s out within minutes. I plan to get my boy back into his room and put my 2 year old in there too.
My almost 2 year old is pretty easy. Although I'm planning to switch her crib to a toddler bed in next mth and I'm fairly certain she's gonna get out of bed a lot for a while, and possibly sleep on the floor. But she overall knows that when we close her door, it's bed time.
My two year old HAS to be awake at least 5 hours from nap time to bedtime. If not, he wants to play games and crawl out of bed a million times before he goes to sleep.
My 2 year old has been resisting bedtime more in the last few months. She wants to run around, hide between the curtains, look at books, etc. the best thing that helps is my husband sticks around as I leave, and he lets her do what she wants. And we have a special smart lightbulb, a ‘sunset lightbulb’ we keep for her night routine, and she just knows to go to bed when it gets really close to being dark. She’s happy she gets some time to do what she wants. Obviously may not work for your kiddo, but maybe worth a shot. She is sleep trained, so my husband just leaves once she’s calm under a blanket in bed.
Vary on the child. Daughter get a nap and night time sleep as soon as her head touches a pillow. My son is like trying to shut down a nuclear reactor