Terrible 2S, Sudden Transition to Toddler Bed, PLEASE HELP!

JP, I'm more worried about him during the day, to be honest. I have no doubt that you are right in your assessment, but truthfully, his behavior during the day is more worrisome. Without handling the daytime, the nighttime cannot be fixed.

He needs loving but firm and swift consequences for what's going on during the day. He needs to be able to "use his words" with you and learn to use talking instead of acting out. You haven't mentioned his speech abilities, but you must encourage those. Help me (pronounced 'ep me since the "L" is hard for a 2 year old to say) is important to teach him. When he can say this, he knows you understand him when he needs you. "Wa-wa" for water, etc. When he hits you, grab his hands and don't let go (even if he doesn't like it) and firmly say to him while controlling him by holding those hands, "Hands are for helping, not hurting. You may not hit mommy." Don't let him get away with it. If he kicks, put him in his room and let him cry. When he finishes crying, open the door and ask him if he is ready to behave. Hug him and tell him to tell you he is sorry. Remind him that he is not allowed to kick. Same thing if he has a tantrum. NEVER give him what he wants when he has one.

If you are tough now about these tantrums and daytime behaviors, things will get better. At nighttime, just keep taking him back to his room. Put his crib mattress in the floor so he can't hurt himself.

One thing that Supernanny does with kids who continually try to come out of their room is have mom sit in the middle of the dark room, not moving, not talking, not facing the child. If the child gets up, she puts them back in the bed and sits back down in the middle of the room again. Eventually the kids get bored and tired of it, and go to sleep. It takes a long time at first, and then gets better.

The thing is, if you allow him into your bed anymore, he will scream and tantrum to get back into it. Neither of you need this. Instead, don't allow it anymore, period. Yes, he's going through separation anxiety. No, it's not going to ruin him.

So try the supernanny approach, and really start being totally, 100% consistent in everything you do with him. He is begging for it right now, and he needs it too.

I hope your mom gets better real soon - I'm so sorry about that.

Dawn

I dated a guy that was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at a very young age. He had tantrums at night and would do unexplainable things. His mom finally talked to a dr about it. That's how they figured it out. Maybe it's just everything going on right now that are causing these fits, but best to be safe than sorry. Talk to the pediatrition and rule things out.
Best of luck to you.

put him in his room and put a gate across the door. don't allow the screaming. put him in his room and close the door after making sure it is child proofed. if you don't put a stop to it now you will have a defiant 16 year old telling you he is taking the car and you can kiss butt. if he is screaming in pain then that is a different thing. does he have molars coming in? is he hungry? thats a really early time to bed. I would stretch that out to about 8pm for bedtime. big snack before bed and then into bed. don't put him in your bed. just put him back to bed over and over he will get back in the swing. we had gates across our boys rooms. I don't know what toddler separation class is but if he is out of his routine that might be part of the problem. can you just get a sitter he knows to stay while you go to your moms and skip the class thing altogether till he is older?

Nothing wrong with letting him sleep in your bed at night, especially if you have been away from him so much during the day. Our youngest tends to come into our bed at night when school for me starts each time. We have a lot of time together during my breaks, but when school starts he goes back to daycare. He loves it there, but during those first few weeks back he really loves sleeping with us.

He will go back to his bed. He might just need this extra snuggle time with you. Give him some time to adjust to everything.

Before this happened did you put him to bed and leave the room before he was asleep, or stay with him until he fell asleep or put him in his bed sound asleep? I always put our kids to bed sound asleep at that age. I guess I just didn't have patience to continually put them back in their beds. Anyway, you could start my sitting with him until he falls asleep and then gradually work your way back into leaving when he's awake.

Give him some time. I know it's not easy on you, but he really needs this right now.

My daughter climbed out of her crib before she turned 2 so we converted it to a toddler bed-it was a TERRIBLE thing. For a week I had to stand there until she fell asleep to make sure she stayed. Just terrible. We put it back together and bought a crib tent. She is still in it at 3 years old. For her safety and our piece of mind, it totally works. She almost seemed relieved that we put her crib back together AND I could walk out of the room with her still awake, knowing she could put herself to sleep AND be safe and enclosed inside the tent. Just a thought. We called it her "princess tent" and that helped too ;)
Good luck. Hoping you all get some sleep.

He's feeling abandoned for sure.

Just reassure him it's okay. I would spend some extra time with him when possible.

If you have to leave him a lot in the day to take care of your mom why does he need a separation class? I think people push these little kids too much when they just want to be mothered for a bit and soon he'll be off to school and you will not have a little boy at home wanting you to be there. I would not put him in your bed, especially now after the bed incident, as it teaches he gets more attention for jumping out of his bed or other behavior similar. I would tell him this is his bed now and you are there to check on him, do check on him before you go to bed several times, and then he will adjust to it. It sounds like you are the one worrying about him and his being away and being hurt, etc. Maybe if you let go of some of that and let him be with you with you can and let him know being away if for a short time he will know what is expected and do fine with it.

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Give it a go in the toddler bed and see how he does. My son took months of transition to a single bed. My daughter (who just turned 2) just plain ol' HATED her crib. We had problems with night wakings, going to sleep without major meltdowns, etc. A couple of weeks ago, I had enough. We put her right in a twin, starting with naps a couple of days, and she is now sleeping like a champ in her twin bed. No more problems.
What triggered the change was my mother getting her a new Tinkerbell bedspread for her birthday. When we put that on the twin in her room, the crib was definitely yesterday's news. One day at nap time, she crawled in and went to sleep. lol
You might be surprised at how he adjusts just like that. You might want to sit in with him until he gets used to the converted toddler bed. He probably just hates the crib as much as my girl does. I probably could have ditched that thing months ago and saved myself some angst.

Crib tent! I didn't get wise to this till my 3rd and it has been a god send. My dr recommended since my 2 year old was climbing out of her crib. We love it and so does she and now we don't have to stress about her wandering around the house at night (which she started going).

Something which hasn't been mentioned is "night terrors." these are different than nightmares, and baby is not really awake, despite seeming very alert. Look into this and see if it helps make sense of what is happening.

Good luck to you, and good health to your mom.
BTW, we used the Ferber approach. It worked for us.

F. B.

What is a toddler separation class? Just curious.
My three all transitioned from a crib to a twin mattress on the floor at around 18 months. They also dropped their naps between 2 and 2 and a half. They slept better through the night without a nap, but would go through phases of waking up and crawling into bed with us. I didn't fight it too much because I was honestly just too damn tired to get up and walk them back to bed, and it never really became a problem, they all grew out of it.
I'm not sure about the tantrums and hitting during the day. Who is watching him while you take care of your mom? Is he being kept busy and engaged? I think too much time at home (and especially in front of the TV) creates bored and cranky kids. Maybe that's part of it?

My 4 year old son went through a similar stage when he was about 2. He started waking up earlier every morning and he started to nap less. We had to mess around with it, but we realized that he just started needing less sleep. It sound like your son is getting about 13.5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour time span. I think this is a little on the higher end. 6:30 seems a bit early for bed and he might not be quite ready for bed... so he is exerting his independence and playing or climbing out of bed. Instead of wasting that time trying to get him to calm down, why not just push his bedtime back about and hour (between 7:30 and 8:00). Then he may be a bit more tired and not fight it so much? For my son we realized his naps were to long if we expected him to sleep more at night. Even though he would still go to bed well, he started getting up earlier and earlier. By 2 and 1/2 he pretty much gave up naps all together and would only take naps a couple of times per week or in the car. I think he was getting about 12 or 12.5 hours total at that time... During all this sleep changes, he also started climbing out of the crib during nap time (he would go right to sleep most nights). We did manage to get him to nap a little longer once he got his new bed, but we had to work at it. After a while we began to realize he just didn't need as much sleep overall and for him, when he would nap he would wake up way to early so we weaned out the naps. You just have to figure out where to give up that extra hour or so he may no longer need! Good Luck!

Don't stress the deadline about his sleeping in his bed for now. Give him some time with lots of daily exercise and PLENTY of healthy food (he may be in a growth spurt and not eating enough if he's waking at night, and be sure he's not eating too much sugar). Also get the book Back to Basics Discipline by Janet Campbell Matson and employ the system to nip the tantrums, hitting, etc. It's not about kindergarten or separation or anything else unless he has a medical disorder (most likely doesn't), it IS normal behavior at his age if he gets away with those things. I have three close in age and the system in the book has kept me sane home alone with them while my husband travels constantly.