Our son recently turned 13 months old and has begun to exhibit tantrums in the evenings. It's clear that he's tired (rubbing the eyes, eyes rolling back in his head, yawning, etc.) but he jerks himself out of his drowsiness and prolongs the tantrum. Occationally, if we lay him in his bed he'll fall asleep, but most of the time now he throws a fit and will kick and scream for an eternity. In addition, he also throws a tantrum when we put him on the changing table to change his diaper or clothes. He's becomes so volitile that he nearly threw himself off the table recently. I now do everything on the floor so that he can't hurt himself.
We have a long established bed time routine which worked well until recently.
Is all of this drama normal in a child so young? I guess I was expecting this to happen later.
Maxwell seems to be doing better this week with his sleep schedule. I'm not sure exactly what has changed, could be the end of an ear infection and a budding new molar, but feeding him dinner a little sooner and giving him a five minute warnings, when it seems he's not ready to settle down, seems to work. I don't know if he really understands what I'm saying, but I've been alerting him five, then four and three minutes before I intend to put him to bed. He seems to be okay with that and is relaxed enough to sleep. Maybe he understands more than I realize. Mayb it's just a coincidence. But there have been fewer tantrums and he's sleeping through the night. Thanks for all of the advice and well wishes.
My daughter will be a year old in 2 weeks, and she started doing the same things about a month ago. She has already stopped throwing the tantrums at night. I didn't change anything, she just quit on her own. However, she still throws tantrums almost everytime I put her on her changing table to change her. So it is nice to see I am not alone on that one. I was starting to wonder what that was all about.
Our 15 month old goes to be every night at 7 pm like clockwork. I think if you get into a routine and don't acknowledge the tantrums he'll get over it quickly when he sees that it's not working. He's just testing you and it might be working :o) If it works for them they'll keep it up. They're smart :o)
Good luck,
J.
I have been there, and this is the time when it starts. I think we just hope that it happens later.My daughter is 1 1/2 and is now getting out of that bedtime temper tantrum phase although she does have them for nearly everything else. They are being more independant. She only takes one nap a day now, it seems if she naps to early in the day that our bedtime is crazy, so i put her down around 11 and she usually sleeps for 2 hrs. Then she is not exhausted by her bedtime of 7:30-8:00. When they are to overtired they have a harder time falling asleep. This has worked for me, just changing her naptime. The drama is so normal. I do have 5 kids and have been down this road before. Some kids need 2 naps for shorter times others need 1 longer nap. I would just suggest figuring out if maybe you need to change the nap schedual.Just a suggesstion. Hope this helps.
S.,
I think this might be normal as our son is going to turn 1 next week and is starting to exhibit the same behavior as Maxwell. That being said, I have no advice, but will watch intently to see if someone else can help us!
Maybe try starting the bed routine early by 30 mintues or so just to try and catch him before he is over tired. Happy Mother's Day.
I would say just keep up the routine. Eventually, as long as it's not working for him...he'll stop the tantrums. If you start taking him out of bed..he's getting what he wants and will keep them up...so just stick to your guns, put him to bed, and let him cry. It's not going to hurt him, though it may mean a few extra minutes of noise for you :)
Everything I've heard is that by the time they are showing signs of tiredness they are overtired. And once they become overtired the tantrums are worse because they don't calm themselves very well. So my suggestion would be to bump up bedtime by 1/2 hour or so and try that for a few nights. If that doesn't work try another 1/2 hour.
Good luck and Happy Mother's Day.
J.
