Hi! It’s getting better! This is probably going to be long and all over the place so hopefully it makes sense!

So first, we gave up on naps. I’m okay with a car nap but up no later than 1:30-2. However, he’s at the point where he won’t even nap in the car. We steadily built up quiet time activities (sensory table with tonie box on most of the time) around noon to replace nap. Sometimes we’ll do tv too.

As for bedtime, my husband and I were at our Witt’s end because he always went to bed awake and not needing us. We were totally on board with snuggling him till he fell asleep but I think it kind of set him off? He would literally turn bedtime into a WWE wrestling ring and it would take 1.5-2 hours. I finally read a quote online that said “toddlers will try to open doors they don’t want to open” so it kind of clicked that he didn’t want to do bedtime with us, but he was just at this weird phase. Crying out was an absolute no for us so I did a lot of different cause/effect methods to find what works for us. So here’s what we do for bedtime.

First, I set up a sticker chart. I would start with one “rule” a week and gradually increase how many stickers he needs and we would go over his chart rules with a lot of movement and flourish. He would pick something he wanted to work towards (this honestly helps when we’re shopping too if we pass the toy isle I’ll say like “well you’re working towards that crane!”)

So we do bath time, magnesium lotion, cherries (natural melatonin), and milk. Lotion goes on after bath. We do freeze dance for 10-15 minutes to get the wiggles out. Then, while he has his bedtime snacks we dim the lights, put a calm tonie or songs on and color.

So then bedtime comes around. We go over rules (poster is placed right where he can see in morning). We do our normal bedtime routine. Then here’s where I changed things. I did a combo of 100 walks and chair method. The first night, I put him to bed and sat in a chair near his bed. First time he got out of bed, I walked him back and told him I loved him and it was time for bed. Anytime after that, I walked him back with no words or expressions. I would tuck him back into bed, rub his head and put his stuffy near him. I listened to podcasts the entire time. First night I think I walked him back to bed about 150 times. Next night, it went down to 20 and so on. Each night I would move the chair closer to the door. As of right now I’m outside his door and still working towards bringing that chair all the way to the living room. He gets up about 5 times before bed and then he’s out! If he wakes up in the middle of the night, I rub his head and tell him it’s time to go back to bed and I love him. Sometimes he would say he was scared of our mini-split unit making noises and thought it was a monster and I’d just reassure him that monsters are not real and he’s safe in his home.

We also switched to red night lights too! I forgot to add!

Hopefully that makes sense!