Terrible twos. OMFG.
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I completely agree with @Helen Also what's the routine? Could it be that timings need a tweak?
Thankyou both. We always give choices over everything. My husband seems to think that’s making it worse but I just don’t know. We’ll let her choose, for example, which pyjamas. She puts on the ones she wants, then changes her mind and says she wants different ones. We’ll say do you want to put them on, or mummy put them on? And she’ll say she wants to but will then just refuse to do it so you’re at a stand off. It’s honestly exhausting. Our routine is that we go up to bed at 7pm, change nappy, get into pyjamas and then read 3 books (they’re only short). We don’t bath her every night but the ones we do we go up about 6.40pm. But most nights we’re not out of her room before 8pm because she uses every delaying tactic possible and I think we’ve pandered to that too much x
My little boy is similar, I have very similar battles what seems to help a little bit is if say I want him the bath for say 6.30 I will prepare the bath a hour earlier knowing he will not go straight away and say to him we will go for a bath soon and that way least the idea is implanted and the say 6pm I will say it again he will 99% say no and the nearer the time I suggest does he think it’s time for a bath and he thinks it’s his idea to go so then he goes a bit more willingly. This doesn’t work for everything plus I work full time so don’t always have time. I try and choose my battles too if he refuses to get into his pjs he goes to bed in his clothes minus a nappy change and removing jumpers etc if thick clothes.
@Lindsay thankyou for your reply. Sorry you’re having similar issues. We actually have no problems with going up to bed. She’s quite happy to go up and especially if it’s bath night, she actually asks to go for a bath. She’ll quite happily go into her bedroom but then just doesn’t want to get changed, get into bed or for us to leave the room. She fights is on everything x
@Aimée what time does she get up in a morning? Does she still nap?
@Natalie she wakes up anywhere between 6.45am and 7.30am. She does still nap, she has around an hour between 1pm and 2pm. She doesn’t always nap now (think we’re probably transitioning to no nap). She didn’t nap on Saturday and bedtime was even worse than normal but usually it doesn’t seem to make a difference whether she naps or not x
@Aimée if the nap is staying id bring it earlier cos I would say the gap between that and bed is not long enough personally. The not falling asleep until 8 with every trick to me sounds like she's not tired enough to fall asleep before that (6 hour gap before sleep is fairly normal) If there is no nap then I'd be bringing bedtime earlier (11.5- 12 hours after waking until she adjusts)
Try giving her choices - do you want a bath or shower, these pyjamas or these ones, mummy put them on or you put them on, let her pick a bedtime story etc At this age they seem desperate to have little things they can control