My DS is 21 months old and has been steadily moving towards typical 2 year old behaviour for several months now but it seems to have gone crazy lately. He is now refusing to do many things that he used to be mostly fine with - the most significant being going to bed and going to daycare.

Now he screams and flails if we say the words "sleep" or "bed" and do anything connected to his bedtime routine, including entering his bedroom, going in his sleeping bag, having his bottle or me singing his bedtime song. He has been going to bed about 2 1/2 hours late for the last week and we have to force him into his pajamas and sleeping bag and carry him into his room. He seems to have developed a fear of the dark and the closed door so we have been using a nightlight and keeping the door open.

He used to love daycare but has started to refuse to go in and gets extremely distraught if we try to leave. Usually, he just runs off to play in the sandpit or with the lego.

He is also now refusing to go into the supermarket or ride in the trolley or get in the car.


Any ideas about what going on or what I can do?

This is such a crappy stage!!!!!!
Seriously none of my boys go to the supermarket between 20 months and 3yo! This is the time that daycare becomes essential for my own sanity.

One thing that I would check is that everything at daycare is alright ie no new teachers that are perhaps causing issues...

With the bed thing I find the more tired my boys are the harder it is to get them into bed so sometimes a slightly earlier than norm bedtime can be helpful - even just starting the bedtime routine earlier even if their bedtime stays the same can be easier.

Here are a couple of links which explain this stage nicely and give some ideas for dealing with it but remember this too shall pass.

http://www.becomingtheparent.com/all/subsection13.html

also click on archived questions and look up "spunky 21/2yo girl" which will also be good reading.

Good luck!

Welcome to the land of 2 year olds! lol. Wise words that other mums always said to me "and this shall pass" and like they always said each stage passed with reasonable speed. He is pushing you, pushing boundaries. Set your limits and stick to them, time outs work. Let him see that the tantrums or unaccepted behaviour is not going to work. Although I must admit with our DS (third child) I gave up grocery shopping for a couple of months with him as it was insane - moved through that now and he is fine again.

another thing I found helpful is to give limited choices. "you can climb in you carseat yourself or I'll lift you in"... "you can have the blue plate or the orange plate..."

I find forced choice really useful... especially for things like getting in/out of the car, holding hands in carparks/crossing roads (hold hand or in buggy/being carried) and things like that.

DD likes to do 'things' like put the keys away so distracting her by saying things like "do you want to put the keys away" means she'll get out of the car to do that but if I asked her she would have refused and squirmed away IYKWIM? Same with getting thigns she's not meant to have... getting her to put them away or give them to the person who owns them works far better than me trying to get it off her.

Its quite common for separation anxiety to still be an issue so maybe that's what the problem is with bedtime and daycare. Maybe you could sit with him a bit at bedtime and reassure him that you are there verbally or something as well...

Ditto the forced choice. And I've had to learn to be patient while he tries to do something himself first, and wait for him to ask for my help. Obviously sometimes you can't avoid it and he does get upset, but then I find distraction wonderful "shhhhh! Do you hear that? I think I heard an elephent/helicopter/dinosaur!"

Asking him to do little jobs definitely works, so maybe asking him to get his PJs/nappy etc ready for bed and choose which story he would like might help? If DS is fussing about bed, I will tell him if he lies down quietly I will rub his back for a little while and that works really well.

Oh joy the terrible 2s

i do a lot of ask tell do.

he gets asked
he gets told
it gets done...........this often involves man handling but he gets the message.

I find being consistent with this works well.

also, I found when DS got like this that routine and sticking to it no matter what really helped. whether he was playing ball or not we asked told did, then moved onto the next step in the routine. the bed time thing seems to be a 2yr thing and i found perseverance with the same thing every night was the best way to keep our sanity