Please help me. My son will be 21 months later this month and as of Thursday last week has been having the worst trouble sleeping. Up until this point he was fully sleep trained; he would wake up at 8am, go down for a nap from 2-4pm, go to bed awake at 8pm, put himself to sleep and self soothe any time he woke up during the night.

Starting Thursday last week, he is refusing to lay down in bed. He will cry every time he wakes which is now multiple times per night. He starts crying as soon as he is put in his crib and screams when I leave the room. Sometimes he will carry on for up to 3.5 hours with me checking in on him at 5/10/15/up to 20 minute increments. He is put to bed with his pillow and lovey, which he is now in the habit of throwing on the floor which gives him something else to scream and get mad about. If I try to place these items back into his crib before he is ready to accept them (despite being mad that they are on the floor) he will immediately throw them back at me and get more mad. Sometimes I will kneel next to the crib to give him a hug and calm him and he will physically push me away and get angry. Sitting or laying on the floor next to his crib results in his things being thrown at me, repeated cries of “up” and angry screams. If I try to lay him down, he screams at me and gets angry.

Out of the past eight nights, he’s slept two decent stretches one 8 hours and the other 10 hours. The other nights have been a maximum of 5 hours with last night being his worst at a grand total of 3.5 hours sleep for the entire night (longest stretch was 2 hours.)

I know he is teething his two year molars because his hands are constantly in his mouth and covered in saliva. I have been giving him Tylenol and tonight tried Motrin before bed alleviate this pain as much as possible.

He is also tugging at his ears and I took him to the pediatrician today to rule out ear infection. His ears, throat, lungs all good, although since we got home his nose has been running and he spiked a 101 fever after dinner. The Motrin brought it down to 99.6 within an hour.

I rocked him prior to putting him in bed tonight because I know he’s not feeling well due to the fever. He fell asleep in my arms but woke up when I tried to move him to the crib, twice. At 8pm I laid him down (he immediately stood up) kissed him and left the room. He fought falling asleep by throwing his pillow and lovey out of the crib and refusing to lay down until 9pm. I checked on him three times in this period.

He slept until 9:30pm and has been awake ever since. It’s now 10:30pm and I’ve only gone in once to give him his comfort items back which were immediately tossed out of anger yet again. I haven’t returned to his room since and am waiting to see how long he lasts before he exhausts himself.

This behavior truly feels rebellious to me, like he doesn’t want to go to sleep so he refuses to lay down by any means no matter how tired he gets. When he cries there are no tears so I do not believe he is scared or anything, he’s doing it to manipulate me. When I go in and hug him the crying immediately stops and doesn’t wind down like a normal cry when he’s trying to catch his breath.

What do I do? How do I get my little buddy who loved to go to bed and be kissed and covered up and put himself to sleep back? I’m desperate and heartbroken and feel powerless at this point.

Update to this evening. I let him cry for 15 more minutes after posting this then went and checked his temp (98.5) his breathing is clear, and gave him his pillow and lovey back. We kissed and said goodnight and I left. He cried for maybe a minute or two and then calmed down. Within 15 more minutes he was laying down and asleep. Hopefully he sleeps all night. If he wakes anytime after 1am I will of course check his temp and redose him for that if needed.