Hello everyone and welcome to the Your Village podcast, Parenting Beyond Discipline, the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered. I'm your host, Erin Royer. Today I'm answering two questions, both about bedtime and sleep. This seems to be a really popular area of struggle in

most homes. So we have one about a toddler who has started screaming at bedtime, unexpectedly, or out of the

blue, and another about an eight-year-old who is struggling to wake up in the morning. The first question

is from Sylvia, who writes, Hi, Aaron, I love your

podcast and look forward to listening to it all the way from New Zealand. I have a two-year-old boy who

recently started crying and screaming at bedtime and was wondering what we should do differently,

if anything. We read him stories on the couch while he has some milk, then brush his teeth,

and I read him another couple books in his room. And he always seems so relaxed, but when I put him to sleep, he stands up

straight away and starts screaming and crying. He sometimes will cry up to 30 minutes, which I find

to be quite long. I do go in before the 30 minute mark to reassure him without picking him up,

but to no avail. He used to be so much better.

Could he be afraid of the dark? When do they start being afraid of the dark? Any suggestions would be

highly appreciated. All right, Sylvia. So this is when I wish I had a call-in shows so that we could

have a conversation and get some more details. But there are a few things that could be

happening, and especially since you said this is kind of picked up out of the blue. And one in particular

that seems very likely that came to mind first as a potential for this behavior. And that is, I wonder if he's

cutting his molars. The bottom molars come in between 23 and 32 months, and the top ones come in between 25 and 33 months.

Now, because of their large size and the double edges, molars can be twice as difficult to cut as the other baby teeth.

Now, common signs for this process include irritation of the skin around the mouth. You'll see the redness and raw around the mouth

from the drooling, constant gnawing on things, ear pulling, cheek rubbing, refusal to eat,

lack of sleep, of course, and crankiness. So I think it is possible that the bottle, along with

the attention that he's getting before bed, maybe taking the focus off of the discomfort and pain.

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