Hi Elissa,

Sorry to hear you're having a rough time at bedtime. It sounds like Archie is experiencing an every-day kind of separation anxiety. Perhaps his increased angst and hysteria lately are due to daycare - even though he enjoys it and is looking forward to going again, it's still a change. Even positive changes take some adapting to. In a way it's like he needs to know that all of the familiar things (ie. you, routines, etc) will still be there to come back to in order to make it "safe" to go out and discover new things.

The other thing is, his night-time upset may be due to him expressing his feelings about the day. That's not to say that he must be having an awful day every day and needs to scream about it! But in the same way that we as adults do, children need to de-brief about their day and get their feelings out before being able to wind down.

Is he fairly wound-up during the day? Does he sleep ok during the day? Did he seem to respond to any type of routine?