Your toddler may have developed the habit of crying inconsolably when you put her down for a nap after she's eaten a meal or a snack. Toddlers who habitually cry when they are put in their cribs generally have a reason for doing so. Because of how toddlers develop as they grow older, the issue can be physical, developmental or a reaction to changes in parenting. The parents are left with the task of figuring out the reasons for the bedtime crying.
Abdominal Pain
One reason your toddler may cry in his crib after eating could be abdominal pain. Because he doesn't have a large enough vocabulary, all he can do is point to his stomach or say something like, "Tummy hurt." The issue could be a food intolerance. If your child is developing a pattern of eating and then crying afterward, have his pediatrician perform a physical exam and decide if further testing is needed.
Monsters
Your toddler is now old enough that she is able to think and use her imagination more than when she was a small infant. Her imagination conjures up thoughts of monsters and scary things hiding in her closet or under her crib. When this happens, she starts to cry in fear. You'll hear her scream, "Mama! Daddy!" with a real tone of fear in her voice.
While she is developing an imagination and independent thought, she is still too young to be able to think through her fear and rationalize that the shadows are not really monsters. She's caught in a pattern of imagining monsters that could do terrible things to her and a strong fear reaction. Talk to her when she's calm and devise strategies to deal with the imaginary monsters.
Inconsistent Cuddling
Ask yourself if you've recently changed how you put your toddler in his crib. You may believe that your toddler is now old enough to fall asleep by herself rather than needing to be cuddled and rocked to sleep. You may simply clean him up after his meal, change his diaper, put him in bed and expect him to go to sleep. If you used to cuddle and rock him until he got sleepy in your arms, he is used to the holding, closeness and cuddling. Now that you've cut that out of his daily or nightly routine, he is confused and trying to get the cuddling back.
Confusion
If your toddler is crying and screaming when you put her in bed, you may be reinforcing this behavior. Are you going back into her room to rock her so she'll stop crying and the family will have some peace in the house? In this case your toddler may be confused, especially if you don't do this every time she cries. This type of intermittent reinforcement (sometimes coming, sometimes not) will make it more difficult for her to adjust to a new bedtime routine. She'll probably keep crying even longer and louder in the hopes that you will reappear.
Prevention/Solution
One way of helping your toddler learn sleep skills comes from the "Sleep Lady," Kim West. Her method is to stay in the room with your child as he transitions from wakefulness to sleep. Gradually move farther away from the crib or bed, then out the door, so he can slowly used to getting himself to sleep without you, West suggests. See the Resource link for more information.
