Major sleep regression - please help!

[diana_of_the_dunes]

My 15 month old DS was a great sleeper up til about 10 weeks old.  Since then, we've had to work to get him to nap.  Nighttime was less of an issue, but we've had some hiccups there as well.  We've tried all manner of sleep help, but he's never been able to settle himself down well, and almost always needs help (walking, rocking, nursing/bottle).  He still needs a morning and afternoon nap.

For the past week, things have gotten progressively worse, and now DS is sleep-deprived and miserable.  The problem is that he will *not* settle down and let himself go to sleep.  When he starts to get drowsy, he gets silly.  He'll make all kinds of noises, point at objects and say "da" (his version of "that"), and grab his crib sides and shake them.  I put him in the carrier and walk with him, but he pats my face, grabs my hair, and squirms or pushes me away to ask to get down.  If I lay him down, he gets up.  Eventually it progresses to misery, and he'll just cry.  And cry.  I know he's tired.  I've tried starting the winding down/wearing down process earlier to try to prevent him from getting over-tired.  He'll get to a point where he kind of zones out, but at the slightest noise from anywhere in the house or outside, he snaps out of it and gets silly or miserable.  He used to take a bottle to get to sleep, even if it was just water, but that doesn't seem to work anymore either.  He'll drink it, then start babbling to himself and work up to bouncing around the crib.  He also is one of those babies that sometimes needs so fuss for a minute or two before going to sleep.  Letting him be used to work as well, but now he just escalates into unhappy crying.  And when I go in to soothe him, the silliness/crying/misery starts all over.  I'd be more than happy to nap with him, but just my presence seems to stimulate him enough to keep him awake.  We sometimes co-sleep at night, but he wakes earlier and wants to climb all over me.

Yesterday, after finally getting him to sleep, he only slept a half hour, then woke up unhappy.  He was exhausted; he had bags and dark circles under his eyes.  But just would. not. sleep.  We finally gave up and took him for a car ride, hoping he'd take a little nap.  Nope.  He did relax a little, and after an hour he happier and able to make it through dinner and bedtime (7 pm)  without any issues.  But he woke up 4 or 5 times overnight and got up at 5:30 am very unhappy.  He dozed on and off til 6, then was up for the day.  He was still tired and NOT ready to be up, but I couldn't get him to settle down.  So we got up and played for little while.  I gave him breakfast, and now, at not even 7, he's had a bottle and went back to bed.  He did go down without any misery, though. 

I know part of the issue is probably the bit of chaos from the holidays.  It definitely got worse on Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after.  We're not going anywhere for the next two days, even on normal errands, just to try to help him get back on track. 

I'm open to any and all suggestions.  I'm not sure what to do to help DS, and we're both unhappy and sleep-deprived. 

[claras_mom]

Sort of sounds like a sleep regression. This site http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html has a lot on the subject. Dd2 is definitely a "worse" sleeper than dd1 was (dd1 has always had the ability to conk out and stay conked out; just a question of getting her down in a timely way). Anyway, dd2 just went through what was probably the 19 month regression. Horrible sleep. And then it was OK again.

That said, for dd2, OK means rocking or driving to get to sleep, as well as periodically waking to nurse during the night (she'll sleep for about 4 hours in her crib, then we co-sleep). It's more a question of how long she goes between being half awake to nurse. She's 21 months.