I live in sleep hell

[AFWife]

My son hates to sleep. Seriously. He's been like that since he was an infant. When he was tiny we would cheer when he slept 2 hours straight. That sleep regression? He was awake every 30mins on average.

It's driving us both crazy. For instance, I SAH and naps are SO hard to come by. Today he started showing tired signs around noon...so we sat on the couch (because I had to nurse DS2) and he leaned on me and started getting more and more sleepy....and then BOLTED awake. This has gone on for the past 2 hours (it's almost 2pm here) He didn't sleep in late this morning or anything. I have no idea what to do. I'm seriously THISCLOSE to just locking him in a room at "naptime" just so I can get some toddler free time during the day. Yesterday he didn't fall asleep until 4pm...so bedtime was all thrown out of whack. And the "don't let him nap that late" thing doesn't work. He'll just crawl up and go to sleep anyway.

Bedtime is also hell. No matter when we start it takes at least an hour of him laying in bed with us and talking or wanting to play "musical beds" for an hour. (His mattress is on the floor next to our bed) I've considered the Supernanny Stay In Bed technique because I'm just SO TIRED OF IT. Please please please help??

[lifeguard]

I don't know that I can help much with naps except to say that we pretty much had the same routine for naps as we did for bedtime until very recently. I still nurse him to sleep for naps now but have stopped that for bedtimes.

As for falling asleep at night ds pretty much always takes this long & I have tried reallllllly hard to just accept this is how long it takes. It helped when I would bring a book to bed with me & either leave a low light on or use a booklight. At least then I had something to occupy me. I also would tell him I was only staying if he laid still. It only took me getting out of bed & leaving the room (for about 2 minutes) 2 or 3 times for him to get that I was serious. After that he would at least lie in bed somewhat still (flipping around & moving his arms & legs but not sitting up or trying to get out of bed).

We have just recently starting putting him to bed without one of us lying with him. I am currently sitting in the hall for anywhere from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours while he falls asleep on his own but it's an exciting step towards a kiss goodnight & leaving! We waited until he was very verbal & definitely able to understand before we took this step.

[KABB]

I have no advice but wanted to say I know how you feel! Our daughter, Kadie, is 22 months and sleeps horribly most nights. Typically she's up every hour to hour and a half and wants me or wants to nurse. The most she's slept at one time is 4/5 hours and that does NOT happen regularly. What gets me is that she's happy as a clam, albeit her kinda shy quiet self, even though she sleeps like she does. She takes naps that are anywhere from half hour (typically) to two hours (not typical) long. It's me that has issues getting up so often during the night. Daddy has tried to help calm and soothe at night but when she wakes up 95% of the time it's ME she wants and she'll scream until she gets me. We don't CIO so it's me she usually gets....plus I couldn't sleep through a screaming baby anyway. We've tried lifestyle changes like me stopping caffeine intake since she still nurses to supplements like Calms Forté by Hylands among a couple other things including Chamomile Tea and even a sip or two of Earth Mama Angel Baby's Peaceful Mama Tea...nothing really helps her.

I sleep like crap too so maybe it's something she's "inherited" from me?  

[sagesmothertree]

hmmmm... I feel your pain :(  Our son is two years old and sleeps pretty well now, only waking up maybe once a night, but not every night.  He either wants to crawl in our bed or he says he is hungry (we have more issues with getting him to eat dinner than sleep issues).   But we've had a lot of sleep issues in the past.... ranging from him wanting to fall asleep on us, or waking up frequently to eat when he was old enough that he didn't need to, to sleeping in our bed or crying if we laid him in the crib while he was awake.  With every sleep issue though, eventually we always came to the same solution: tough love.  We tried being nice and gentle with his stages, but he always needed firm rules and us to show him that we were following them, and we trusted he could fall asleep by himself.  I strongly suggest the Ferber method - it was extremely hard the first few nights, but our son learned surprisingly fast and was soon falling asleep by himself and staying asleep with no tears.

Routine has always been important. We do the same routine every night: dinner, books, bottle (only at night), bath/wash up, brush. If he's not ready for bed by that time, we give him a little bit (maybe 15 minutes) and then put him in bed, tears or no tears. If he does cry, it's only for a minute and he's asleep. 

Are you afraid to let your son cry himself to sleep? Or maybe he's having trouble falling asleep because of something? I.e. he is hungry, not tired. You could always get him out of the house or moving around to tire him before bed/nap time. We took our son's toys out of his bedroom when we switched him to a toddler bed for a few months.  Maybe your son is too distracted with playing/toys.  We've found that reading helps our son focus and calm down for sleep. Also, you might consider, if you can, moving his bed in a different room.  Him sleeping right next to your bed may be too distracting or tempting.  I've always slept better, personally, when our son was at least one bedroom away :) I like cuddling but he's a kicker and hair twister at night... so we cuddle before bed.

Just some ideas, I hope they help :)