nightmare at bed time 3 year old

[dvd]

Hello
A little history, my son who's is nearly 3, used to be a pleasure going to bed, a couple of stories and a soother and off he went, after Christmas we were advised by the doctor to give up on the soother because of his skin on his face was raw and sore, and he was way too addicted to it, crying in anticipation of having it and going out of his way to get it during the day as well, so we went cold turkey and the 'MiMi' fairy brought him presents in exchange, he then got chicken pox and we held out, but it was a rough few weeks, normally when he gets into a tizzy i have used the soother to calm him down, but with out it, we have been struggling to control his temper, our house as been pulled apart and at one stage he took to Peeing on the floor in outrage, we reverted to giving him back the soother in the middle of the night in order for the house to get some sleep and he now just has it in the middle of the night, so he is going to sleep with out it, and this is the problem, its taking 45 min at least for him to settle (and I understand he has had 3 years of a soother and its a big change) but he gave up the soother on the 1st of Jan.
Last night it was 22:25 by the time he settles, having begun the process at 19:30, the tantrums have calmed down and the day time is fine now and he is a happier child with out the soother, just wondering if you have advise on how to settle him at night with out all the crying and endless crys of not wanting to go to bed....he has a bunny that he has had since birth and thats his cuddly toy,
any advise would be great thanks

[<Catherine>]

Hi

I've no experince with prop problems (my DS coped well with dropping the dummy so it didn't really cause us any problems), but it may be that there are other issues which, if you can solve, may help him to settle better at BT.

Is he no longer waking in the night for the soother?

What is his current routine - WU, nap time and length (if any?) and BT.

[dvd]

Thanks for your reply,
I think the route of the problem is the soother,
We give him the soother in the middle of the night when he is asleep, because he was waking so much looking for it, we did about 2 weeks of waking 5/6 times a night screaming looking for a soother, for our sanity we gave it to him when he was asleep so when he would wake he could settle back to sleep, so he knows he gets it at night,
some days he has naps, most days he does not, he is in creche in the mornings so he is active and busy and afternoons are spent in a playground or a museum or home playing , he is busy enough to be tired.
he wakes at 7.00, lunch 12:30, some times he naps for an hour around 15:00, most days he does not,
Dinner at 17:30/18:00, bath/ stories/ bed time wind down from 19:00, used to be asleep by 20:00,
Last night it was 21:00, so thats an hour better than the night before, but last night he refused to get into bed and cried for a good hour and a half, think he was so tired he eventually gave up !

[<Catherine>]

That is quite a late nap, it could be the reason he's not tired enough at BT. And on days when he doesn't nap I would guess that he's OT by BT and you perhaps need to bring it forward. On no nap days, if he's waking at 7am, I think you really need to have him in bed by 6.30pm in the hope that he'd fall asleep by about 7pm (even earlier if you can). Otherwise it's such a long day and that might be why you are having such drama at BT - he's far too OT and restless.