3 yo - bedtime troubles

[CoLacey]

We are having the same problems with my 3 yo at the moment. I think we were able to avoid it earlier as we put a baby gate on his room and he felt no need to get out of bed. We had to remove the baby gate as he learned to climb over it.
So now we have an overtired little boy who refuses to stay still, when he does stay still he is asleep in less than a minute.
We have tried lying with him but this just seems to over stimulate him, I have tried sitting at his door but he thinks that's a great game, I also take away toys from him for the next day, this use to work great but now he doesn't seem to care when hes over tired. At the moment I leave his room and walk him back to bed without talking until he exhausts himself and finally goes to sleep. By this time i'm ready for a wine 

Interested to hear what others are doing?
He doesn't have a sleep unless at school (Bed time is a lot later on these days), and he usually sleeps 11hrs.

[<Catherine>]

He sounds like he's OT at bedtime and is struggling to settle. What time does he wake in the morning? And what time is BT? And what is his routine on school days?

[CoLacey]

I have to agree with the OT. He doesnt get whingy or cranky when OT, he gets hyper. And his morning wake up has become progressively earlier.
On a good day he usually wakes somewhere between 6-6.30. I think I can count on one hand the times he's slept till 7, so have learned to accept this as wake up time.  That being said the last week has been 5:50am, this morning it was 5:15am, not happy since I was up every hour with his sister (7mths with a cold).
On days that he has a sleep his routine looks like this, which is similar to daycare days:
6-6.30am wake
12-12.30 nap - usually wakes after 1h-1.5.
5 dinner
6 bath
7 stories and lights out about 7.30. He's usually asleep by 8. Last night is was 8.30

On days that he hasnt sleep his routine is:
4.30 dinner
5 bath
6 stories and lights out by 6.30, usually asleep by 7.

[~*Nicole*~]

He sounds like how my daughter gets when she gets overtired. The problem for her as she got older though, was that her nap was too much sleep and she would be awake too long because she would not be tired enough for bed and no nap was too little sleep and she'd end up OT before bed. She doesn't nap now unless she's in the car or sick and those nights she is up a lot later, but she gets OT more often now that she doesn't rest in the daytime.

A few things that have helped at various stages are:

*nightlight (sudden fears crept in out of nowhere and she had trouble settling when she was afraid of the dark/shadows)

*a longer, slower wind down routine with more calming things like books.

*bath earlier in the day or morning as opposed to at night (she tended to get stimulated out of her sleep zone during a bath and caught a "second wind" that she had to get resettled down from which took ages)

*Allowing her to "read" books in her bed so long as she stayed quietly in there. She would fall asleep when she was tired because she was calm and not being silly or getting worked up.

*Cutting her nap down and waking her so she wasn't UT at night leading her to not sleep and causing her to wake early and end up OT overall.

Hope some of these things are helpful to you.

[CoLacey]

You are spot on!
The only way that we can get him to have a nap when at home is if we "go for a drive" (AP at its best), not really practical with a 7mths old that hates the car. Then we can expect the later night as he is UT at bedtime. Or no sleep and OT. Either way we have a guaranteed early wake up and a nightmare child as he just cant settle.

Those tips are very helpful, thank you. I have noticed the last few days that he has been barely able to keep his eyes open and then he jumps in the bath and its party time.
With letting her read stories in bed is that just with the night light on?

[~*Nicole*~]

Yes, just a night light. It was a bit of a rough transition from napping to no napping. It sounds like you are heading in that direction. No telling how long it will be until he can handle not napping, but I did find things got much better once she did just drop for the most part and got used to not napping. I think it was the inconsistency that really messed her body up b/c her body clock couldn't get "set" you know?

OH and DD also climbed over her gate and at one point to stop the "game" of leaving her room I put the child safety door knob on her side of the door and closed it so she couldn't leave. I would always have a monitor on to hear her and once she fell asleep leave her door open b/c I didn't want her to essentially be locked in there but it was a good tool for the falling asleep portion of bedtime.