DS fighting naps, bedtime and multiple new NWs at 2 years?!

[H.Des]

DS has never been a great sleeper, we've struggled since his 4 month sleep regression. He has always been an EWer (5:00-5:30, but we don't get him out of his room until 6:00), but we've just come to except that. At 18 months we ditched the suckie and nighttime bottle (went fine) and at 20 months we transitioned him to a big boy bed (again....went fine) switching him to his big boy bed actually made a HUGE improvement in his sleep! He sleeps with a sound machine and some stuffies (although he has no attachment to them outside of sleep time) we always leave the room with him awake. We also use a GroClock, but since this regression he doesn't care about it. About 3 weeks ago he started fighting EVERYTHING (he turned 2 on December 20th - so about 2 weeks before that it started). Here is his current routine - keep in mind, when DH is home on the weekends, everything is MUCH worse.

5:00-5:30 wake (not out of room until 6:00, but I sometimes have to go in multiple times and get him back in bed)
6:15 breakfast
8:30 snack
11:00-11:30 lunch
12:00 nap (usually for 2 hours, some days less, will get out of bed multiple times and have to be told to get back in - sometimes take 30 minutes)
3:00 snack
5:30-6:00 dinner
6:45 bath, teeth, PJs, book
7:30 bed (sometimes take 30 minutes to an HOUR to get him to sleep - always have to go in multiple times and get him back in bed)
11:00pm wake
3:00am wake

When I have to go in to get him back to bed, he usually climbs in on his own, I pull up the blankets, give him a kiss and tell him I'm leaving. I always ask him to stay in bed. We use a baby gate at his door and he WILL climb over it if I were to just leave him. I've resorted to threatening to take away his stuffies if he keeps getting out and he looses them most nights now. I hate doing that because it upsets him, but it's the only thing that seems to get him to sleep!

Where am I going wrong?! If we try an earlier bedtime, he always fights until after 7:30 no matter what.

[deb]

Around 2YO is when my older one started to not be able to fall asleep at night if she had naps; after 4-5 months of that we had to ditch the nap or she wasn't falling asleep till 10PM or later. We did, sadly, have about 3 years of chronic OT when we did that - but she was OT from going to sleep so late anyway, so we did the best we could.

We did institute "Quiet Time" after lunch, as opposed to mandating a nap; sometimes she'd sleep, sometimes not, but the "rule" was that she had an hour after lunch, in her room. I'd put on a CD (our Music Together CD's were almost exactly an hour) and she could look at books or do puzzles or whatever, and I had an hour to recharge myself. You might want to give that a try.

Also be aware that kids go thru developmental leaps all the time, but especially around birthdays and half-birthdays; this is known in the Early Childhood world as "disequilibrium." You can read more about it here: http://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/child-development/developmental-stages-the-roller-coaster-of-equilibrium-and-disequilibrium/

[H.Des]

Ugh, I tried pushing his nap back by half an hour yesterday (thinking maybe it was too early for him now)....he went down a bit better than usual, but was up countless times last night! He was clearly overtired, so maybe I should have bumped his nap UP? Or put him down at the regular time, but cap it? Maybe I need to get him out of the house for more strenuous activities in the afternoon? I'm at a loss...

I also forgot to mention that I'm 28 weeks pregnant, so this is super extra exhausting. I thought maybe that had something to do with what was going on, but he seems excited about the baby and I've made sure we're making changes well in advance and not too many at the same time.

DH can't even help with NWs because when he goes in to settle, DS FREAKS out with DH tries to leave. He's very attached to DH. So it's all on me

[deb]

Even if he has positive feelings about the impending sibling, that can still be playing a part - think of kids who are excited about, say, Christmas trying to sleep the entire WEEK before Christmas. LOL

Definitely strenuous activity if possible, and outside if you can - all before suppertime though, so there's time to wind down and time to reduce the light as well (melatonin is the body's response to lower light and helps bring on sleep). Oh, and no screen time after dark/after supper if you can manage that, as the blue light emitted by screens can also interfere with sleep.

When we were in the 1-0 transition zone, we just planned on and accepted that there would be a later bedtime if she napped, and earlier if she didn't; we actually had 2 separate bedtime plans for a while: the no-nap 7PM bedtime routine start and the she-napped-today 9PM bedtime routine start (this applied even for a 5-minute power nap in the car, as it turned out :\). LOL We never figured out how to do it particularly smoothly - just ended up faking it, really.

Good luck - it's hard enough w/o being PG on top of it!

[H.Des]

Worst night yet! DS went down for his nap early (11:30) yesterday because he was tired and grumpy and went down early for bed (7:00). Went down easy but then was up from 9:30-12:30 before I just crawled into bed with him (I've never done that before) I dozed off and on, he was fine and I went back to bed at 2:30 only for him to be up at 5:30 as usual. Is this rock bottom? Will it get better? I'm utterly exhausted!

[H.Des]

So we've managed to get back on track for naps and bedtime, but we're still dealing with multiple NWs?!
DS will wake say around 11pm and then be up calling for us every 15-20 mins for 2 hours! DH and I now take turns going in, we get him back in bed, say goodnight and leave. His only sleep prop is still his sound machine (we turned the night light off on his GroClock and plugged his old nightlight back in)

DS also started potty training (completely his idea) coming up on 2 weeks now. Can potty training effect their night sleep?

I'm out of ideas! I hate leaving him to cry, but it's getting to the point that I don't know what else to do! If we don't acknowledge him at his door calling for us, he'll either go back to bad after 5 minutes or start crying.

[deb]

Everything around the birthday period can throw things off. By "on track" for naps, when is he napping, and for how long?

Any change in routine can affect night sleep, so potty training might be a part of the mix.

Also, are you able to give him some good strenuous exercise in the afternoons? One thing I did find worked for me when PG was taking J to the pool. I felt great in the water, and she could burn off SOOOOO much energy and usually slept better that night. Might help break the cycle.

Also an off-the-wall question: what's he having to eat/drink for supper and afterward?

[H.Des]

By Back on track I mean no longer fighting naps, he goes down at noon and naps 1.5-2 hours. I let him self regulate, but rarely let him nap more than 2 hours.

All of our activity based play groups run in the mornings before lunch (including swimming which I actually took him to this morning). It's hard to get any good activity in during the afternoons right now as it's been too cold to be outside.

He eats whatever we eat for dinner and if he doesn't like it we make him some peanut butter toast or oatmeal and he has milk with dinner, nothing after.

[deb]

When he wakes in the night, is he wanting to eat?

[H.Des]

He doesn't ask to eat, but if I offered he would. Its the same with the potty at night though, he wont ask to go, but if I ask him if he needs to, he'll say yes. He doesn't seem to be up for any specific reason. As soon as we get to his door, he walks right over and gets back into bed.

[H.Des]

I should add that I too thought that maybe it was hunger related for a while, but even on the nights he eats LOTS for dinner, he's getting up.

[H.Des]

STILL a no go for sleeping through the night! DS is still up 4+ times (usually over the course of a 2-3 hour gap) with no real need it would seem but having one if us tuck him back in.

Is this something we will just have to ride out? We're expection the new baby in 6ish weeks and I'm afraid how I'm going to be able to handle a new born and a non-sleeping toddler.