Desperate - my 3yo good sleeper has turned into evening/night monster

[MaggieW]

DS, just over three, until last Thursday night would be in bed at 7.15, lights out shortly after and asleep by 8.30ish. He was still having lunch time nap. Now he refuses to go to bed and practically screams the house down at bedtime (to the point I've had to apologise to neighbours!) and just repeats "I don't want to bed" over and over - until 1030pm Sat eve. If that's not bad enough he is then waking at 3am ish and we're having the same performance again and he wants to come into our bed waking his 18mth DD on the way. I've stopped lunchtime nap and he's shattered but it hasn't made a difference so far. We've tried softly, softly; threats; shouting in exasperation; etc but nothing makes difference. What do I do as we are literally at our wits end and at 8 weeks pg, I'm on my knees. I can only put this change down to the fact that I put him in spare bed with me earlier last week when he had a v high temp (he's had convulsions in the past) and he prefers there to his own bed. He's also getting 3rd molar so that's not helping. Can anyone help as this is such a new thing to deal with partic as he's now exhausted during the day and has gone from gentle boy to bad tempered one! HELP PLEASE!

[vict17]

Have you tried re-introducing lunchtime nap in case he's over tired? Or star charts with a treat for each time he goes to bed happily?

[shrub]

our ds1 had a phase of this - when he realised he had a choice, independence and all that! is there another reason he is finding it hard to wind down? for example nursery or any other upset? we got back on track reinforcing old routine of quiet time after tea, bath, story and bed (this sometime goes out of the window depending on how tired i am )i deliberately choose stories that will be not to 'busy' just relaxing, also from a fellow mumsnnetter i use chamomile or lavender on pillow and saying to him 'here are you sleepy drops' which he asks for now. another thing that helped him get into bed was buying him a tiny pocket torch that i put as a present under his pillow and the novelty of that lasted a few weeks, i also sometimes use massage and a story combined - this may sound a little weird but does work - for example getting him to lie down on his tummy and shaping your hands like paws pretending there is a friendly bear in the woods (walking movements up and down his back), i then improvise the story - the bear finding a frozen lake and begins to ice skate (changing the shape and movement of your hands sometimes using big sawing movements or circular for around the shoulder blades), then it might begin to snow (lots of pitter patter movements with fingers) and the bear gets covered in snow (so you slowly brush off the snow with long sweeping movements over the head shoulders and down the arms) then the bear crawls into his cave and falls fast asleep etc.
hope this makes sense - we have recently done a massage workshop at my son's school and all the children really love it
good luckxx