any advice/suggestions be appreciated

[bamster]

hi,
my 2.4yrold ds has turned into a nightmare at nighttime ang ging to pre schoool.

the week before easter he had to spend a night in hospital with an attack of croup and he hasnt been the same since.

he wont go to bed without kicking and screaming so he falls asleep on the sofa a nd then we have to take him up. 9 times out of 10 he wakes in night screaming as he's in his bed and ends up in bed with us as he wont settle again. this is something i swore i would never let happen but this isnt normal crying this is shreiking and throwing about.

we had a 2week easter break from pre school, which he loved going too before, but now he has gone back he screams like a good un and i feel awful having to leave him. im really getting shattered by it all so any help would be great.

thanks

Have you asked the nursery nurses whether all is well at pre-school. Ask them how long it takes him to calm down after you have gone. You may find that it is nothing to do with pre-school after all. It is tough one but from what I remember with ds1 when he was your sons age (he is now 5) is that we had to be really tough and every single time he got out of bed, we would put him right back. He would cry and scream and get out of bed and we would put him right back. It was a bit like Ground hog day, we hated the evenings because we knew it would be exhausting and it bloody was. He just began suffereing night terrors then too so we never knew whether that had anything to do with it. Sometimes these boughts would go on for a couple of weeks till he knew that he had no choice but to go to bed and stay in it.
But check at pre-school that everything is ok
Check that he is not fightened of something in his room (toys look like toys during the day turn the light off in the dark and it is a different story all together)
He may be getting night terrors
If you have ruled out everything you can think of then you may just have to be cruel to be kind in a way. Hope this helps