DS is nearly 14 months old. He has never been a good sleeper, although with the introduction of a decent routine, and solid foods, we thought we'd got him on the path to sleeping properly. He got up to 8 hours some nights between 8-12 months, and DH and I were starting to feel almost human again.
Then around the time of his 1st birthday, his sleep suddenly got awful again. It took hours to get him down for the night, then he'd wake an hour later, and only settle in a weird position (preferably one which was desperately uncomfortable for both DH and I) in our bed, and wriggle all night long. For the past 2 months, he's been averaging 5 hours sleep a night. We've had a couple of right through the nighters, but more often than not, he's up and wriggling. He tends to get his longest sleep at the moment just as our alarms go off - so the alarm goes off at 6, and he is normally dropping off by 5.45 am, then I have to wake him at 8 for breakfast, then rush out of the house.
A few weeks back, his sleep was so bloody awful I took him to the GP, and she diagnosed an ear infection - 2 days on amoxicillin, and he started sleeping 3 or 4 hours in a row, it was bliss. but he's back to his old tricks again now. We got so fed up on satruday, we let him scream (with us in the room) - he took 4 hours to finally fall asleep. Sunday he took 2 hours, but only slept for an hour, then spent the night kicking me, until just before my alarm went off, when, predictably he conked out.
Las tnight he was so knackered, he was asleep before I'd finished his bed time feed, so I put him down in his cot - he slept for 2 hours, then woke up screaming and took 4 hours to get back down. for an hour. usual pre-alarm clock nodding off.
DH and I are broken with tiredness. We both work 5 days a week (I only do 9-3, but obviously still need to be out the house early, and I do all the cooking/washing/cleaning, so am not swanning around with a coffee as my colleagues seem to think).
Our routine is the same EVERY day - wake up at ~6.30 ish (DH has to get up earlier for work), breakfast, get dressed, clean teeth, then out the door on weekdays, and more oftne than not at weekends too. DS has a brief nap in the morning -~30 mins or so. Without it he doesn't eat lunch. We try and run him around in the morning too. Lunch is at 12.30-1 ish. He normally refuses it all except a yoghurt (although nursery have had limited success with fruit at lunch). afternoon nap is at 1.30, although often takes hours to actually fall asleep. 1.5 hrs afternoon nap. feed/snack when he wakes up. he then runs around scavenging food until dinner at 6ish (which he sometimes eats). bath, feed, bed by 7.30. He's rarely asleep before 8.30, more often than not runs around his cot yelping until 10. Up and down like a bloody yo yo all night long.
He's seemingly stuck in a loop of endless tiredness/hunger, but is still bouncing off the walls like a free electron all the time.
I just don't know what else to do. He's going into his own room in january when we move house (no space now).
I'm seeing the GP this afternoon (about unrelated stuff, but will be mentioning sleep), as I'm sure there must be some reason behind him just never sleeping. But I'm worrying that it's just lax parenting. We are totally at our wits end though, and haven't got a scooby what to do.
sorry this is so long, I fully expect it to be ignored! but needed to write it down between hits of caffiene