My two year old needs some kind of sleeping boot camp!

[hairtwiddler]

two year old ds has just fallen asleep on Granny's floor at 9am having been up at 5 full of beans and screaming for milk.
He's 2.1 and since about 20m started to fight daytime napping. He wouldn't lie down so eventually took the path of least resistance and stopped trying. He would nap at nursery (peer pressure?) and out in the buggy or car. Often fell asleep on school run.
Recently we dared to go out for the night and left him and dd with a babysitter. He refused to go to bed and we had to leave him watching thomas dvd with her until he dozed off. Since then we've had three weeks of nightmare bedtimes. It's been a battle, but using gradual withdrawl we get him down. Can take up to 90 mins. He's also been early rising, often 530.
What now though? His sleep is clearly all to pot. I want the child back who slept 630 to 630 and napped for an hour every day!

Small nearly bedtime bump.

My DD, 30 months is exactly the same. She has always been a 7pm to 6.30am sleeper, but now, like your situation, its taking 90 mins to settle her and then she's up again, at least once in the night.

The trouble is, even though I know that it seems common, I get really stressed about it which clearly doesn't help...

Hopefully someone will come along with some advice, although I imagine that we will just need to ride with it for now...

I'm going through pretty much the same thing, plus two or three wakes during the night which can only be settled with a bottle of wine for me .
I'm trying the super nanny or whatever technique right now or calmly putting her back into bed every time she gets up, without saying anything. I've been at it for over an hour.

Thanks for replies! Sorry you are suffering too. 7am though and we've only been up for half an hour! He went to sleep while I was giving him a bedtime cuddle last night. Didn't nap again after 9.
It seems that anything out of the ordinary breaks his routine and it needs persistence to set right. Being away from home for Christmas hasn't helped.
To nap or not to nap today, that is the question.

My DD was terrible at bed time for quite some time between 2 and 2 yr 10m. Would eventually fall asleep sometime between 10pm and 12midnight even after a solid bedtime routine starting at 7:30pm. Then would be exhausted for nursery the next day.
Eventually we decided to started to drive her round in the car until asleep. We figured that we could then establish going to sleep and waking up at decent times and a 'normal' body clock. It worked, and gave us a break in the evenings.
She's 3.2 now and goes to bed brilliantly each night - not in the car - after a pretty normal bath and book routine. She seemed to grow out of it - although I'll admit it was the best part of a year of horrible bed times before she did!