argh... my 3.5 year old still dosent sleep through! HELP

[jocie]

ds2 has never been a great sleeper, first time he slept through the whole night was when he was nearly 2! it has never been consistent. he will do a couple of nights and then a week or so of constantly waking up throughoput the night.
He never gets out of bed so cant do the rapid return technique.
He just lies there and crys out for 1 of us or shouts "you're not listening" and then dissolves into loud crying.
We live in a 2 bed terrace so he shares with his older brother who really needs his sleep to cope with school so i cant just let ds2 cry and scream and shout.
things we have tried so far

• sticker charts - doesnt seem to make that much of a difference
• removing toys fromn him the next day
• going in and saying sleeptime and then walking back out - found this hard as we both work and were walking around like zombies as we would be in and out of their room sooooooo many times each night
• giving in and just lying down with him - he goes to sleep very quickly when we do this but will still wake up later when we've returned to our own bed

we have done these things for a good amount of time before giving up and moving onto another technique (usually bout 2 weeks)

Any suggestions!!!!

Sounds tough! No magical advice here, but sympathy.

If it was me I might consider moving older son into your bedroom for a week or two, buying a gro clock, rewarding any time he does go through the night and employing a technique of going in at the beginning of a wake up, saying it's still nighttime, go back to sleep and leaving again. If I just got grumbling crying I'd ignore it and if he was really upset I'd go back and repeat exactly the same words so as to avoid getting drawn in to giving him attention/reward for being up...

Hope it improves soon!

At three and a half I would say he is controlling you. Why not make a bed time book showing him the bedtime routine and what he has to do, and what happens in the morining when he wakes up - see Elizabeth pantley No cry solution. I second slumerhungry move your eldest out of the bedroom if he get's waken up and be consistant be like a broken record say the same thing, It still nightime lie down quietly.