when will he realise that sleep is a good thing?

[Kveta]

DS is 2.9, and has never been a good sleeper.

Currently we put him to bed between 6.30 and 7, and no matter what we do (sit with him don't sit with him, cuddle him, read extra stories, nightlight, no nightlight) he won't sleep before 9pm.

He is then up 2-3 times a night (6 times the other night), and up for the day between 4 and 5am. Every time he gets out of bed, he is returned in silence.

he is KNACKERED.

(so are we)

during the day he is irrational and whiny and one tantrum after the other. he still needs his nap, but fights it all the way. if we forget to wake him up after 90 minutes, he will nap for hours.

On the rare occasions he does an 11 hour sleep, he is a delight the next day. it only happens once a month or so though...

he does have a new sister (who already sleeps better than he does ) but his sleep was bad before she arrived.

we are pretty much at the end of our tether with his sleep and need help before we crack.

any ideas or similar experiences?

cut the nap shorter. he is sleeping short nights because he's taking a long nap. I would try waking him after an hour first & see if it helps.x

my ds was like this. His nap had to go, well before he was 2.9. It was vile for the first few days but once we had it sorted he slept through pretty much every night. If he did fall asleep in the day I noticed half an hour of day sleep lost us an hour and a half of night sleep. So a 90 minute nap would have meant he slept 4.5hours less at night.

thanks.

he does have days without a nap sometimes, and then sleeps much much less at night (so nap free day = finally sleeping by 10, up 6 times, up at 4.30 for the day). would several days without a nap do anything other than make him unutterably vile?

when I was getting rid of ds's naps I had to keep him very very busy so I think he just literally couldn't keep his eyes open by bedtime, and it did take a few days to get him to sleep better.
I think my ds just doesn't need all that much sleep he's 3.7 now and sleeps from about 9pm until 7am.
Have you tried speaking to the health visitor? I'm sure they do sleep clinic things to help with really bad sleepers.
When ds was at his worst I used to just let him sleep in my bed and even now sometimes spend some nights with ds one side of me and dd the other.

do you put him to bed early on no nap days? I have to do this with my DS, I put him down 11hrs after he woke so up at 7am, bed at 6pm & he sleeps through 12-13hrs. The earlier BT seems to make all the difference.