DS1 (4.4) has always been a shocking sleeper. Since he was a few weeks old he simply hasn't been able to settle himself back to sleep in under two hours if he's awake for more than about 5 minutes at night.
He's absolutely fine if nothing wakes him, but he still does this if he's woken by a bad dream, which happens at least once a week. If I hear him straight away he'll go back to sleep after a cuddle, but if it's more than a few minutes that's it. He'll then keep calling for us, crying, saying he's scared (which I do believe as he's got a very active imagination and has very vivid dreams). We've done our best to help with the nightmares (special 'dream bear', spraying the room, fairy dust, talking to him about it etc), which has reduced how often it happens, but I guess some nightmares are inevitable. I've always been reluctant to do cc for lots of reasons, and as a young baby/ toddler I felt it was linked to pain/ teething (or at least the initial waking was), but as a result it's a fairly entrenched habit.
Part of the problem is that he's simply unable to shut his mind down, however physically tired he is - and will say the next morning that he was thinking about how volcanos work, or how big space is and it was stopping him sleeping. He's brilliant at going to sleep, we have a nice bedtime routine and he's generally off by 7.30 at the latest, but he can't seem to do the same in the night.
After over 4 years of this (it was most nights until all his teeth were through at 2), we have found a way of dealing with it by putting on an audiobook for him to listen to until he drifts off (it has to be more than 2 hours long though, so I know it still takes him that long to go back to sleep), which minimises the effect on us. But it obviously takes its toll on him, and he is the devil child when he's tired. I'm suddenly getting scared of what's going to happen when he starts school in 3 weeks or so. Last night he was up from 2 - 4, then slept til 8. We'll have to leave at 8.15 to get to school, so I'll need to wake him in which case he'll be hideous, and I worry that the teacher won't see through this to the lovely little boy he is when he's not tired.
I suspect we need to ditch the ipod, but every time we've done that I just end up being up with him then having to get up at 6 with DS2. Having him in bed with us doesn't work as he just jumps around and talks.
Any tips on what to do?!