Our DS 2.11 has slept badly since we moved house and had a new baby, which both happened about 14 months ago.
He requires you to sit with him while he goes to sleep; we can cope with this but it's not ideal.
The worse thing is that it's become normal (we are fully culpable) for him to wake in the night and come into our bed until morning (DH goes to the spare room). It's normally between 2-4am. We wake him for a 'dream wee' at about 10pm and he settles swiftly after that.
Last night, and on a couple of other nights, I have tried sitting with him in his room instead, and waiting for him to settle again. He completely resists though - last night he woke around 3.45am and at 5am (don't know where time went) I said 'I'm going back to bed; I want to sleep'. He wasn't asleep and was going to kick off so I capitulated and let him come in with me (over an hour wasted, thinks I). He falls asleep within minutes of being in our bed.
I have finally got to a place where I'm fed up; we like our sleep so have let him come in with us so we can get some, and we just hoped he would grow out of it without us having to take action. I can't see that happening though, this time.
Does anyone have anything to suggest? I thought of taking off his gate to his room and putting it on the stairs instead, so he feels less 'trapped' when he goes to bed (it tends to wind him up; he sees it - fair enough - as an action of punishment), and then doing the put to bed, go away, ad infinitum method, but it's not something I want to battle with for ages. Are there any shortcuts or things that have really helped you deal with this? I don't want him crying loads in the night because that threatens to wake his sister. Thankfully she is a good sleeper... so far. I am keeping her in the cot for much longer than DS if she lets me!