I know this has probably been covered endlessly before on MN but I am really at my wits end here. It's 4am and I've been awake since 1.30am. DS2 is 2yrs 2 months old and has never been a brilliant sleeper, but he's suddenly got a whole lot worse. He settles reasonably well at night but most nights wakes up several times and comes into our room. We keep taking him back to his own bed and settling him - this used to be quite easy to do but in the last few weeks he has started to resist, crying and getting upset etc. Tonight for example he was up at 1.30, 2.00, 2.30 and again at 3.30. Once he had woken at 1.30 that was it for me and DH - we just lay there waiting for him to do it again. At 3.30 I gave up and came downstairs. I can hear that he's still at it upstairs - DH is dealing with it.
He shares a room with his 6 yr old brother and has done since he was 6 months old - we thought this would encourage better sleep (ha!) but it means we can't leave him to cry it out as it would wake up DS1, and he needs his sleep! Letting DS2 sleep with us isn't an option - neither I or DH can sleep properly with kids in the bed. There is no other room for him to sleep in (our 3rd bedroom is DH's office).
He's been in a bed since age 1.9 (too early I now realise but we've sold the cot - and he could climb out of it anyway.) But it's got worse since then as he realised he could easily wander around at night.
I realise he is probably of an age where he is starting to have dreams - this happened with DS1 but he was generally a good sleeper before and afterwards. What I'm worried about is that with DS2's poor sleep habits anyway, this will just set a pattern for years....
We've tried Medised but I feel we're relying on it too much - and it doesn't seem to work anyway. I think he is immune to it now. When DS1 was going through this, the doc prescribed Phenergan which didn't seem to work at all. I remember it said you could give what seemed to me to be incredibly high doses which I didn't want to do.
DS2 is going through the 'terrible twos' big time at the moment so sleep deprivation is making it worse. He's been crabby for days and I'm sure it's due to lack of sleep! He gets about an hour's sleep during the day (around 11.30-12ish) but it's getting harder to get him to do that too.
He's too young to be bribed with star charts or understand a reward for good behaviour (unless it's immediate! ie give me this and you can have some chocolate).
The real worry is that this (my only getting on average 3 hours sleep a night) is affecting everything else - how I feel about DS2 (who really is a delightful little boy deep down (!) but I am tending to see him as the spawn of the devil at the moment), my relationship with DH, my ability to do any work or function effectively during the day. I had to come downstairs tonight because I felt I was beginning to lose it and that I would harm DS2 in some way if I stayed up there. (It really shocks me to type that...)
I don't know if anyone can suggest anything - it has helped just to get it off my chest. I remember we went through about 3 months of hell with DS1 at the same age due to sleep problems, but as I mentioned before DS2 has never been a good sleeper to start with so I'm dubious that he will settle down at all! I am at my wits end and don't think I or my marriage can cope with much more....
Any suggestions?