3, very nearly 4. He wakes up between 530 and 6 almost every morning without fail. If he does sleep later, its until 630 at the latest. He done since he was a week old, this is nothing new! The problem is e.g. yesterday he was tired in the morning. It tried to get him to sleep again at 9 because he was obviously tired and he had a swim class late morning. He refused. The class was a disaster and when I made him sit out for three minutes he was swaying on the bench as he was so tired. After lunch he also refused to nap. He also tried every delaying tactic under the sun, refused to go to bed and eventually fell asleep at 9pm. This is when he usually falls asleep, irrespective of when we try to get him to bed.
Our bedtime routine is dinner at 6/630, story on sofa, then bath at 7 or when finished story. DD has her bath whilst he is on the toilet and then I put her to bed. (I just put her into bed and leave her, she has always self settled). Then fight to get him off the toilet, into bath. Fight to get him out of the bath. Then into bed. He won't have a story in bed (has only recently, last month agreed to sit and listen to a story on the sofa with us) but then I have to stay with him until he sleeps. Which can be an hour or two. Occasionally he wants DH, not me. But invariably it is 9 before he sleeps. If we don't stay with him, he won't stay in bed.
He often naps during the day, but not every day and not napping doesn't mean an earlier bed time, it just means he is in a foul temper the next day and almost impossible to do anything nice with.
How can I make him sleep more? We have tried explaining to him if he slept he will feel better. He made himself sick yesterday he was so tired (I also throw up if I am tired). I have tried telling him if he doesn't sleep we won't do X/visit Y or whatever we have planned. This doesn't work. I make sure we go out everyday once or twice, he walks everywhere, we have no car during the week and DD goes in the buggy.
If he didn't need his sleep, it wouldn't be so bad. But he is clearly tired and his behaviour disintegrates when he is. Any suggestions?