Almost 3 yr old not settling alone, and waking constantly in the night. Advice welcome!

[Lamby80]

Hello
My DS, who will be 3 in June, is driving us crazy with his sleeping habits. We haven't helped matters by not nipping this in the bud sooner thought we are trying, and failing to know.
He has never been the best sleeper and had to use controlled crying when he was younger and in his cot. This worked a treat and only took a few nights. Then he routine would be broken with a holiday, sickness etc and we would have to start again. Now he has had the bars off of his cot over a year and surprisingly he took to it well with no issues. Story, kiss goodnight and I could leave the room and he would settle. Then late last year he picked up a nasty chest infection and needed help settling which was fine but this is where the issue started as he has never settled himself to sleep since. He wants me or my DH in the room with him to settle. If we leave, he screams so much that we think he is going to have an asthma attack. If we close the door he bangs on it. If we leave it open, he comes out. We put him back to bed without talking or making eye contact, though most of the time this involves picking him up as he won't actually get back in to bed. We have tried gradually leaving the room, with me standing inside the door until he is asleep but when I make my way outside, he gets out and screams, and I also tried telling him I would be back in 5 minutes and going back and doing the same again but as soon as he realises I am not going to come back and stay, he starts crying again. Then when he does finally go back to sleep, he wakes twice in the night at least and it all starts again. I work full time so have found that I have been letting him get in with me purely so I can get some sleep. I know it hasn't helped but after 2 hours of trying to get him to sleep, I give in. I did try dropping his nap but he was more ratty and overtired so made it all worse.
Can anyone give me any advice? I was going to call our HV to see what she recommends. When he has has bath, he doesn't come downstairs again. He watches no TV after nursery so he isn't being over stimulated

My DC3 used to be like this - he woke 1-2 hourly til he was 2.5, and needed me to sit with him in the dark for up to 3 hours to fall asleep in the first place - I couldn't tolerate him in our bed as he was so fidgety and had to lie actually on me playing with my nose or ears.

I tried gradual retreat and got from having to hold him/ his hand to sitting by the door but the next step was unsuccessful and couldn't get out the door. Also spent hours on rapid return but at first he treated it as a game then eventually got hysterical.

Wierdly what actually worked was just telling him he was now too old to have me sit with him to fall asleep. I didn't plan it but one day I was just done and said that, meaning it, and he did a wobbly lip brave sniff and nodded, and I left and never sat with him to fall asleep again.

It's not a technique in a book but at nearly 3 you can just lay down the law about bedtime - if you mean it when you say it, it might work like it did for us!

The sleeping through gradually improved from there - what really caused a massive improvement, after star charts failed, was rewarding his brother (who has always been a naturally good sleeper) for staying in bed all night (which he always does anyway). Bit of reverse psychology :o

At nearly 4 DC3 still doesn't always sleep through, but he does probably 4-5 nights a week, and falls asleep on his own without fuss.

Same here I just started a thread in am I being unreasonable by accident due to my severe lack of sleep!!!!
My son is 25 months and has always been a super sleeper but my partner and myself had to go away on business for 2 nights I left him behind with my mum(his nana) in my/hishome so he would be unsettled but since our return 3 weeks ago he won't go to bed and wakes hourly.
I actually don't know what to do anymore I kinda made a mistake one night by letting him in my bed now it's worse than ever.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated
Thanks

Thanks Mrtumbles. It's hard isn't it? I have tried that but may have given up too easily. All of the book techniques are just not working so I will give it a go again. I may be too soft. I was going to put a reward chart in his room too so he can see it. He knows already if he sleeps through he gets a sticker and when filled up, a toy. What did you do when he woke in the night? This is what I find hardest.
He understands everything we say, but he is so stubborn! I am going to buy a nightlight and maybe leave the door open a bit. And take the gro clock away. It hasn't worked at all!!

Lamby I am tempted to claim I put him back in bed without a word when he wakes in the night, because I expect that's the right answer... But these days I let him in our bed - he's old enough to fully understand ultimatums now, and I can snarl at him to lie still (and we have a king size bed and I make him use a 3rd pillow so as not to intrude into my space, otherwise he would still prefer to be actually inside my skin I think!)

When he used to wake through the night frequently every night I used to put him back in bed and sit in the dark each time - I often slept sections of the night on the chair in his room because I'd fall asleep there before he fell back to sleep, wake up cold and uncomfortable, and wake him up accidentally when clumsily stumbling back to bed - difficult times!

Tbh also he shares with his brother now, which I suspect also helps, though sometimes he wakes his brother too early instead of me, and his brother has school so that's a problem. .. He never wakes his brother in the night, but will wake him to play at 5am even though he can read the clock and knows nobody is allowed to get up til 6am. .. He will claim to have "slept the whole night" but they'll be deep in a complex game when I go to wake them just after 6am... basically he is a gigantic monkey and has his older siblings under his thumb so they cover for him...

No advice here I'm afraid. My 4 year old behaves similarly. We're currently popping back every 5 mins but she's quite capable of staying awake for 2.5 hours in the middle of the night and screaming for most if it. We're thoroughly fed up and are running out of ideas about how to tackle it.

Bribes of "treats" for breakfast (eg strawberries or a petit filous) work well for us. DD1 is 3.5 so old enough to understand (and remember) the incentives on offer!