Apologies in advance for the long post..
So, our DS who is 2.5 years old is a nightmare at bedtime. He will not stay in bed for DH and if DH tries to do it alone then he will spend hours trying to get him to stay in bed. Putting him back in with no emotion, DS thinks it's a funny game and as soon as DH is out of the room he leaps out of bed and runs to the door. We can't leave him to his own devices as he shouts (usually not upset) but is very loud and has sometimes woken DD (5 months and actually a superstar who goes to bed no bother at 7). I feel that everything is for attention but how do we break the cycle? Because he thinks he can play a funny game with DH (he also thinks it's funny if DH ever gets cross with him or tells him off), we had been swapping over where DH would say goodnight to him, then I would go in to 'tuck him in' sing a couple of songs and kiss goodnight etc but he would go absolutely ballistic when it came to swapping over and scream and cry for daddy and get himself so worked up that he could barely speak. He would eventually calm down and when I would say goodnight, 9/10 he stays in bed and goes to sleep but we had been doing this for weeks and weeks and if anything, the drama and upset when daddy left was getting worse and worse and bedtime was taking 2 hours. I am probably the stricter parent and DH is a bit of a soft touch but it makes me feel so awful and upset that DS is so adverse to me coming in to say goodnight, that some nights I would be holding back tears whilst I sang his songs and I began to absolutely dread bedtime daily. So we stopped and now gone back to DH putting back in bed. (Worth mentioning that I do DDs bedtime/feeding etc so can't really completely swap, and I'm sure that would cause high drama too) It's been a week and no improvements as yet...
He does still nap in the day which I think he really does still need. the odd day he doesn't nap it takes him days to catch back up and he will be tired and moody, he behaves worse (throwing things, tantrums, screaming, shouting, trying to hit his sister) and messes about even more at bedtime.
He has been a good sleeper on and off, will go months being no bother at all and goes straight to sleep happily and once he's fallen asleep he does usually sleep through but we have the odd patch where he is really difficult. We used to do the gradual retreat which always worked really well but now if we stay in his room (we did try a couple Of months ago) some nights he would still be awake at 11pm as I think he was so excited/stimulated that daddy was in his room! That's where this all began with me being the 'bad guy' when we stopped that as it wasn't working at all. We're just in a mess and feel like we've tried everything.m and it's really getting us both down, with no end in sight! Sorry for rambling but any advice would be fab!