I'll give as much info as possible, please help me!
We are both teachers and live abroad. Ds is 2.8 years old but this started when he was 2.5.
Ds goes to international school 8am - 4.30pm with a 2 hour nap after lunch. His teacher says he sleeps fine with the other children.
We have a nanny who used to look after ds but now looks after my 4 month old baby.
Always been a terrible eater and this has got progressively worse.
Has tantrums but not something i am worried about. They are frequent but fleeting, sometimes require a time out but on the whole fine.
So when I was 6 months pregnant we moved ds from crib to toddler bed as we needed it for the baby. Ds was excited. We put him in the bed at 7.30pm kissed him goodnight and that would be it until around 6.30 the next morning. He would wear pyjamas. The night I went into labor I gave him a kiss, explained what was happening and told him I would face time right after. Nanny took him but struggled to get him to bed which was fair enough. Had the baby early evening and daddy got sent home by 10pm so he then sent the nanny home. I face timed ds. He was crying a lot and didn't get to bed until around 11pm. Since then he has been a nightmare. Refuses to go to bed, when we eventually get him into bed he will then mess around for hours, taking pyjamas off, playing puppets with his hands, whispering and screams if you leave him. I've been busy with the baby so daddy had to do it and now ds will only have daddy so I cannot help. Ds will also wake around 4am every morning and climb into daddy's bed but will scream if daddy gets up to help with the baby so essentially I have had to deal with a newborn up to now all on my own whilst daddy deals with ds. Of course many people do this but to complicate matters I also had to go back to full time working when baby was 6 weeks old. So everyone is exhausted!
We have tried everything! Night lights, chair method, lying with him, cry it out, reward charts, pyjamas, no pyjamas, schedule cards, weighted blankets, music, sound machines, dropping naps, adding naps, high energy activities in the evenings, quiet times, every combination we can think of. It is just getting worse.
I've had many of my teacher friends spend time with him to see if maybe he is on the spectrum. Of course they are not pedestrians but nothing has flagged up any sort of suspicion. When he is tantruming, refusing to eat or sleep, as far as we can see, it is a choice. We think this because of things he says, 'I want to make you sad.' Or the faces he makes, like stopping crying to check we are still looking at him. Obviously attention seeking, but we give him so much attention, he gets a damn sight more than the baby! I am exhausted. Please give me some ideas! What am I doing wrong?
Sorry for typos, sleep deprived.