Help! 2 year old screaming at nap/night times

[Sweetestp]

Our two and a half year old is a sweet boy with good temperament and behaviour in the day. He has never gone down for a nap or night time very easily but we have always managed fine, he has a consistent routine in timing with regards to dinner, bath, books and bed and has no screen time before bed. My husband or I lie with him in his bed till he has fallen asleep. But now things have taken a massive turn for the worst.. he will be happy with the entire routine until you read the last book (even if you read extra long books and give plenty warning when its the last one), then with lights off he starts screaming (literally screaming at the top of his lungs) for another book or for his dad to come lay with him, and sometimes if his dad does lay with him, after a while he screams for me again. We realise he is manipulating the situation by constantly asking for something else and usually putting the boundary down was easy, but now he just kicks and screams and goes mad, and he can go on for a reallly long time, something he has never done!

He still naps in the day for 1-2 hours, but this has the same process as night times. I do often wonder if I need to start letting him drop the day sleep, and that he possibly isn’t stimulated enough and tired enough to go to bed, but I am expecting a second baby in a week and really really want to hold on to the day nap!!

Any advice about approaches to take in this instance? Sad thing is he was able to fall asleep by himself just before the age of 2, but everything became more difficult once he turned 2 and was just hoping he would grow out of it. Turns out it just got worse.

Hope there are some understanding parents out there with a word of wisdom. TIA

Cut the nap. He doesn't need it at 2.5 and you'll probably find he'll sleep much better at night because he's gone all day. 2.5-3 is also prime sleep regression time so it might be time to sleep train. You can do it gently that doesn't involve traumatic screaming and crying for hours on end

Have to agree re: cutting the nap. You could try cutting it down to 45 mins (for example) initially and see if it helps. It sounds like you have a consistent routine, but referring to this point you made...

But now things have taken a massive turn for the worst.. he will be happy with the entire routine until you read the last book (even if you read extra long books and give plenty warning when its the last one),

My DD has always had FOMO, so we make everything as watertight as possible, so I would only have books available for bedtime that you're happy with the length of (because kids are smart and will request the lengthy ones!) and if you don't already, I'd have a set amount. So we for example read 2 and we have a small number of books in DD's room that we change weekly. Then every night it's, here's the first book, now here's our last book.

I've done co-sleeping but personally I'm not one for staying in their room till they fall asleep, so this might not be right for you, but at a similar age (after nice bedtime routine etc etc), I sat outside her room and when she inevitably came out, I calmly led her back to her bed and said it's bedtime (or something). On repeat. For maybe an hour? And when she stayed in the bed herself, or went back to the bed herself, we found lots of praise worked really well. And I think we might have given a sticker for staying in her bed after we'd said goodnight. She is almost 4 and goes to bed very merrily each night singing, so doesn't seem too damaged by our approach =D

Just a thought as well that you could introduce a quiet time during the day if you do need to give up the nap... Audio books on Spotify / Tonies box, colouring, bit of cbeebies, etc etc

Thanks for the comments everyone,

i spent the evening researching tips on introducing quiet time and i think I will get a little bag with rotating toys for him tomorrow morning to start with short times of solo play in his room.

i like the books tip @Lottie6712 , currently all his books are always available, will keep them elsewhere, start a rotation and also a consistent limit of books per night sounds like a good idea!

i think the difficulty with teaching him to fall asleep without us is that we frequently move around due to life circumstances, we havent been in our own home for a while and back and forth between spaces. But will try your advice once we are settled in a space again.