Looking for advice from first hand experience.
My almost 5 year old boy has been a challenge at bedtime his whole life.
I can count on one hand, the times he has gone to sleep with minimal fuss (never no fuss at all).
A bit of a background...he had allergies to cows milk and soya as a baby and so a lot of time was spent comforting him, particularly when trying to lay him down as this would be very uncomfortable for him.
With a change of baby formula, he became much more comfortable but still remained challenging to put down at bed time. We prayed with age, bedtime would become less of an issue.
We move into toddler years. Still refusing to go to sleep. Requested lights on, door open, someone to sit in the room with him. Once he fell asleep we would leave the room (this would take hours sometimes).
We probably tried controlled crying technique a little too late when cot sides were removed. He would get out of bed, uncontrollable screaming, and we wouldn't even be able to lay him down in bed long enough to begin the counting to when we would next walk him back to bed as he was already right behind us. We tried this for several weeks but it didn't ease at all. In fact it got worse.
We then get to reception age, hoping with school tiring him out more, he would be more tired at bedtime.
His Dad would sit in our bedroom next door, waiting for him to fall asleep. The requests are reasonable such as "I need a drink" "I need to pee" all fine. But when he needs to pee 5 times in a row it becomes unbelievable but if I deny this request, I fear he may wet the bed deliberately to make a point nor would I want him to feel afraid to ask to use the toilet.
Somehow the dog has ended up on his bed to tackle the "monsters in my room" phase. He has a bottle of water next to him. A tonies box. A light on dim.
I think what I'm trying to ask is, how do you get a child so defiant, to go to bed without a fuss? It's now both of us that have to remain upstairs, constant talking, unreasonable requests and constantly demanding attention. He will come into our room and scream at us if we try to ignore him. If we are downstairs he does the same thing.
He is ?ADHD
He has an older brother with ASD & ADHD who we did controlled crying with at 1 yo for 2 days and we haven't had an issue with bedtime since.
Our routine is and always has been 7pm bath, 1 book and bed. He's not going to sleep until average 9pm and waking up around 6am. And then we have a day of tantrums and around we go again.
I can appreciate that we have probably given into his demands a little too much but we are in so deep now we have no idea how to get out. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We need our child free evenings back and a happy day time child.