Please help with DS3's sleeping - we are all zombies!

[Tommy]

DS3 is 22months. He rarely sleeps through the night - usually waking between midnight and about 4am and not going back for at least an hour. Controlled crying is a bit tricky as he wakes the others up.

Is there another good way that we can try?

He usually has a nap of up to 2 hours around lunchtime but if he doesn't have the nap, he usually sleeps worse

You'd think by number 3, I would know what to do but DS1 always slept well and DS2 came into bed with us and we all snuggled down together but that doesn't seem to work with DS3.

Any advice or tips gratefully received before DH and I fall alseep into our Christmas pudding...

I think if you cut down the daytime nap to an hour and a half, gradually over a week, he'll start to need more sleep at night.

My yr old DS is a real day napper and would sleep all day if he could (we'd pay for it at night!). I had to cut the day nap down so that he continued sleeping longer (he'd wake at 5am and not settle at all). This seems to have had a good effect and he's now sleeping until 6am (tho it's getting earlier again, so I might need to cut it down to 1 hr 15....

You poor things, there's nothing worse than being bloody knakered, and with 3, that's a given anyway

Thanks Ineedchocolate (a woman after my own heart ) The trouble is, even with the long nap, he is really ready for bed by the time 6 o'cock comes. I would prefer to keep him up a bit later (which I could do by etting him nap later) but we need to get him off to bed first so we can deal with the other two!

This is where the "don't have more than 2 children as then there will be more of them than there are of you" rule comes in. Thinking about it, I've realised that his naps and sleeps seem to fit in with my convenience rather than his needs

Probably not the best time to try a new routine now though is it but will maybe try a shorter nap and see what happens.

Thanks - I jusrt needed to sort it out in my head a bit (which is difficult as my head is definitely fuzzy at the moment