Go to Sleep!

My son is not what you would call a good sleeper. He never has been. This is mostly my fault I guess. We co-slept. Probably for far too long. He moved into his own bed when he was a little over a year and a half. He would sleep ok when we were in bed with him. I would take him up to bed and lay with him until he fell asleep. This worked until he was about a year old and realized that he could just climb out of bed when he woke up. When we were all in the bed he slept really well. We didn't after he got to a certain size. Then we were constantly woken up by elbows, knees and feet flying toward us.

We moved him out of our bed into a crib next to our bed for naps when he was a year old. I didn't want him crawling out of bed and possibly falling down stairs or something. He hated it. We ended up using the Sleep Lady method and it kinda worked. We also used crying it out which just about broke my heart. But there was just no other way. He wouldn't fall asleep by himself. My husband had to climb in with him on a couple of occasions just to get him to sleep.

He transitioned into a pack and play next to our bed for all sleep activities when he was a year and a half. I was 7 months pregnant and we really wanted him completely out of the bed before Little Bit came so that he wouldn't feel like we were replacing him or something like that and so that when she was sleeping in the bed, there would be less jealousy. We spent nearly a month having him scream for hours every time we put him to bed.

Then one day, he stopped. We would take him up to bed, give him a hug and a kiss, make sure that he had his teddy and blanket and put him down. He'd be asleep within two minutes. We had to play around with when we put him down for a couple days to make sure he slept all the way through the night, but we thought we had it sussed out.

We had a couple days when he didn't want to go down or when he woke up but it was great. We moved him into his own room at 20 months and it was fantastic. Not a whimper or a moan any time we put him down.

This past week has been... not fun. He has not wanted to sleep. Any time. Naps have completely gone out the window. He won't go down for love or money. I've tried moving nap time by a couple hours and having him expend lots of energy beforehand. No luck. He crashes at about 3 or 4pm so I know that he really needs his nap still. Night time has been worse. He cries, screams and climbs out of his crib. He also knows how to open his door so he just stands in the doorway screaming and crying while hanging over the gate in his doorway. We can't let him cry it out because he won't stay in bed and we end up spending hours sitting next to him so that he will get at least a little sleep.

He's also been waking up at 4 am every day. Even when we put him down really late.

I'm slowly losing my mind. This kid needs to start napping again and going down to sleep at night.