My
DS didn't sleep through the night till 18 months old and not regularly until after the age of 2....sorry!
First things first...if he's not asleep in 20 minutes he isn't going to go to sleep. Don't waste your time, get him up and try again later.
How much do you take him out during the day? I found that on the days I had played with
DS outside, taken him for a long walk in the pram etc he did sleep better at night. Still do, actually.
Have a wind down routine...bath, stories, quiet music playing in his room. Basically the same thing every night.
Is he too warm? My
DS is a very hot sleeper. He is wearing summer jarmies in the middle of a Melbourne winter.
What happens if you leave him to crawl all over his cot for a while? If he is happy playing in there I would leave him and see if he winds himself down. My
DD does this...mucks about in her cot for a while and then gradually gets very still and drifts off with her music playing (Music for Dreaming CD). Maybe he just needs to fidget for a while?
And...you are going to hate me...for your own sanity you also need to accept within yourself that your
DS is not a good sleeper. He is what he is and you do have to roll with it to a certain extent. The day I decided to change my thinking was the day I started to become a much happier mummy. My
DS was my
DS. I threw the routine I "thought" he should be on out the window and just let him stay up till he was obviously tired.
DH and I learned to be just..."whatever." It was so much easier that way. And we found a routine that actually worked by doing that -
DS found his own pattern and we scheduled around that.
DS has always been a kid that hasn't needed as much sleep as his friends. He was the first one to drop back to one nap a day (at 10-11 months). He was the first one to drop his day naps completely (at 18 months) and at nearly 3, is still the only one not napping during the day. And I am still "whatever...that's my son."
I can't say my attitude has been all peace and light though. My friends with their nearly-3-year-olds who seem to be on the verge of dropping naps are tearing their hair out and complaining about how tired they are, get very little sympathy from me I'm afraid. I still get attacks of resentment from time to time that they get free time during the day and have had it for so long and I haven't. And I just roll my eyes when people claim that they would kill themselves if it wasn't for the nap.
Believe me, I know how you feel. I have been there. I got so angry and resentful and I was so exhausted and I cried over my
DS' sleeping.
DH and I snapped at each other because we were so sick of the tedium of spending hours up in
DS' room only to give up and bring him back downstairs after over an hour of patting, rocking, bouncing, whatever. I couldn't plan much because I never knew how his sleeping was going to go and it was sooo frustrating spending hours getting him to sleep for such piddling amounts of time. ANd some days I was just too exhausted after a bad night to contemplate going out anywhere. I worried so much about what I was doing wrong, all the other babies were sleeping, why wasn't mine?
It will pass, I promise.
DS now goes to bed at 6pm and sleeps through till 6am and
DH and I have our evenings to ourselves. You WILL come out the other side.