3 year old not sleeping, tantrums

Houseofchaos

I need advice, or just to rant, IDK. My DS 3 yo goes through bouts of not sleeping at night. This started in Aug/Sept. some months are good some are awful. Currently he is waking up 2-5x a night and crying for me. He needs to pee, he wants water, he wants me to hold him, the light on, the door cracked..You name it. I had a sticker chart for him sleeping through the night. It worked great a few months ago, now, not so much. My DH and I are sleeping in separate rooms taking turns dealing with him at night. I'm so at my wits end I called the ped today who recommended giving into nothing except letting him pee. We recently had to put a gate up in his door because he would wake at night and go wake his sister up. Now he just calls over the monitor or stands at the gate and screams the house down. He has white noise, night light, etc. He has a firm bed time routine. One thing is, he's still napping. He takes a 2 hour nap. My DD didn't nap at 3 so maybe if I cut the nap back and move bedtime forward? 

He also goes through months of total crankiness, neediness. And right now it's coinciding with his night waking. He gets very clingy and wants to be held a lot, he throws fits about everything. I feel like I'm always telling him no, or like he's always getting in trouble. It's wearing me out and I feel awful....

excuse my outdated siggy...it won't update. and excuse me barging on to the board. I'm from TTCAL

ThatWasAHoot

My son just turned 3 and he will call us a million times before he falls asleep sometimes.  We only go back his room if he has to go potty.  He doesn't flip out or anything and is generally a mellow kid.  But I think your pedi might be onto something.  Make him deal with it and fall asleep on his own, maybe?
Is he needy/cranky/etc maybe because he's not sleeping enough at night? 
That's a rough situation.  GL dude!

beckalecka

My daughter before she would go to bed would also yell for us and try and stall. At first we would go up there, but that got old. We started just letting her yell until she quieted down and would go to sleep.