7 year old won't stay in bed

My son has always struggled with going to sleep.  He has been doing well for the last year, but suddenly, the last 3 weekends(He lives with his mother the rest of the time) things have gotten horrible.  He wakes up around 2 or 3 and my wife and I continue putting him back to bed until he comes back to our room within 5 minutes.  He creates sensational stories about things that are going on to keep him from sleeping and he claims he can only go to sleep if we check on him every 5 minutes and rub his head to help him sleep.  We have tried all kinds of consequences but he doesn't seem to care about anything at that time except not going to bed alone.  He doesn't seem to be truly scared, and all of the things he makes up are completely unfounded and ridiculous.  He is very strong willed and has gone through this each night 3 weekends in a row, for 4-6 hours each night with no signs of softening.  We don't know what to do???

[BA2]

Hello. I posted a similiar issue on Monday with our 6-year old. Unfortunately, I am not sure what to do either. No one responded to my post. Our son, who has been a great sleeper for 3+ years now (It took us a while to get there.) has suddenly started fighting us all night long. Unlike your son, ours seems terrified! He saw a scary arcade game at a b-day party and has been a wreck ever since. Like you, nothing works at the time. We have taken aways ALL cartoons, movies, some toys, treats, you name it. We have even tried rewards such as earning Mables to trade in for items, stickers to earn items, picking out a special toy that he can open ONLY if he sleeps through the night. He actually went to bed the other night without much of a fight, so we were hoping it would get better. Then last night he was up until after 10PM, kept getting out of bed and coming in our room and wouldn't go to sleep until my husband slept in there.  (Normal bed time is between 7-7:30.) Once again he is exhausted. Our son is also strong willed, but seems truly unable to calm himself at the time and then feels horrible about it the next day. I wish I could be more help. Keep me posted if you find something that works and we will too.

BA2