Waking at night

My son will be 3 years old in May and has never been a good sleeper.  He has slept through the night maybe a dozen times in his life.  Currently he is waking every two hours on a good night.  He gets a one to two nap daily. He is very strong willed and high spirited.  When he wakes at night (or anytime) he is usually mad or crying.  When he wakes crying at night we have tried letting him cry it out - but that does not work. He will cry and scream for hours if we let him.  We can eventually get him back to sleep with a bottle.  I know it's horrible on his teeth, but we can't get him to settle down to fall back asleep any other way.  We tried cold turkey, I've slept on the floor in his room, we've tried no nap during the day.  We are so frustrated we don't know what to do any more.  Please help.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Most childhood sleep problems are 'parent-created'. That is, parents behave in a manner that reinforces bad sleep habits and patterns with their children. Having said that, there are some children who display neorologically-based sleep disorders and these are not created by the parents' behavior. My advice is to have your child (and you) evaluated at a Pediatric Sleep Disorder Clinic.