our 3yr old son has been a nightmare in the evenings since he gave up his dummy four months ago. He hasn't asked for his dummy but just can't switch off. We put him to bed and he immediately comes down stairs. We have tried reward charts which don't work, we've tried putting him to bed a bit later in case he's not tired, and letting hm play in his room listening to audio books to wind down. we've tried putting him in a cot but he escapes gleefully. He is now screaming and banging in a locked room. It feels like child abuse but we just can't get through to him. It is becoming increasingly stressful as my husband works long hours and I'm up a lot of the night with a baby with reflux. It might be that the baby is the reason for all this but we are just running out of ideas. He's also started pooing in his nappy almost immediately every night even though he's fine during the day and we ask him if he needs a poo before we put him to bed.

Any tips would be incredibly gratefully received.

you say that you have a new baby besides the three year old if that is the case then the older child will start to act out for attention.but do not get into the habit of giving into him just to get him to mind because that will become an even bigger problem.you might want to set aside some special one on one time with the child and make that time his time not only will this give you a stronger bond but will show him that he is still important.but you need to always be consistant and remember that children dont learn from what you say.they learn from what they see so if they see you do it they will mimic that behavor and the negitive behavor is always the first one they pick up on i hope this can help with your problem

i wrote the original thread of this, and thought that i'd (eventually) come back with an update. we are now a year on so can look back at that time with some objectivity now. awful awful time for us all. the interesting part was that it was an incredibly simple solution. i had been sleeping in with our new baby as he had reflux and i was worried about him choking. once the reflux improved, i moved out of his room and back in with my husband. within three days, my eldest son totally calmed down and went to bed without a problem. he was basically reacting to me sharing a room with the new baby. i wish i could turn the clocks back rather than us all going through what we did. i just didn't make the connection at the time.