[Buff]

My kid doesn't sleep well through the night (he's 2 and a half years). Ever since birth. People say, oh, he'll grow out of it. Shyeah, when pigs fly out of my butt!

We've tried everything that we can think of

No daytime naps... makes things worse at bedtime.
Shorter daytime naps... see above
Earlier bedtime... nope.
let him play until he's ready to drop... worst. idea. ever.
gave him a bottle... now he's hooked on it and we've got another issue to deal with

He just lays in bed singing, playing etc. until he gets bored and then he cries and cries and cries. It usually takes him 2 hours to get to sleep from the time we lay him down in bed... and then middle of the night hits and he's awake again... crying, obviously. Usually he'll go right back to sleep but he needs some consoling which requires one of us to get up.

The odd thing is when he goes for a nap, he's all for it, somewhat excited, but at bed time he dreads it and and dreads it worse the more tired he is. he does have the odd stretch where he'll sleep through the night, sometimes several nights in a row, but one bad night and we go on a long stretch of bad nights.

What tricks do people use to get their kids to go to bed... and sleep the night through?