Sleep Deprivation

I don't know what happened, but my easy baby has left the building. For the last 2 1/2 months he has been giving us a run for our money in the sleep department. This has by far been the most difficult few months we've had since adding a third to our family. It was bliss before, but sadly the anger and frustration that I have had in the past is returning. I am tired, cranky and depressed. I don't know if it's teething, trouble digesting solids (which by the way I stopped feeding him solids weeks ago because he kept getting constipated) or just plain deciding he wants more attention now. He doesn't want to go to bed at night, wants to be held, wakes up all the time and recently (due to illness) doesn't want to be laid down for naps. I use to lay him down awake, and he would go right to sleep for naps and bedtime. Now it's all a challenge. Now that he is not sick anymore, I'm getting serious with the sleep training. Which is a heartbreaking thing to do, but I know both we and him need it. He needs to learn to go to sleep on his own again. Did I mention Nate makes his way to our bed every night? Yeah, that boy has a desire to snuggle like it's nobody's business. Here is my proof. No one is safe, but I usually get the brunt of it! 

We have tried to encourage him to stay in his bed, but he has won that battle. At this time, we are picking our battles with him and deciding to let him get whatever extra time with Mommy he feels he needs. I feel like he seems less happy these days, and I don't know if it's a middle child thing, but I'm doing what I can to make him feel important. We started cutting out his nap whenever we can because he stays up so late and constantly gets out of bed until he finally gets tired around 9:30-10. (Luke conks out in their room around 8-8:30). It's hard to cut the nap though, because he gets so tired during the day. Sometimes he falls asleep on us anyway! Let me tell you, it is really difficult to be a good parent when you are so tired. My patience is very short. Parenting is a funny thing. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult from an outsiders perspective, but sometimes I feel like I'm on a game show that makes you try to complete a task while you are blindfolded or something. In my case the show would be called, "Try to raise small children on less than 4 hours of sleep a night!" Okay, I'm too tired to complain anymore.