This might not be the right place to post but I'm at my wits end. My 2 year old has been slowly transitioning to his toddler bed. But he loves his new freedom a little too much. At night, after we go through his bedtime routine, we turn his lights out and tell him to go to sleep. sometimes I stay in his room with him but most of the time he gestures (he's not talking much yet) that he wants me to leave. That's when the party starts. He knows how to turn on the lights in his room and he plays and has a great time. This can go on until 10pm before he feels ready to sleep. Sometimes he falls asleep on his floor and we find him like that- with the lights on, toys all over the place, and him sound asleep in the middle of it all. Occasionally he'll yell for us to get him a drink of milk or water(we keep a gate across his bedroom door so that he can't run around the house at night), but most of the time he's happy as a clam.

That is, until the next day. He almost always wakes up around 7am and if he hasn't slept enough, he's a grump for the rest of the day.

I don't know what to do. He is a well- behaved little boy during the day and minds what I say. But how do you discipline a child at night? You can't do a time-out because he won't go to sleep. He'd think that was fun. Normally during the day when I ask him to do something he does it but at night when we turn out his lights (for the fourth or fifth time that night)and ask him to go to sleep, he smiles and says, "Ok" and 2 minutes later goes back to playing. Sometimes, rarely, he will wake up in the middle of the night, turn his lights on, and start to play. ANY SUGGESTIONS???