Sleep Regression, or "Become a real Halloween Zombie in just seven days!"

OK, Moms of toddlers. Help me out here.

Have you experienced sleep regression with your child(ren)? We’ve had our share of sleep ups and downs, but for the most part, in the last few months, everything has been pretty great, minus the fact that Travis is a total night owl and rarely goes to bed before 10pm.

In the past 2 weeks, however, we’ve had more bad nights than good, and when I hear that baby monitor go off between 3 and 5am, I know I’m probably getting up for the day. We’ll find Travis wide awake in his crib, usually at least a little cranky because he doesn’t want to be awake (trust me, kiddo, neither do I!). But nothing will soothe him back to sleep, and I wind up parked in my family room with Season 1 of The Muppet Show or any number of Little Einsteins episodes on repeat. When it seems apparent that he won’t be nodding off any time soon, I’ll fix him breakfast and make my coffee. Making coffee for me means “I’m not going back to bed”. I just can’t once its done.

90% of the time, I’ll fix my coffee, turn around, and find Travis fast asleep in his eggs and toast. Once, he still had his waffle in his hand, up to his mouth, and in his teeth! He’ll go back down to bed for a couple hours, and I’ll stumble into my office, catch up on a few reports or emails, feeling like an extra on the set of Walking Dead. And of course, by the end of the day, I’m so exhausted and frazzled that I earn the label of “superbitch” in the household, dishes aren’t done, dinner is pizza delivery, and I want nothing more than to be left alone.

I’ve done the slightest bit of reading on sleep regression (meaning, I got up at 5am with Travis today and read about four articles while he ate his eggs and I drank not-enough-coffee), and it would appear that the only solution here is time. We are NOT “cry it out” people, and I know that if you leave Travis alone in his bed, he’ll almost never just fall asleep. He gets mad, madder and maddest, until he is too wide awake to sleep anymore. 
 
Aside from crying it out, have any of you found a decent solution (and don’t say benadryl!) or are you, like me, just sitting up before the sun rises, waiting out the next month?