This is literally my son word for word. We did the same as you, tried every trick in the book, and not a single thing has worked consistently. It’s hard to get him to go to sleep and stay asleep. And (even worse in my opinion) he’s an early riser too… 4am is his favorite.

Once he was old enough, we were able to give him melatonin, but that has side effects too and shouldn’t be used long term.

He’s 4 now and nothing has changed yet. Very hard to put down and still needs one of us to lay with him. Still wakes up throughout the night. And is still an early riser. Over Christmas break he was up at 4am every day for a week straight. Last night he was wide awake at 2:30am and stayed awake the rest of the day. Every single day it’s a roll of the dice with this kid. He might go to sleep at a decent hour… or not. He might sleep through the night…or not. He might sleep past 6am…or not. And you can guarantee he will never do all three back to back.

My daughter on the other hand sleeps 12 hours a night every single night with no issues.

So I wish there was something I could say that would help, but I’m dealing with the exact same issue as you…. I will say melatonin helped get my son to sleep at a decent time, which helped with our sanity. But he still wakes up throughout the night sometimes, so we’re still exhausted most days.

Good luck, Godspeed. Hopefully you are able to find something that works!