Sleep issues

Every once in a while Gavin goes through these periods of waking up a lot at night. The difference this time is that he is no longer in a crib and can figure out how to maneuver around the baby gate, so that makes, letting him cry it out dang near impossible.  It started about 2 months ago with him genuinely being scared of something, I think..., but has now morphed into let's try any and every excuse UNDER THE SUN, to not only not go to sleep at night but to also get up a million times during the middle of the night.  He has gone from sleeping in a pitch black room with the door closed to this

And this won't work tonight because we will pick up Doug our dog from the vet this afternoon and he will insist on giving Gavin lots of kisses.  Gavin has always been SO easy to put down at night, but the past month or two he has gotten progressively worse until now it averages between 1 and 2 hours of nightmarish screaming and hollering, coupled with getting up 3 or 4 times between 10 and 4.  He usually starts out with the "there is something in my room" line and then moves on to "I need more hugs and kisses" x3000, then "I need to go potty" for the 12th time or "I need more milk" or "cover me up" because it is only 12,000 degrees in here and I need 100 blankets.

Nothing seems to be working and Clay and I are bone weary.  We also only have about 8 weeks until we welcome a new non-sleeper into our home, baby Wyatt.  So we need prayer desperately and welcome any advice for someone who has been through this.