20-month-old dumps good sleep routine and screams his head off - help!

[frazzledgirl]

DS has been a good sleeper (barring illness) since he was 8 months old, although we had to do sleep training and call in Andrea Grace to do it.

Bedtime at 8pm, has self-settled, slept through till 6-6.30am with no trouble. Nap at 10.30-11 for an hour or so, wakes up grumpy but goes down fine.

The last week, he's screamed at bedtime/naptime and had to be patted or cuddled to sleep, and woken up at night crying several times. One night last week he was awake for TWO HOURS between 3am-5am, although weirdly he seemed quite happy and was chatting away.

As I type, he's screaming in his cot and refusing to nap, having screamed hysterically from 11pm-2am whenever he was left.

We're at our wits' end. Is this normal? What can we do?

[moocowme]

give him some pain relief and see if it works. you might need to do it for 24 hours to see if it makes a difference.

any chance he has an ear infection? these always feel worse when lying down for some people.