Toddler waking for long periods in the night

[Hellesbelles2]

My DS (22 months) has never been a great sleeper but for the last year has often slept through. Even when he has woken (usually a couple of nights a week) I can go into his room, pick him up, cuddle him for a couple of seconds and then put him back down in cot and he's gone back to sleep after a couple of minutes.

For the last 4 nights however he has been waking up in the early hours and then managing to stay awake for between 2.5 to 5 hours, until eventually from sheer exhaustion he's fallen asleep in my arms and after 15 mins or so I've been able to transfer him back to his cot.

In fairness, after such a long period of being wide awake he's then been sleeping through to 9am which after so many months of getting up for the day at 5.30 is a positive change! However that's over the weekend, once Monday morning comes I'll have to be up at 6.30 regardless of the night we've had!

When he's been awake we've tried cuddling him, rocking him, giving him milk, calpol (teething could be an issue), putting him down sleepy but awake. None of them work - it's like overnight he's forgotten how to sleep let alone self settle. Anyone got any ideas of how to handle this. Is it just a phase that I need to ride out (assuming his teeth are bothering him) and once they're through he'll go back to sleeping ok.

DS was a terrible sleeper for the first year and it took such a long time to gradually get him to fall asleep on his own - is all his and our hard work going to be undone and we'll have to start again?

[Andcake]

Watching as ds started doing this a lot around 17 months - it seems to go in phases - he was up for a few hours last night. Really get it about the week though - v knackering - I once even took a sick day to recover after a week of it ( I had a small cold but lack of sleep made it worse)

[Totesamazeballs]

Same problem here. Just the last few weeks it's been worse. He is 21.5 months. Was up for four hours last night. It's not every night, twice a week maybe. The other times he might wake briefly or sleep through. He isn't distressed, just really awake and wants to talk to me and tell me things or ask what this or that is. I also try Calpol and milk to no effect. He can self settle np orb if he wants to.

His language seems to be advanced for his age so I am wondering if it's that?? No friggin idea. Just want it to stop and # 2 is due in less than 2 months.

[Totesamazeballs]

It's kind of like a sort of toddler insomnia isn't it?

[Hellesbelles2]

Insomnia is exactly it!

DS only knows a handful of words though (although has improved a lot in last couple of weeks) so can't even make himself understood which I guess frustrates him even more. Fingers crossed it passes quickly for all of us!!

[Totesamazeballs]

I have googled extensively and found this useful
www.isabelagranic.com/bed-timing/2009/04/1821-months-the-mother-of-all-developmental-transitions.html