2.6yr old now waking in middle of night for tantrum - why??

[Joeymac]

DS1 has generally been good sleeper sleeping through to about 6.30-7am. No issues in getting him down either.

However he's just recently started waking about midnightish and shouting things like 'I got snot', 'I hungry', I want mummy' etc. We go in and try to resettle him which has never been a problem previoulsy however this is now developing into a full on tantrum lasting about an hour. I've tried reward charts and threats to remove his train track, etc. but he just carries on getting out of his bed and standing outside our door wailing.

The only solution we found last night was to put the travel cot up in his room and tell him that if he didn't get back into bed he would have to sleep in the cot. Seemed to work instantly and not a peep out of him afterwards.

I'm baffled as to why this has started to happen. He's been tantruming alot in the day recently - really pushing his boundaries like deliberately throwing things and hitting me and he's also going through a phase of dropping his daytime nap which could have something to do with it I suppose but has anyone suffered the same and how did you stop it?

[lou031205]

Well I doubt he is waking to have a tantrum but it is likely he is going through a developmental stage or two. Sleep is the time when they process these things, and so developmental progress can affect sleep for a while. He probably can't verbalise what has woken him, or most likely doesn't even know, so he is just using any phrase which would get mummy in his room.

I would just use calm, consistent minimal response, and ride it out. Perhaps a stairgate across his door, too. He will eventually get over it, and peace will return.