Toddler awake for hours overnight, don't know what to do any more

[Tuinton]

My 20 month old has no issues going to bed at all, settles by himself around 7.30 and sleeps a decent chunk. He naps around 90 minutes and I always wake him by 2. He has previously slept through really well. However for about the past month he's been waking between 1 and 3 and remaining awake for 1+ hours. He woke at 3am this morning and it's nearly 6am and he's only just gone back to sleep. I'm at my wits end. I've tried longer naps, shorter naps, earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes. He has a dark room, he has white noise, he's eating plenty, he's warm enough, I've given meds in case it's teething related, he has a comforter and water. If I try to bring him in bed with us he gets hysterical. Most of the advice I can find for this age relates to bedtime battles rather than overnight wakes which isn't relevant to us as we don't ever have an issue at bedtime.

I'm really at the end of my tether from lack of sleep and don't know what to do any more.

Makes total sense that calcium etc. doesn't have to come from milk!!

He's a toddler not a baby and too much day time sleep interferes with night time sleep.
Split nights are usually caused by too much napping.
Plenty of toddlers this age will only need about 11 hours sleep in 24 so if they are getting some in the day, they will be awake at night.

Yep, this. My eldest (now nearly 10) has done this periodically since she was a toddler. Last time was only around 8 months ago. Thankfully that time lasted less than a week, but I'm sure we had episodes of it being a month+. (Have blocked it out!)

Had exactly the same when my daughter was 2. She'd just had her 2 yr check up with the hv and I said what an angel she was at sleeping.
She'd wake at 2am and be up til 3/4am then I had to work a full day on little and broken sleepers.
I literally slept in the hallway for a year, as didn't want her in my bed, but she was comforted by me being there. She just played on her cot and babbled. God knows why it happened but she grew out of it and I still laugh at sleeping on a zbed in my hall 🤦🏼‍♀️😂 She likes a lie in now and sleeps like a log...still remember this episode well though it was over 8 years ago. No advice but it is just a phase.

Jeso the baby stage is short enough without slashing those precious months shorter. Baby officially until after their 2nd birthday. Rounding a 20 month old upto 2 is not on. Those 4 months of development are crucial as is their afternoon nap.

Mate I don't know if you've been reading my posts but if he has a long afternoon nap he's up for four hours in the night.

I have no intention of cutting out his nap altogether but I certainly do cap it!

I'd try cutting the nap off at 1:30 push bedtime back 30 mins and see how you go.

It sounds like he might be on the lower end of the sleep needs spectrum. In which case sleep does not beget sleep.

I'd try gently rousing (but not fully waking) about an hour before he usually fully wakes. Hopefully this will reset his sleep clock and he will miss the wakey period.

Pretty difficult to do this really as it could be any time between midnight and 3

I would (and did with my dd) change his nappy and offer him a drink of water and then leave him to it.

There's a limit to how long I can leave him as he cries so loudly that he wakes my older child.

could it be teeth? Is he any better if you give him calpol?

I would leave him for 10-15 mins, go back to reassure and then leave him again.

Have you tried putting him to bed much earlier? If he's run up a sleep debt by this point then his body could be releasing cortisol and waking him / meaning he can't sleep well after an initial crash.

one tip I used is don’t turn on any lights.

I never do

Yes. It made it worse 😂

I do this but he escalates to total hysteria and wakes my eldest up

I've tried Calpol and neurofen and anbesol and none make a difference

I paid a sleep consultant in the end! She had me rejig daytime first then bedtime and then nights fell into place.

He slept through last night 🤷 no rhyme or reason to it.

I feel your pain OP, we went through this with our toddler just before she turned 2. She went from sleeping through to waking up some time between midnight and 3am every night, then stayed awake for ages. I struggled to sleep because I knew she would be waking up at some point, but didn't know exactly when! Along with winter illnesses it nearly broke us, we took turns to take her into the spare room but no one was getting good sleep for a good few weeks.

Then one day it just stopped! We had left her for a few minutes before going in, she settled herself back to sleep then it seemed to resolve itself 🙏 looking back her speech was really coming on then so I think it was just a development thing, but that didn't help at the time. No practical advice sorry, just wanted you to know as others have done that you're not alone.

Cut the nap totally and early bed - mine went to bed at 6pm when they dropped the nap and slept 6pm till 8am. Or try short power nap in buggy again with super early bedtime.

Agree with first poster, you might just have to ride it out! Our son did this for about 6 weeks (although he was a bit older, around 28 months), we used to end up sleeping on the floor in his room and feeling like crap the next day. One night it just stopped and he was back to 'normal'.

Only other suggestion is to drop the nap completely.

I think it might just be a developmental thing to ride out (unfortunately). Mine is 19 months old and has been doing this on and off for a couple of months. I wake her the same time each day also, and it can happen whether she's had a short or normal length nap. No rhyme or reason. It normally happens once a week, occasionally more, and she can be awake for up to 5 hours!!! She's clearly tired and wants to sleep but can't seem to. I have resigned myself to just quietly lie on her floor cuddling her, or next to her in her cot (she will not come into our bed either) as otherwise she wakes my 4 year old. I vaguely remember my 4 year old going through a similar thing (not to this extent, though) so I'm sure it's just a phase. Sorry, not very helpful I know, but I wouldn't go doing any dramatic routine changes or nap cutting. Hoping it'll pass for us both soon!

Just have a stairgate over their bedroom door, put a mattress in their room you can sleep on and just go and sleep in the room with them and leave them to it until they go back to sleep too

Split nights are caused by lack of sleep pressure. Your toddler is basically not tired enough to stay asleep, or asleep for long. From your posts it seems like you are offering around about 13+hours of sleep every day, which is at the higher end of average for this age range.

You have two options - cap the nap, or push back bedtime. Five hours awake time between nap and bedtime for some toddlers just isn't enough to tire them out. At this age, I was giving little one 45 minutes of day time nap and bedtime was at 9.

You need to make sure schedule changes are implemented for 2+ weeks to see real changes. Good luck!