Is this a sleep regression?

[NapQueen]

DS will be 2 in October. The last couple of weeks he has been waking 1am ish upset and only back to sleep after at least an hour and usually with a lamp on. No teething, bum clean, I'm wondering if it's anything to do with development (his speech is starting to take off) or possibly having bad dreams?

It's pretty much by the clock though, how does he know?!

I wouldn't worry about whether it's a regression or not. It sounds to me that he might have hit an anxious patch with wanting the light on. This often comes with greater awareness and communication. Try being firm and ignoring a bit of crying to see if you can train him to not expect cuddles and interaction at night. If he gets hysterical I'd go in though because he could genuinely be afraid. Dealing with these issues is hard I find because you don't want the scared but also don't want to feed into their fear by pandering to it. Lots of reassurance but firm instructions about what's going to happen (mummy's sleeping next door, you will go to sleep till morning etc) is really all you can do.

Oh, we got an ikea owl nightlight which solved the sleeping with the light on thing in our house.

I'd like to get a nightlight but he shares with dd and she likes dark
Suppose I could explain to her that it helps him sleep better so he won't wake her as much....