Why is my 22 month old now waking up frequently in the night after sleeping right through for months?

[Lorry123]

My son has always been a good sleeper, going right through from 7 til 7 for the past year, however in the last few weeks he is waking up during the night every few hours. Our second baby is due any day now and I hadn't factored in having to deal with sleepless nights with him as well as our newborn - help!!! Anyone had any experience of this, or any ideas on what we can do to put it right?

Ours both went through phases of night waking e.g. when ill, unsettled etc, I don't think that goes away for a long time - its just worse once you are used to sleeping more! A friend has a newborn and toddler, and is often up as much with the tod as the baby. I imagine he is getting pretty excited/worried/unsettled about babies arrival, and may be for some time. How do you settle him? If he's not used to settling himself (i.e. you give a quick cuddle and then put him straight back to bed/cot) then I would say that might be worth introducing. (but a hard time to start any new routine - for you and him -, so prob want to wait a bit). Hope all goes well for you x

Perhaps he's picking up that something is about to happen and is unsettled because of that. Maybe not. Perhaps it's just one of those things.

Look on the brightside. If your up with one then it doesn't make a lot of difference if there's another one up with you.

Hopefully it's temporary and he'll settle down again once things settle after the baby is born.

Is he in a big bed? One of my friends little one kept waking up when she was too big for the cot, as soon as she was in a big bed she slept through again. No idea why!

Hi Lorry123 - could he be cutting his molars? DS1 went through a phase of sleepless nights just as he was cutting his last 4 teeth. It stopped as soon as the teeth were through. HTH

Molars.

Give nurofen and calpol as needed, these teeth HURT.

My 20 month old went through a waking up phase a couple of weeks back and we thought... oh no, that's it, sleep problems from now on. But then she stopped doing it all on her own. I think they just have little niggles sometimes, don't despair.