My son is 4 and wakes up every night and is very emotional.
He had night terrors for a little while when he was 2/3, whether he was in my bed or his own. But he outgrew them very quickly.
For the past few months he wakes up pretty much every single night and always more than once. Sometimes I’ll hear him whimper and then he falls back to sleep, other times he just cries and cries until I come to him and other times he gets up and comes to me. It’s different all the time, but always more than once and always within the first couple of hours of going to bed.
I haven’t taken him to the doctors as I initially wasn’t concerned as everything I read says it’s common etc but am now considering it because when looking online the only thing that comes up is night terrors, which I don’t think it is anymore. When he suffered with them in the past he would shout, kick and scream and clearly wasn’t awake.
Where as now, he’s fully awake and just crying. Times when I’ve calmed him down and tried ask what’s wrong he says he doesn’t know I asked a follow up if he just feels sad and he said yes.
I know that sounds like separation anxiety but the part that confuses me is he doesn’t suffer with it in any other aspect of his life. He’s a very confident and independent child. He has never cried when taking him to nursery or when he spends a night with his aunts and cousins and he also doesn’t give me any push back at bed time, he goes to sleep in his own bed happily with a nightlight on. But within an hour or so he wakes up crying. He also doesn’t always ask to get in my bed, sometimes I will go in and tuck him back in and he stays asleep for the rest of the night.
I guess the inconsistency is what is worrying me as it’s making it difficult to pin point what’s wrong, if I should be concerned or if it’s just another unfortunate thing that he has to grow out of ?
Has anyone experienced this or know what it may be ? I haven’t had a full nights sleep in months ðŸ˜