DS 3.7 waking during night....advice please

[doittomorrow]

DS1 is 3.7 and has never been the best sleeper. Number of times he has genuinely slept through the night probably no more than 10. However recently this has been becoming much worse and he is awake at least 4 or 5 times a night. Often he will wander into our room and will return when told its still night time and go straight back to sleep, other times I will need to go into his room, stick a story cd on and he'll drop off again. Last night he was up at least 10 times and was crying saying he couldn't get back to sleep, wanted to sleep with us. Can anyone say if they have experienced the same/got any ideas? Oh and another thing we got rid of his dummy a few weeks ago, he has never asked for it since so I'm not sure if its relevant (and he's not getting it back even if it is!)

My daughter had always been a good sleeper until about age 4, when she started getting scared when she woke up in the night. She would just climb into bed with us, and the phase passed of itself. She now also sleeps with her younger sister, so has stopped coming to us for comfort.
When I was whinging to the neighbour about it, she said both her kids woke up regularly during the night - they just have sleeping bags at the end of the bed so the kids just grab them and sleep on the floor in their parents' room if they wake up and want company in the night.
When my older daughter wakes up during the night, it can take her 2 to 3 hours to fall asleep again, so it's difficult for her to stay in bed all that time.

Have you tried leaving a classical music/sleep type cd on repeat all night? This made my dd feel like she was not alone when this happened to us when she was about 15 months.

Also, making sure he is not too cold or too hot so he doesn't wake up.