Help - why is he torturing us?

[FlightofFancy]

13 month old DS has never been a great sleeper, but since Christmas he's been pretty reliably sleeping through - with a top up feed at 10.30pm ish. Then about 10 days ago we dropped the bedtime feed (not before time!) and he slept through from 6.30/7pm to 6.30-7am for a whole 5 nights on the trot.

Then... middle of last week, he woke up at 3am ish and took ages to settle back to sleep. And now he's doing it every night. The last few nights we've been up from around 2.30-3.30 to 5am with him. We're all exhausted and can't work out what's going wrong.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong - we've tried ignoring him and he gets hysterical. Tried just going in and shhing in the dark. Ditto. Tried feeding him - will eat, but then not settle any better. Tried a 'full service and MOT' (lights on, nappy change, teething stuff, Calpol and a feed, recreate bedtime routine). Perfectly happy sat on lap/snuggling etc, but then full on hysterics when put in cot. We've even tried bringing him in to bed with us - he's happy, but doesn't sleep - wriggles. Last night he woke me up by poking me in the eye... so that's not an option.

Short of applying gaffer tape to his mouth, what can we try? Is this another bloody 'phase'? Please god don't tell me there's another bastarding sleep regression?

It probably is a phase. You've covered all the bases on teething, nappy, temperature, hunger-pangs... so, logically, all that's left is 'temporary annoying habit' :) All I can think is that 6.30 - 3.30... nine hours sleep... is replacing his previous personal best of 10-ish - 6.30-ish... eight+ hours. Wouldn't suggest upsetting the apple-cart completely when things might just go back to the way they were by themselves, but perhaps putting bedtime back slightly might mean you get a 5am start rather than 3am?

Agree with the above, it prob is a phase maybe he is getting a bit of seperation anxiety or teething pain. I would keep going with your routine, if it was me when he wakes up I would keep lights very low, minimum speaking and interaction, check nappy, offer a drink of water, maybe teething powder (if you think its teeth related) and then leave him, if he screams time it for 10 min intervals to recheck and reassure. I never had to do this more than twice with my dd. Good luck

Thanks both - he was absolutely exhausted at bedtime tonight after a busy day at nursery, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

Any other thoughts welcome - we did get to that point last night of hissing "just go to bloody sleep" at him! That didn't work either...

Argh! I hate that- night wakings are horrid!
Maybe take a look at www.thewonderweeks.com to see if he's going through a developmental leap? I always feel better if there's an excuse for bub's 6x a night wakings!

I bet he's learning to walk - is he? Apparently this is a developmental stage related to that.

It might be worth dropping or limiting one of his naps?

Ah, the walking might be it!
Apparently he's been super-grumpy at nursery today if not able to stand up. Just wish he'd get on with it!
Last night slightly better - he still woke up in the middle of the night but managed to go back to sleep before we felt we had to go in to him. Though we did do a bedtime bottle... two steps forward, 3 steps back!