Our 1 year old has, for the last few nights, decided he does not like his cot and would prefer to sleep with my wife upstairs in the spare room. And when I say "sleep" I use the word in a very general sense. He wants to snatch an hour or two here and there and then play for about an hour, at 1am, 3am, 5am, before finally getting up with me at 6, to allow my wife to catch up on a couple of hour's sleep.
Until last week, he generally slept through and, if he did get up, it was just once. With his brother (now 2.5) we did a kind of "controlled crying lite" in that we would leave him for 5-10 mins or until his crying built up, and then we would give him a cuddle, tell him it was time to sleep, and put him back in his cot (and repeat until he finally slept). We had a tough few weeks but he did teach himself to settle and is now a very good sleeper, enjoying 11-12 hours per night and 1.5 hours in the day. We cannot really do that with our 1 year old as he sleeps in an adjoining room to his brother and we cannot have them both up all night.
Our 1 year old is allowed to sleep maximum 2 hours in the day, and never later than 3 PM. He also is always active during the day, either in the park, play groups, soft play etc etc. He eats regularly and healthily and has an evening routine of bath, story and then bed at 7PM ish, just like his older brother.
So, what is happening and what do we do about it? I am struggling on 2-4 hours of sleep per night (my wife does a little better as she is naturally a better sleeper and sleeps in in the mornings but also struggling). I know it is a phase and am not too down about it but any help would be very gratefully received.