DS1 is just turned 3. He's never been a particularly good sleeper although he occasionally has short spells of sleepiung through. Most nights he wakes at least once needing a cuddle, which we can cope with.
However, he often screams in his sleep and wakes up DH who he shares a room with. He isn't properly awake but is usually yelling, "No! No! No!" at the top of his voice, or just shouting incoherently. He doesn't respond when talked to.
I don't think it's night terrors as IIRC they are in the first part of the night and his yelling is more random. It might be after every sleep cycle, or once in the middle of the night, or all towards the end. Today he stayed soundly asleep till screaming at 5am. Early morning screaming seems to correlate a bit with earlier than usual waking.
His nappy often leaks, which can sometimes cause waking or yelling. He is daytime potty trained and uses the loo before bed. He wears a disposable nappy with a maxi nighttime sanitary towel inside to boost the absorbancy, with a cloth booster wraooed round his waist and a woollen wrap over the top.
The yelling is worse when he's overtired but happens even if he's not. We try very hard to get him to bed on time, but it is often difficult juggling that with 3 m.o. DS2 who usually needs bf'ing and getting to sleep in the sling at around DS1's bedtime. He stopped napping about 5 months ago and usually needs 12 hours' sleep a night.
DS1 is terrified at the idea of sleeping in a separate room when we've discussed it. He needs DH or me to stay with him while he falls asleep.
His diet isn't great and he has multiple food allergies - and we know that he is reacting to some things he's eating, but can't pinpoint what they are,. and haven't been able to correlate that with his waking. He can often be quite flatulent at night.
DH suffers from insomnia and can struggle to get back to sleep after being woken. He already wears earplugs. It's worse when I look after DS at night, which I do when DH is at work the next day (he's currently part-time). Then the tiny light on my phone which I need to bf DS2 wakes DS1 up, and he almost always wakes early and stays awake when DS2 needs feeding around 5/6am.
Any ideas?