2.9yo suddenly restless at night

[ecuse]

My 2.9mo DD has been a great sleeper since 13mo (bed at 7.30/8.00pm easily, self-settling then 12-13 hours sleep). Occasionally we would have to go in to her if her dummy had dropped out of the cot, but by and large she slept straight through (or woke and self-settled without disturbing us).

Since Nov she has been taking longer to go to sleep - sometimes an hour or so - waking more frequently, and calling for us. Also doing things like demand we leave the light on, the door open, or calling that she's dropped her dummy when she hasn't or purposely throwing it so she can call us to retrieve it.

We're not really sure why (scared of the dark? Bored? Ready to drop a nap? Out of routine after a few colds then xmas? Manipulative?) or what to do about it (nightlight? Wean off dummy? Stick firmly to routine and assume it will pass?)

Is this common? Any thoughts, insight or advice v welcome!

for the Wednesday evening crowd!

DS1 has a similar sleep history to your DD, and has gone through similar phases twice. The first time, we cut his pm nap from 2 hours down to 1, and then cut it out altogether when he started finding it hard to drop off again about 9 months later.

I had a similar issue when DS was around that age. He would wake 2, 3, 4 times a night shouting for us, crying, lost teddy, want the light on etc. we would go in, tell him sleep time and he'd go right back to sleep but then wake again soon after. We tried reward charts, earlier bedtime, later bedtime - he wasn't napping in the day so couldn't tinker with that - nothing worked. Then we went hardcore. When he woke, we spoke through the monitor - 'DS, you are fine, mummy is close by but I'm not coming in. Go back to sleep, night night'. Hey presto - a couple of nights like that and he stopped. Now sleeps 7:30 to 7, hardly ever wakes. I think it started to get into a habit for him and it needed breaking.

Thanks both. Sid, your last point is probably my gut feeling about what's going on...