DS is nearly one now and whilst he's never been a really awful sleeper (4-month sleep regression excepted) he still has one habit that is less than ideal and I'm not sure what causes it.
2/3 nights a week he'll wake up at around 1am and he's properly awake. Standing up in his cot, smiley and ready to play. Our first response is to go in (when we're sure he's definitely awake), give him a drink of water and lay him back down with minimal interaction, just saying 'sleepy time'. This is when DS usually starts crying. It's a proper protest cry and it's VERY loud. We tried leaving him once for a few minutes to see what happened and he cried so hard he was coughing and sobbing by the time we went back in so we don't want to do that again. I'm sure our neighbours feel the same.
This has been happening on and off since he was about 9 months old. At first DP or I would sit and hold him til he went back to sleep, but it takes at least an hour til he goes back off. Any attempt to put him back in the cot before then results in more protest cries. So, I've resorted to bringing him into bed with me. He still takes ages to drop off, with plenty of hair pulling and face prodding in the meantime, but at least I'm lying down. We get maybe 2ish hours more sleep then he's up for the day at around 6am. DP then takes him while I grab another hour or so in bed, but I'm back to work in a few weeks and won't have this luxury.
Anyone else have a LO who does this? I wondered if it might be separation anxiety, but he doesn't show any sign of it during the day. If it was teething then surely he'd be unhappy when he wakes? (ditto the separation anxiety). It's just when we try to resettle him that he goes nuts. I can handle the waking to a point, it's the length of time he's awake that really hurts!