17 month old reverted to waking for milk and then cuddles - wtf?!

[starfish12]

So we have had a lot of disruption recently - illness and lots of time spent away due to the death of my father where DS1s travel cot was in our room which i think may have caused the problem...

Since we got home DS has been waking up once a night anytime between 1 and 3am shouting and signing for ''milk' so it's v clear that's what he wants. I feel i have no other choice than to give him it and he normally goes straight back to sleep. I personally dont think he eats enough in the day but i cant force him and I offer him frequently throughout the day.

Then around 4/5ish he wakes up crying and wants a cuddle. If i try and put him back in his cot he claws at my neck screaming. I cant stand by his cot for 2 hrs holding him whilst he snoozes, so the last couple of nights i did the dreaded bring into bed with us. I really dont want to get into that habit esp as baby no 2 is due in 3 months.

He used to sleep through 11 hrs no problem so no idea how it's descended into this....?!

Can anyone help?

I can only help by telling you we have the same problem.

It started with illness and DS being thirsty in the night because of coughing, I think teething is also disturbing his sleep. We also took him into our bed as we've also a 6week old we were trying to not disturb.

Last night I just gave him water and suprise suprise he isn't thirsty at all, and I let him out the cot but locked into our room with me and just kept saying 'its bed time' in response to anything he said to me until after 2 long, long hours he gave up and laid down with me to sleep. I really saw it is just a tantrum, he wants to choose to be up rather than that he needs anything.

I've decided to CC tonight, (I'll give him teething gel and water on hs first wake up) as I've done that before and it worked within the hour last time,
I'll let you know how it goes!

Yes good luck tonight! Keep me posted. I've decided to point blank refuse him coming into our bed as my strategy so will sit up with him in the beanbag in his room ( im sure I'll cave in at 5am but sounds good for now!).
Ive also been reading that they have a wonder week around now so could be that...?
Congrats on your new baby. Hope alls going well.

Hi,

How was your night? DC1 shouted a lot when we put him up but calmed down after 10min he woke in the night but didn't shout for us and needed waking for nursery this morning. Hopefully its a wonder week as you say and that will be the end of it.

DC2 had a really good night as well, almost 4hrs between bottles compared to 2hr the few nights beforehand. And she settled after bottles within 20min, compared to up to an hour the previous nights.

I almost feel like a functioning adult today:-)

Yay that's brilliant on both counts!! Long may it continue.

I thought it was going to be a bad one when DS cried at bedtime and clung to my neck (he normally goes down no problem), but he slept through - not a peep till 6:30am! He'd actually eaten his dinner so I think that had a lot to do with it as well.

I on the other hand woke at 3am and didn't get back to sleep as I was waiting for him to wake up!! Bloody shattered today!!

Good luck for tonight.