DS was a crap sleeper until around a year. Since then he's got a lot better despite us making no changes to his bed time routine (bath, pyjamas, story, milk, teeth, cuddles and then into bed awake with a dummy). He is now 22 months old.
He now sleeps through the night fairly consistently, every few weeks we have a period where he won't settle at night or is up during the night, but these usually don't last longer than a week.
The last four nights have been a nightmare. When I've put him to bed he has requested milk, but then doesn't want it. I think he just wants to get out of bed. He eventually drifts off and is then wide awake at 2am.
When he wakes during the night we usually resort to bringing him into our bed.. we live in our flat and had complaints from upstairs neighbours when we tried the CIO method, so I feel that this is our only option. Standing over his cot and trying to soothe him result in him getting more excitable. When he comes into our bed, he starts trying to climb off, hitting us and generally being a shit. The only thing that will relax him enough to go back to sleep is milk. Every night he has gone back to sleep after a warm sippy cup and a cuddle.
I'm sure it's a phase and in a week or so he'll go back to normal, but I'm very anxious/convinced I'm doing a royally crap job of parenting and I worry that he's developing a sleep association with his milk at 2am.
Any advice? I would try letting him CIO if it wasn't for the neighbours.
Thanks, and apologies for the quality of my writing.. I work full time, have ME and the recent night wakings have turned me into a rambling zombie.