2 year-old waking in the early hours

[Goateye]

DS is 26 months. He sleeps in a bed in his own room (he moved out of his cot a couple of months ago after displaying some impressive climbing skills). All was fine until about 2-3 weeks ago.

He is waking about 2am most nights and staying awake for a couple of hours. He just isn't sleepy. He is bouncing around wide awake. And if he's awake, he makes damn sure I'm awake too. When he finally gets sleepy again he'll go to bed no problem. But before then, no chance because he's WIDE AWAKE.

He goes to bed about 7:30pm and is tired and ready to sleep. He gets up 6:30-7:00am. His naps have been cut to 45mins from 90mins. But still he wakes.

I am knackered. Has anyone got any suggestions please?

Anyone? Please?

Cut out day time naps?
Cut out any electronics in the hours before bed - the light they emit stimulates the brain.
Dont eat too close to bed time
Make bedvtime routine as relaxing as possible
Try and get him to play quietly in his room if he wakes, but no electronic games.
Hang on in there - this too shall pass (to be replaced by an equally tiring and annoying phase)
Not long now until he leaves home!

Thanks MrsLeigh. I've hesitated to cut out his daytime nap completely as he seems miserable and shattered by the end of the day without it. But it may well be necessary.

He gets one cbeebies program before bed. Maybe that will have to go too. But often it is the only tv he and dd get all day.

Bedtime is definitely not relaxing. Dd(4) is an expert at getting him overexcited and I have not yet found a way to stop that short of giving her more screen time.

He doesn't have electronic games when he wakes. But I often sit and mn whilst I wait for him to get tired and go back to sleep. Does this mean I'll have to stop doing that? [panic emoticon]

I used to get in bed with my DDs when they some in the night, and go back to my own bed when they fell asleep. Do he and DD go to bed at the same time/share a room? There's about the same age difference with mine and they shared a Bath and story and bed at same time.
Could DD be bribed to help mummy? Would the responsibility calm her down?

If all fails, remember - its just a phase!

They are in separate rooms. They do go to bed at roughly the same time. Dd often sits in in ds's story, but then insists on her own afterwards (although for the last week or so she has been going to bed before ds because she has started school and is tired).