Wondering if anyone else has a NT 5 year old with similar sleep issues who can hopefully advise but if not, just relating would be nice!
DS is 5. He slept fine as a baby, usual wobbles at various developmental moments. From the age of 2, he has woken almost every single night between 9pm and midnight. Always at least once. Frequently multiple occasions. On a good night he’ll settle after midnight. Bad night, he’ll continue to wake every 40 mins or so until 3am. I say “wake”. What he does is cry and thrash about. He’s a very busy sleeper. He is unaware of our presence but very distressed. Thumping his legs and crying. Sometimes it’s just moaning, sometimes really crying. I stay with him on bad nights but it doesn’t prevent it, it just means I can shush immediately and stops him waking up his brother (in separate room). He sleeps on a low bed, sometimes on the floor, as he moves so much during the night.
We’ve tried ignoring, tried shushing from the door, tried laying soothing hands on him but no voices, tried waking up to reset him… nothing works, but we have no idea what we’re doing tbh.
When he was 2, I thought: well you won’t be doing this when you’re 3.
When he was 3, I thought: at least you’ll be able to tell us what’s wrong when you’re 4.
We’ve breezed through 4 and now he’s 5, it’s still going strong and we still have no idea. Just pre pandemic, ie 2 years ago, I was readying myself to part with a lot of cash for someone to sleep in with us for a week to diagnose, help and train. That didn’t happen. And now here we are.
It’s such a bad time to do it as well. Always guarantees I can never get an early night because he’ll wake me up, and often cockblocks DH and I! 
I’m knackered - and so is DS, he’s often still snoozing when we have to get up for school (7am).
Can anyone relate? Any suggestions? Fwiw he doesn’t do it on the rare occasion he sleeps at my mums (we all stay over). It’s made me wonder if he’s uncomfortable on his bed but the years have covered two changes in bed so don’t think it’s that. We’re in scotland so he’s still in nursery. He has a full and busy day and hasn’t napped for years. He gets to sleep perfectly, no issue at all.