My 2 year old was always a great sleeper, he slept through at a few months old and we could probably count on one hand how many night wakings we'd had since then, until this week. On Sunday there was a small spider in his cot at bedtime (he'd never been scared of them before). Im scared of them but calmly said "its only a spider" and called my husband in to move it while I carried on bedtime. The spider jumped and ran towards my son and he became extremely distressed and needed us in the room to fall asleep. Since then he has been really avoidant of bedtime, has started waking in the night and is wanting to be up at 5.30am sometimes (though this has happened many times before and we've managed that successfully by telling him to get more sleep and leaving the room). Last night he was up every hour from 1am until my husband caved and just slept in the room with him on the floor. We had seemed to be getting somewhere a few days ago but then the same spider reappeared (husband decided not to tell me the spider had actually escaped while he was moving it that previous Sunday). He is verbally able enough to tell us he's scared and he talks of spiders being in his bed when he wakes up to start the day, so I know it's on his mind. I'm validating his fears, trying to make the spiders seem less scary, tell him they're scared of him, as well as keeping bedtime consistent etc. I don't think he's able enough to make sense of that information yet, and needs us to coregulate his emotions (rightly so, given his age). I wondered if anyone had any experience of this, did it pass? He's also got back molars coming in, so mum friends are telling me it's just a temporary regression, but I'm scared what we're doing will create a longer term problem..