My 16mo DS has started waking up between 3 and 5 a.m. just yelling his little head off. It's very unnerving as I immediately panic. He sounds likes he's in pain but he's not as far as we know. His teeth are all through, he's been a bit poorly but it's only a cold and he's been checked twice for ear infections in recent weeks as I thought it was that initially. We go into him to give him his dummy but it doesn't help calm him. We pick him up and cuddle him to calm him down but he either then wakes up even more and wants to start playing or will snooze but then start again making the same awful, pained cry when we put him back in the cot, even if five seconds earlier he seemed like he was dropping off and nice and relaxed again.
He's always been a reasonable sleeper, he's in the same cot, grobag and room he's always in, black out blinds etc. He's used to going into his cot awake at 7 p.m. and settling himself and is very good at it. When he wakes up properly at 7 a.m. he happily gurgles away to himself and chucks teddies about until we go and get him.
It's happened three times this week so it seems to be getting worse and it's really upsetting me. I just don't know what to do and I don't understand what's causing it - can kids of this age be scared of the dark? Can they get bad dreams? And if so with such frequent occurence?
Anyone got any experience of this?