16 month old ds2 goes to sleep lovely but wakes between 9-930 and takes ages to settle

[Sails]

Is down stairs with me now probably the wrong things to do but he was crying so much and I couldn't calm him at all. He's fine when bought down stairs (currently playing peekabo behind the laptop screen!) Did the same thing last night and yes we bought him down! Unsure what else to do have given him calpol incase he's teething.

i think unless he is teething he is just testing you to get downstairs, dd doesnt go back downstairs after her bath till the next morning, even calpol is gievn in her room, she will ask for milk or even a story, we just repeat no bedtime now and she gives in.

is anything waking him, like the heating clicking on?

hope he settles soon

How old is your dd? We do this with ds1 aged 3 but at 16 months and when I can't calm him down I don't know what else to do especially as ds2s bedroom is right next to ds1s and I don't want him to wake up too! Having said that we never took ds1 down ever it was a rule that we never broke(still don't)so he is probably testing us on the other hand can they reason like that at 16 months?

dd is 20 months and def tests us, like she always wants more milk when i say cot time.
if she says up to get out of cot and we say no she says cuddle as she knows this is harder for us to resist

totally a test you need to be strong give him something like a night light i used this wall shadow thing by Playskol he simply touches it and the night light plays a song and provides a light/rotating movie like scene in projestion on the ceiling really works for us my dau loves it and still uses it at 3.4yrs.

i also use a fan/noise machine in the room it works for our little ones in fact i use it in two seperate rooms for both girls in the case taht one wakes and screams the other one cant hear her over the lovely "shhhh" noise in the room.

we use a dehumidifer cos of damp problems and the noise helps dd sleep through anything

I think you are absolutely right it is def a test and tonight we failed miserably! He woke up at about 8ish an hour after we put him up to bed. He was in a dreadful state and I tried to calm him but he wouldn't stop screaming and crying and throwing himself about he got really hot bothered and red in the face from it all. Eventually I gave in and bought him down and he changed in that instant! I thought you little monkey! He was laughing, giggling, climbed on his toy box and laughed some more! Anyway I took him up gave him some milk and he has (so far) been settled ever since!

My DD went through several phases of this - waking after about 60-90 minutes after going to bed, being really distressed and crying alot. She only settled when brought downstairs, played for 20 minutes or so, then back upstairs to bed where she settled fine. This used to happen for several nights in a row, then would just disappear and I never found a reason.

I felt that I really couldn't leave her upstairs when she was so distressed, and it never created any bad habits in her either.