21 month old waking several times each night:advice anyone?

[dingledangle]

My 21 month old has started waking 2 or 3 times each night for the last couple of months. I go in to his room, stroke his head for about a second, adjust his covers and he goes straight back to sleep.

The broken sleep is is exhausting me and I am wondering if there is any advice anyone has? Or similar experiences? As he is not our only child we are getting up with the other children completely exhausted (and grumpy!).

Advice anyone? (We have checked he is not too warm, too cold, etc etc)

sounds normal to me, I'm afraid
dd (now 2.4) is similar and I, like you, stagger in like a zombie, proffer the beaker of water, slap on the sleepy-music cd and go back to bed.
I think the bad weather doesn;t help - when she is running around outside all day she sleeps much better.

oh how depressing MrsBadger i was hoping to hear it was just a stage. Thanks for your honesty!

well it is just a stage, but it migth be a long or a short one, depending on the child involved

dd has been an appalling sleeper from day 1, and when I think that it was only a year ago that she was still feeding several times a night the current situation seems pretty easy...

My 21 mo DD still wakes about 70% of the time. Depending on the time of night we do just bring her into bed with us.

ah see this is where you have to do it the way that works for you.

We went through hell minor trauma to get dd in a cot at 12m and I know if we went back to co-sleeping we'd never get her out of our bed.
Two 5min wakes during the night is a small, small price to pay for having her go happily to sleep in her own bed IMO, esp with a new baby due in Jan...

We're going through this at the moment. We have a 4 yr old who often doesn't go to sleep til 10 or 11 (so no chance of an early night) and a 2 yr old who wakes at least 4 times a night. We just can't get out of bed in the morning, especially when the alarm is set for 5:30 to get up for work. I don't know how but Dh sleeps through the crying. I have to wake him up when I'm so exhausted that I can't get out of bed. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that I get any more sleep when it's dh's turn as I always wake up when he cries. Fortunately ds goes back to sleep quickly after we've given him what he wants which is normally 'huggy kissy', music on, cover on or dummy.

He's done this in phases for a while now so I know it's going to end soon. Dd went through the same thing when she was his age. I can't remember when it stopped though. I agree with Mrs Badger that you'll just need to ride it out.

Thanks everyone.

I am sure it will pass. It is so frustrating as we are tired and so is he!