What would you do?

[Lifeinagoldfishbowl]

DC (2.3) is in a good sleep pattern going to bed each night at 7pm and generally sleeping until 6.45

However the last 4 weeks things have changed - he will still go to bed/sleep at 7 but will generally only sleep until 10-10.30 pm then he will wake almost quarterly for the next 5 hours - this can sometimes be a small moan, a little cry where we need to go through and comfort him or as tonight a large what seems to be temper tantrum, where we wails like a banshee in distress and generally sounds pissed off - any time we try to offer comfort a hug, to touch him, he sreams as though we are trying to harm him and is in great distress, sitting in the room doesn't seem to help - in fact sometimes I wonder if being in the same room as him is pissing him off - and he wouldn't rather be left on his own. These tantrums can last anything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes and I do wonder what our neighbours think (terrace housing) I "wouldn't mind as much" if he was upset and we were offering comfort but anything that we do is met with such noise and anger (almost like a caged animal) that it's hard to see what we should be doing.

Any ideas whats happened to our lovely dc and how to stop him being so upset and angry

ds3 had this happen a few months ago at similar age and it passed if that helps
Not sure what was going on. We wondered if maybe nightmares as he didn't seem fully awake if we went in and soothing him didn't help at all.
Not experienced them lasting 40mins but maybe your ds got overly upset and then woke up in the midst of it and that made him even more distressed?
Hopefully it will pass as it did with our ds.
Sorry can't offer more help

Could it be night terrors? I looked into this for DD but realised she was too young (only 8 months at the time). But they're quite common for toddlers and upwards, I think.

glad that it's happened to someone else - although for ds3.

Problem also stems that when he does eventually calm down (25 minutes tonight) he is obviously then wide awake and he then wants to play

See I wondered about night terrors but he seems to be able to answer questions, and respond to us - whilst doing this so.... ????

a friend of mine has a ds who has night terrors and she and her dh can talk to him as if he was awake during them. She says it's quite strange as they can say ask him things like does he need the loo or is he too cold etc and he will answer as if fully awake but he's not so they just guide him back to bed (he often gets out of bed during them and wanders down landing).
Our ds luckily has gone off back to sleep again afterwards but I really feel for you if your ds then wakes up and wants to play!

Yep he's chattering away and laughing and saying he doesn't want to go to bed - some of us do though!!

My DS did this type of thing occasionally - crying and seeming very distressed, responding to me but something not 100% normal about it. Can't imagine how I'd cope if it had been every night! All I could do to calm him was put a dimmed light on and read or tell him a story, then lie with him until he went back to sleep.

I think my DS was about 4 when he did it. It seemed to be a phase that passed.

DS (2.1) has just started waking like this, must be an age thing.

He woke the other day demanding to go to the seaside - nothing could persuede him otherwise. (not an option sadly, we live in the city furthest from the sea).
distracted with puddles, but he's still waking from dreams saying 'seaside seaside!!'

phase.
hopefully.

Dp has had tp doss on his floor (I'm not tolerated ) so much to DP's disgust he has to go and lie on DS's floor at 6am.

and waaa!

was certainly a phase for ds3 and I have a feeling that ds1 might have had a similar thing when he was around 3yrs but the lack of sleep for the years between ds1 and ds3 have put paid to my memory tbh!