2 year old with insomnia????

we've had A LOT of ups and downs with DS's sleep from birth but we did come to a period a couple of months ago where he was generally settling himself to sleep and sleeping through (maybe waking once or twice). it was absolute heaven after having so long without decent sleep.

DS had probably one night a week or fortnight where he'd wake for about 3 hours, usually from about 2am. he's not screaming in pain or anything - it's like there is just something preventing him from falling asleep again, even if i stay with him.

this has become increasingly worse where he's waking like this up to 5 nights per week. it's been this way for about 3-4 weeks. i feel like we have a newborn again and i'm a little concerned there is something wrong with DS. he has all his teeth and i really can't put it down to anything he eats - i don't allow food additives and he has a very healthy diet.

anyone have any ideas or been through the same thing?

We are going through similar at the moment. Its just weird isn't it? DS is 15 months and its been happening for about 1 month. He will stir and try to go back to sleep but an hour later the poor thing is still trying and then 1 hour becomes 2 and he gives up and asks to get up. A couple of times we have got up and had breakfast to kill some time because it seems like he needs to be up 3 hours to get sleepy enough to go back down again.

I can't work it out either! The only thing I suspect with DS is weaning may be contributing but I'm only guessing (my breastmilk supply has dropped as I'm mid-pregnancy).

Wishing you a good nights sleep tonight!

Hmmm, is he learning lots of new stuff maybe? Language skills, something like that, that he's up thinking about?
DS does this ocasionally. He often wakes in the night, but generally goes back to sleep fairly quickly. Sometimes he's up for a while. He seems to want to go to sleep, but just can't manage it - I really have no idea what it's about. I hope he doesn't start doing it more often! It is sooooo nice to finally get some nights of good sleep, isn't it?

I seem to be in the same boat with my 14 month old.
/he appears to go in cycles (I keep a sleep journal).
For 3-4 nights he does really well and sleeps through or only wakes once and settles straight back to sleep.
Then he has 3-4 nights where he wakes (usually sometime between 2am and 4am) and no matter what we do he is awake for between 1-3 hours before he'll go back to sleep.
DH suggested tonight that we stop letting him nap but length of nap or whether he naps at all doesn't affect it.
He is awake now as I type this and has been for just over two hours now.
I guess he will eventually outgrow it but it is very frustrating.

Hi Lilprecious

Our DS did grow out of it. It lasted for about 6 weeks and it just stopped. Mind you he still doesn't sleep through and it's not uncommon for him to wake 3 times a night.

We will get sleep eventually, even if they're 10 when it happens!

I hope you get some rest soon. We ended up doing some part time co-sleeping just to get through that rough patch.

Good luck and lots of hugs!!

Hi Baby Mama
Thanks for your reply.
I know all about long term sleepless nights as DS#1 didn't start sleeping through the night until he was 3yrs old!!!
He went through this waking thing that DS#2 is going through but he was older and less persistent about it.
I hope he outgrows it soon.
He was awake from 1:30am until 4:00am last night/this morning and I had insomnia as well so I was awake from 1am until 6am and we had to wake up for the day at 6:40am so I was very unimpressed.

Jeremy has only had a short 45 minute nap today and a HUGE late afternoon play at the park so we'll see how tonight goes.

I'm just glad I have BB in the middle of the night! *grin*

Lil Precious you must be exhausted today - I hope you get some zzz's tonight. Good luck with wearing him out!