My son will be 2 next week (Sept. 7), and has been waking up at least once or twice during the next for the last few weeks. He has done this off-and-on for the last several months, but seems to have gotten worse (more regular) about it. We used to let him cry himself to sleep (which would sometimes take an hour or more) for a few nights in a row, and then he would sleep through the night for about a week, and then the cycle would start all over. But he's been waking up every night for the last few weeks now. Normally, I rock him with a little bit of a bottle around 7:30 (not to sleep), and then he lays down just fine and goes to sleep on his own. But then he'll wake up around 12:30 crying. Most times, he'll go back to sleep within 5-10 minutes, but sometimes not. He'll wake up again around 4:30 and just cry and cry and cry. He'll even start yelling at us, "Momma! Dadda!" This could last for an hour or two (the few times we've let it go that long). We finally gave in and rocked him again with a bottle, and he'll immediatly lay back down and go to sleep. This just seemed so much easier at the time, and we could all go back to sleep quicker. But now I think it's to the point where he expects that every night, and that's certainly NOT what we want. When he gets worked up, there's no going back. I can't just go in his room and rub his back/belly until he goes to sleep. Oh, no, that would be too easy... He's standing up and screaming and clinging to me and trying to climb up my arms. We've tried a pacifier, but if there's nothing coming out of it, he doesn't want it (as my older son felt, also). I tried rocking him without the bottle, but he just cried the whole time (but calmly, at least), and then just flipped out again when I tried to put him back in his bed. I literally had to pry him off me. I know he doesn't actually need the milk at night, and sucking on it is just a security thing. He's now to the point where he wants to take the bottle with him into the crib (there's usually only an ounce or two left in it, anyway). And since it kept him quiet, we let him. But now we realize that this is getting out of hand, and is actually moving us backwards from where we need to be. We both work full-time and we have early mornings, so losing this sleep really hurts. I also hate having to wake him up to get him ready. I wish he would sleep all night and wake up "naturally." How do we go about getting him off the bottle and sleeping all night? Should we just go back to letting him cry himself to sleep? I don't know if I can handle going through all of that again... Anyone else going through this? Anyone have any suggestions??
I also just found out I'm pregnant with #3, so we'd like to get as much sleep as possible before this one arrives!
