21 month old LONG nw

[twinmama2]

My 22 month old twins have never been great sleepers, but we had finally gotten into a good routine that seemed to be really working for them a little over a month ago.  We rarely had much for nightwakings - sometimes they would fuss in the middle of the night but could almost always put themselves back to sleep quickly. 
Then, about 3 weeks ago we went on vacation and had one of the worst nights ever with them.  They were up from 12:30-5:00 and nothing we did could get them back to sleep - we even packed up the car and drove home in the middle of the night.  They didn't even fall asleep in the car! 
Since that night L wakes up more often than not in the middle of the night and just cannot seem to get himself back to sleep without our help.  His nw are usually anywhere from 1-3 hours now!  He was once our best sleeper and I'm not sure what has happened.  We're having another baby in a couple weeks and I desperately want to figure out how to help him sleep better before that disruption comes.

A typical day for us looks like this:
6:00-6:30 awake
12:15-1:45 nap (although L will sleep longer than that about half the time, sometimes up to 2.5 hours)
7:15 bed

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

[jessmum46]

Are NWs worse on the day L naps more?  I'm wondering as my DS is rather younger but comfortably does a 13h day on a 2h nap so UT could be a possibility. 

But my main thought is this is prime time for 2y molars, what you describe is exactly how my (awful teether) DS is when teething.  I was tearing my hair out for the last 2 months yet the instant his last canine popped through he started STTN again.  I never found meds make a great difference to the number of wakings but the duration is usually shorter with them.  I never believed teeth could be so bad really but DS has convinced me!

[twinmama2]

I've tried to look for patterns in the NWs and the length of his naps, but haven't found there to be any.  Sometimes he sleeps great with a long nap and sometimes he's up all night!  It does seem that he takes longer naps after a rough night to make up some of that lost sleep. 

I was also thinking that maybe this could be teething.  He's got a couple that seem to be just below the skin, about to pop through.  We haven't tried meds much, but that may be next on our list of strategies. 

[creations]

21 months is also prime time for a language leap. It could be that this sorts itself out in another couple of weeks. I remember posting about awful NWs at this age and being told about language leaps - sure enough he started coming out with significantly more words and then STTN again.

Sorry though, it sounds very hard work and upsetting too, especially driving home from holidays in the middle of the night.