My son will be 2 soon and he’s recently started waking up crying through the night and then wanting to get up at around 5am. He’s been sleeping well for months and had even started asking to go to bed where he’d lay quietly by himself until he fell asleep.

He used to sleep from around 7:30pm until 6:30am, then would nap at around 11:30am for about 90 minutes. This new waking up is killing me and he’s also exhausted and grouchy in the day. He’ll go to bed now at around 8pm, wake up at about midnight/1am and will scream immediately upon waking. His dad or I will go and check him and he’ll be standing up in bed crying asking to go downstairs or for a hug or for a teddy or a drink. We’ll check his nappy and tell him it’s bedtime and that he needs to sleep and he will settle back down after a few minutes but as soon as we leave he’ll start screaming again, shouting that he wants “toggles” (he’s OBSESSED with the strings on hoodies/joggers etc, calls them toggles) and will cry so hard that he chokes. I’ve tried to settle him, I’ve tried staying in the room until he’s fully asleep, I’ve even resorted to bringing him into my bed to sleep because I just needed some rest. I’ve actually literally broken my ankle because he was fussing at 4am one morning and wanted to go downstairs, and after an hour of full blown screaming and tantrums I brought him downstairs but he decided half way down that he needed to go back to bed and started lashing out which made me lose my balance and fall down the stairs.

Nothing has really changed in his routine, what could it be? I have no idea what could be causing it but I need it to change 😫