2 y/o toddler wakes up during the night and needs human touch to go back to sleep
Hi! My baby used to sleep throughout the night, from week 8ish to 1.5 y/o, without any training.
From around 1.5 year old, he started waking up once or twice a night, and would go back to sleep once someone entered the room. This would happen maybe half of the nights.
Now he’s 2 years old and we recently moved to a new house. Since moving, he’s been waking up consistently (for 2 months except one night!) about twice every night. He cries until someone enters the room and pats him back to sleep. He wants human touch. If I take off my hand from his back, he will whimper/cry and ask to “tap tap” him again. He also needs someone next to him when he falls asleep for his bed time sleep too.
What we did for the one night he slept through: I told him through out the day that he can sleep alone cus he’s a brave big boy (he did reply he can do it), got him a new bedtime plushie (he’s not very attached to any plushie), and turned on his night light. It worked. So I thought that was the formula, but he went back to waking up again the next day.
My feeling is that he’s scared of the room/dark, but I’m not sure how “bright” we should keep his room? He can’t communicate in detail so I’m not sure. Any advice would be appreciated! I desperately need uninterrupted sleep.
Note: We can’t co sleep cus I have a lot of night calls for work. He also rolls around so much and I’m a light sleeper.