Wagon Jr. has been sleep trained and been sleeping through the night since 4 months old. However, he has always consistently woken during the night once or twice, sometimes three or four times each night crying. 99% of the time, he'll stop crying within 60 seconds and be back asleep within 5 minutes. We have a very strict "don't go in there no matter what" policy, even to the point where one night he had vomited but fallen peacefully back asleep immediately, and instead of going in, waking him, cleaning him up and changing the sheets and putting him back down, I let him sleep all the way thru til the morning. (Waiting for CPS to break down the door and take my child away for letting him sleep with vomit in his hair.) (That was a really tough decision, but I realized that if I didn't have a video monitor, I would never have known he threw up.)

Anyway! From time to time these night cries will get really terrifying. Last night around 11:30pm he woke up with a start and was immediately on his feet, launching himself over the crib bars (but didn't get out of the crib) (and he normally NEVER tries to climb out) and screaming so hard my own throat hurt to hear him scream. Each time he stopped to breathe, the next scream was even louder. We let him scream hysterically like that for about 2 minutes when I decided he was only escalating, not calming down himself, so I went in. When he saw me he screamed even LOUDER and I almost jumped out of my skin when he screamed right in my face! After I picked him up he calmed down enough to say some words-- "ice cream!!!" (haha) and then calmed down as I held and rocked him. He did not fall back asleep, and after about 20 minutes I put him back in his crib. He did the monkey/koala thing of hanging onto me so that I couldn't put him down, but after reassuring him "Mommy will stay, Mommy will stay" he let me lay him down in the crib. I sat on the floor next to him for a while until he started to roll away from me, then I said goodnight and I love you and left the room. After about a minute he stood up and cried, for about 3 or 4 minutes total, then stopped and just rolled around. I don't know when he fell asleep (I fell asleep first, watching him on the monitor) but he woke up this morning, a little late (we all slept in!) and happy as usual.

Looking back I know everything I did was probably right for Wagon Jr., but nights like last night just break my heart into a million pieces. But what more could I have done? And why does he wake like this? I keep waiting for him to grow out of it, but he's 2.5 years old now. Wagon Sr. is a restless sleeper and I wake up very cranky and groggy very often, so maybe he gets it from us, but every time it escalates into something like this I'm worried we'll end up having to sleep on the floor in his room every night, especially after this new baby comes. It takes him such a long time to fall back asleep (we're talking at least an hour) so co-sleeping isn't really an option.. it just gets him more riled up to be near us. The last time we tried that was in a hotel room-- when we got there at midnight he woke up, and didn't go to sleep until after 3:30am!

Any advice????