Our daughter went through the same thing. It should end soon if he's a good sleeper in general. It sucks being woken up in the middle of the night as a parent who just got used to sleeping again and now your adrenaline is kicking. But if it's like it was for us, one night he just won't wake up screaming and that's that. You are handling it like we did.

It won't become a pattern because eventually his body's need for regular sleep will kick in, unless he truly has some underlying neurological disorder which affects regulatory functioning.

I would be extra comforting since he is sick as you said and also teething.

Put a humidifier in his room to ease his breathing. The humming of the machine may also help to deepen his sleep.

Sounds pretty typical. Think you're doing the right things.

Our 20mo DS has started waking up crying hard several times each night for the last week or two--he'd previously been sleeping 11-12hrs straight through. Luckily, it usually only takes us <5 minutes to calm him back down (he is still awake when we leave), but it is still disruptive to our sleep. When we go in, we just hug him, get him to lay back down, turn on his music, and say goodbye, and he's fine. He doesn't seem to need anything (food/water/diaper/pain relief/etc.), so we're not sure why he's crying, but it does start out pretty frantic.

He has been a little sniffly/coughy for several days and his eye teeth just came in. Is this just a phase/illness/teething that will pass (hopefully quickly) and we should keep doing what we've been doing to get him (and us) back to sleep quickly, or is this becoming a pattern that we are only making worse?