The present disclosure discloses a protection switching method and a node. The method includes: receiving, by an intermediate node, a first protection switching request message sent by an upstream neighboring node, where the first protection switching request message is used to request to activate a first protection path, and the intermediate node is a node on the first protection path; determining, by the intermediate node, that the first protection path needs to occupy N1 timeslots, and selecting N1 timeslots for the first protection path from N2 available timeslots in a preset order; and sending, by the intermediate node, a second protection switching request message to the downstream neighboring node, where the second protection switching request message is used to request the downstream neighboring node to complete a cross-connection, on the first protection path, between the downstream neighboring node and the intermediate node based on the first group of timeslots.