Night terrors

nicoleh55

My 18 month old son is having (what I believe to be) night terrors. Wakes up in the morning and from naps in complete hysterics. He thrashes in his bed, screams like he's being hurt and nothing will soothe him for at least 20 minutes. He doesn't want to be held but doesn't want to be put down. Doesn't want a snack. If I bring him outside to play, he just screams outside. I've even tried a tv show/movie. I have also let him cry it out in his bed, which only made it worse.
Anything else to help him?

arad1320

My LO is 16 mo old and started having these about a month and a half ago. We also made the mistake of trying to console him, but that only made things worse. I did a lot of reading about what might cause these and the one thing that stood out for me was that he might be overtired. People recommended either reinstating an afternoon nap or moving his bedtime earlier (about 30 min). Unfortunately, since he is in daycare, the extra nap wasn't feasible, so we moved his bedtime up by 30 min. This worked almost immediately. It's been almost a month since we started the new bedtime, and we've only had one night where he had a night terror (which only lasted about 10 min before he calmed down). I hope this helps!

Meggabaee

My LO started to do this at night, so I also just assumed it was terrors. When I was young (around 7-8yrs) I started having nightmares so my mother burned sage. I started doing this for my daughter and it seemed to help. She stopped waking up screaming hysterically and sleeps through the night. Not sure how much this helps or even if it is a good idea but it seemed to help me.