Night terror experience?

kmm2150 · February 2014

Wondering if this meshes with others' experience of night terrors: fairly often, DD will seem to wake up screaming, crying, kicking, pushes us away but it's like she doesn't really wake up or respond to us. I will just stand by the crib and pat her back then she usually calms down some and I can pick her up and rock her and she goes back to sleep.

She is two, this has been happening for maybe 4-6 months once a week or more. Some triggers seem to be being overtired, or having sugar late in the day, but other times it seems totally random.
Just wondering if anyone else has experience with this, if you found something that helped them get past it or just had to wait it out - I read some things that say it can last till they are 12 so I hope that's wrong!

studyinpink · February 2014

E hasn't had one in awhile and they were always related to being up too late.

We have been pretty strict with bedtimes since then and her bedtime has been about 30-1hr earlier than it was when she was having night terrors.

studyinpink · February 2014

All of that exactly @ctgirl30

RayRay007 · February 2014

DD is going through something like this now. She will be 3 next month, and this has been happening for 2-3 months. She wakes up bawling. I wouldn't say screaming, but it sounds like she's terrified. Sometimes she even gets out of bed and we find her standing in her bedroom crying. She doesn't even seem to realize what she's doing or that we're there. I comfort her and put her back to bed. She usually rolls over and goes right back to sleep like nothing happened. Sometimes she's actually awake and points to the dark corner and says there's scary things. I tell her there's nothing there and she usually just goes right back to sleep. After happening often for a few weeks, it only happens now every couple of weeks. I think she'll grow out of it.

secretsout · February 2014

My son was younger when he had them, more like 12-18 months old, but they were certainly terrifying for us. He would wake up and be crying, thrashing around, inconsolable. It seemed like he was a awake, but he wouldn't respond to us or anything we did. When I brought it up to the doctor, she said that it sounded like night terrors, and that there really wasn't much to be done about them. She said just make sure he was safe and couldn't hurt himself and to let it run it's course and not to try to wake him up. She also said that while it was scary for us, they likely didn't impact him at all, aside from maybe being a bit sleepier in the mornings.

It did seem like it was more likely to happen if he was overly tired, but not always. He hasn't had one in a long time so I'm hoping he's outgrown them. Hopefully this will be short-lived for you. I know how scary it can be, and how frustrating to not be able to do anything to help.

Ratpasta · February 2014

kmm2150 said:

Wondering if this meshes with others' experience of night terrors: fairly often, DD will seem to wake up screaming, crying, kicking, pushes us away but it's like she doesn't really wake up or respond to us.

This happens to us quite a lot and its heartbreaking because it always sounds like it's a desperate cry for help. This is one of the reasons that we have a cosleeper because my wife can just reach over and place her hand on his chest a shush him a little and talk to him gently. This seems to do the trick for him.

stilts1 · February 2014

Yep. We're about 2 years into night-terrors.

And now we have a high-level speical needs child so between the two kids our house is almost a no-sleep zone.

Good freaking times.

marchbaby · February 2014

My oldest son had night terrors...what we learned after reading several books, google and talking to doctors...
Night terrors typically occur around 45 minutes after they fall asleep
They usually occur when they are overtired
You shouldn't wake a child having a night terror (i'm not sure why about this one and to be honest we did wake him. He would scream for over an hour or we could take him outside in the cold air and he'd wake up and be fine)

We ended up moving my sons bedtime up earlier and sure enough the night terrors stopped. If he stayed up late for some reason they would come right back.

kmm2150 · February 2014

Thanks for all the replies ladies! I have to say since we figured out they are night terrors (and your experiences confirm this) it is much less scary because we know what's happening.

KaramelSutra · February 2014

My son has them. A nurse I work with told me to wake him 30 minutes into sleep. Like really wake him, and let him go back to sleep, and they'll stop. They did.

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