Nightmare's in 16 months year old ???

[Eve34]

My little man has had a run of nights when he has woken and cried and cried. Sometimes he is not even awake. Do you think he is having nightmare's? I go and comfort him and return him to bed. DP wants to ignore him, which I won't just wondered if I could do anything else?

[Chaotica]

DD had (has) these starting around the same age. Could be nightmares or night terrors (where they're not awake). But it might be a good idea to get him checked for an ear infection (DD had one around the same time her night crying started and since it was treated she sleeps much better, she was also getting canine teeth).

(In our case we couldn't ignore as she'd just keep going...) Can he talk yet? In DD's case she managed to tell us enough to give the impression she was genuinely scared of stuff.

Hope you find out what's wrong.

[PinkGlitterFairy]

Hi
It is possible your son is having "Night Terrors"
Both of my sons have had night terrors. They can be scary for us to watch especially when we feel we can't help them.
I'm afraid I don't know how to put a link on here, but if you go to bbc.co.uk and look up night terrors, or google night terrors this will give you more information, so you can tell if they are nightmares or night terrors as the advice for dealing with them is slightly different.
Hope this helps a little.

[PrettyCandles]

I think 16m is too young for nightmares, and possibly also too young for night terrors. Earache or wind sound very possible. Another possibility is that he is angry at having woken up and wants to be asleep, but is too upset to settle himself.

I know it sounds weird, but we are convinced that that is what our 15m ds2 is going through right now. He has been a bad sleeper since he was a couple of months old, when I let him get into a feeding-to-sleep habit. For the last year he has been unable to go to sleep and stay asleep any way other than with my boob in his mouth. We are slowly teaching him to go to sleep by stroking him in his cot. Until recently he alwasy asked for a breastfeed when he woke, especailly if I wnet to him, rather than dh. But in the last few weeks, he doesn't always ask for a feed, even if he is crying bitterly and I'm there. Sometime he doesn't even want a feed and refuses it. Once he calms down, though, he falls asleep very quickly. So we do think he is having a mini-tantrum because he is not getting what hew wants, ie to stay asleep.

[Eve34]

Thank you for the responses. will google night terrors and have a look. Have just had him checked out for variety of thingds but can always go back to GP just in case. He has always been a really good sleeper so it is a bit of a shock to the system. Watch this space

[PussinJimmyChoos]

Hiya

We had this with our DS and it was suggested on here it was something to do with the brain not switching off as its too busy processing the skills that they are trying to master during the day. Cannot remember for the life of me what it is called, but if you trawl through the behaviour and development or sleep threads you may find it.

What it is, they are trying to talk, walk and generally master new skills. They go to bed and sleep but their brain is still busy trying to process it all and it doesn't quite shut down, hence them waking up. It does seem to coincide with certain ages as well. Once they have mastered the new skill, they go back to restful sleep again, until the next big skill comes along!

Does that help? I'll see if I can find the original thread...

[PussinJimmyChoos]

Couldnt find the original thread but the term for it is sleep regressions so if you look for that, should help