Waking in the night: SCREAMING!!!

[Tai]

HELP, PLEASE....

My 15mth old DD has gernerally been a great sleeper and would wake rarely through the night and settle herself without fuss.

The past 3 weeks she has been waking up anywhere between 11.30pm-3am screaming at the top of her lungs often making herself hoarse throated in the process.

We have tried to settle her with milk, cuddles, winding, tried to let her CIO/Scream, but this didn't work and I don't think it's healthy for her.

She has already cut all 4 molars, so I'm highly doubting that it's due to these.

I'm in desperate need of sleep.

[BubbaAndBump]

Sounds like night terrors. Sounds horrible but they don't seem to have any memory of it next day. It passed with our DD1 although she does still suffer every now and then. We pick her up briefly (to break the terror) and then re-settle quickly with her usual doll & blanket and other than a few sobs sometimes, she settles easily.

[Tai]

Thanks for your input.

I will read up on these night terrors and speak with our doctor too.

Thank you again

[potoroo]

Hi Tai,
If it is night terrors, there is not much you can do. I used to get them as a child and so did DS (although he has grown out of them now).

When DS got them they tended to come in phases. In the midst of it, he had no idea who we were and we could not comfort him at all. In the end, we realised the best strategy was to just sit with him and let him do whatever he wanted (crawl/walk around - even downstairs if necessary) because that was the quickest way for him to calm down. We wouldn't try to distract/wake him or turn on the lights because that made things worse.

The next morning he would have no memory of it, but he would be more tired.

I used to let him catch up on a bit of sleep during the day because being tired/stressed made it worse.

Hope that helps.