Young toddler night terrors

[TheVeryAngryBanana]

My 14 month old gets night terrors about once a month and has since 10 months or so. It's normally if he's feeling under the weather. They're horrendous, it's really hard to wake him up. Even sticking his head under the cold tap doesn't work and feels incredibly mean. Letting him scream feels equally wrong, and we live in a flat so no one is getting any sleep. He can scream for an hour if we don't wake him. First time we didn't know what was happening and didn't understand why he couldn't be comforted. Most sources on the Internet suggest it's unusual before 2 so there are no helpful tips.

Anyone got any tips for waking them up? If yours had it so young, did they grow out of it, or are we cursed forever?

Night terrors are HORRIBLE for the parents. But the kid seems unscathed.

DS almost always threw up and pooed when having a night terror so whenever I realised it was one (and not a nightmare which he also had) I would hoist him into the bathtub to limit the damage and us washing him and getting him changed usually woke him up.

They lasted months and his nightmares lasted years but he did eventually grow out of both.

Turn all the lights on and get them up. Start over with the bedtime routine and put them back to bed once they’re awake.

Does your child drink sugar free drinks? Aspartame makes me have night terrors and my brother also had similar issues with it. I'm ok with other sweetness but aspartame sends me nuts.

Also see sugar free yoghurts as they often have it in.

I think the advice is don’t wake them? My daughter used to get them definitely before she was 2. She’d have phases where she’d have them regularly, then not for months.

she never remembered in the morning (once she was old enough to ask).

in the end I used to just hold her and cuddle her until it ended. It was horrible but apparently waking them up makes it worse as they’re then confused and have to be got back to sleep.

The NHS advice is not to wake them up.

Have you been advised by the GP or similar what to do?

Oh and my brother's night terrors were when he had sugar free Calpol. My parents had to find an alternative.

Both my daughters had them around age 2-3, it seems to be developmental. The saddest thing was when I said to my eldest “don’t worry mummy’s here” and she got really upset saying “I want my real mummy”. I realised after that point all you can do it just try to get them back to deep sleep, talking makes it worse.

My DD had them at that age too, definately not linked to any sweetners for us as she refused squash until she was 5 and would only have the full sugar version of calpol, the sugar free version was spat out many times! I couldn't not try and wake her up, i had to try and comfort her and it would go on for ages. I found it really distressing especially because she often didn't realise it was me. Nothing reliably worked but I sometimes found playing music she liked at a normal/slightly loud volume woke her up from them. As she got older they seemed to happen when she complained of growing pains so I would give her calpol and she'd calm down within 10 mins. They became less frequent at age 3/4, she's 5 now and i can't remember the last time she had one.

That's reassuring that most of them grow out of them (eventually). I used to sleep walk and get horrible nightmare when stressed so I'm hoping he doesn't inherit that. He doesn't have anything with sweetners and we're not UK so paracetamol goes up the bum without sugar ;)

Not waking him doesn't really feel like an option, between neighbours and us needing to sleep. The first time it happened he screamed for nearly an hour and we were thinking of calling an ambulance before it occurred to us he might be asleep. He doesn't cry much when he's awake and is easyish to settle so we were really worried. He won't breast feed when he's in one and he throws himself out of our arms so getting him to settle is impossible. He's never yet slept through anyway, so getting him back to sleep feels less of challenge! Poor baby looks so confused when he eventually wakes up though. I guess there's loads of a adrenaline pumping like after a nightmare.

I can't remember how old ds was when he had them maybe between 4 and 8. Getting him out of bed and watching some cartoons was the only thing that worked. Talking to him didn't help we needed him to wake up and get him out of bed and go downstairs.

Shame, night terrors are horrible.

This is very specific but worked every time for us. I would gently lift DC and cuddle them into me, talking very calmly, stroking back etc, and take them to our bedroom window.

I’d open the window wide and let the cool air get to them. I think something about this in itself helped.

I’d start very gently and calmly distracting them by saying oh a birdy just flew by, or a white car, almost talking to myself, very calmly, narrating and distracting and every time it would work within a few to fiveish minutes.

They’d gently come out of the terror, we’d have a little chat/cuddle and could go back to sleep, usually in my bed!

They’d never remember the upsetting part come the morning but now older, do remember several instances of “looking out the window at nighttime.”

Aw 😔 yes I remember that type of thing too. They’d just look through me and so terrified! It’s definitely hard on the parents.

I wouldn’t actively try to wake them, they’d just come round with being lifted, cuddled and taken to the window for air.