Is my dc having autistic night terrors - any advice?

[UsernameRandom18]

My dc is 5 years old and is autistic. He sweats often in the night and often wakes up distressed and agitated in his sleep repeating the same phrase over and over ( like oh my goodness or I have a cough when he is ill). It is alot more frequent and worse when he is ill and happens many times throughout the night. He also will not sleep on his own and gets very upset if he wakes up and is alone in bed. Is this called night terrors? Anyone have experience of this or advice? Thanks

One of my children used to have night terrors. He would 'wake up' incredibly distressed and clearly be seeing things that weren't there. He wouldn't be comforted by my presence. He would usually fall back to sleep after about 5 minutes.

I wasn't aware that night terrors were linked with autism, however, he is being assessed. None of my others had night terrors and they aren't autistic.

My autistic DS was the same at that age. We had to have him in the bed with us in the end. It was so upsetting to see him so distressed. One time he kept asking me if he was dead, he was absolutely convinced he'd died.

Forgot to say, mine is 9 now and it doesn't happen anymore. Thankfully.

I always post this but my 4 year old has night terrors and sweats and has for years. Whenever they occur frequently we put him on the iron supplement Sytron and he stops getting them!

My son is 11 now and has these when he is unwell. He is autistic and had them a lot when he was younger. The best thing I have found to help get him out of that state is to get him to have a drink of water and go to the toilet if possible. That can sometimes help to bring him back to being awake enough to stop being so distressed.

My son had these, but he isn't on the spectrum. (His sister is.) He grew out of them. I believe they're quite common. Very unsettling, to put it mildly! He was clearly unaware of what was happening and the advice we had was not to wake him, so one of us would just sit with him until it passed and he went back to sleep.

Hi OP, I'm sorry this is happening. It's really distressing isn't it? What time are they happening? My DD3 sometimes gets night terrors when she's over tired; she's NT as far as we know... They always happen early on in the night, between 9:30 and midnight latest I would say. My daughter just screams and screams, is completely inconsolable, mostly just has her eyes shut and thrashes and kicks. Can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 30. We just sit with her and tell her we're here and we love her. She does sometimes get nightmares too, these tend to happen around 3am and are accompanied by words or crying, but she often rouses and remembers what was happening. With the terrors she never wakes up and doesn't remember a thing.
I hope that helps - I've read that it's possible to pre-empt the terrors by rousing them at the right point and prevent it happening, but we've never tried it.
Good luck! Xx

I have heard that overheating can make night terrors worse, so you could try a thinner duvet? Also if they happen at the same time every day, try gently rousing them shortly before.

My son had night terrors for years but grew out of them.

I haven’t heard of a connection between night terrors and autism before?