18 month old wakes up having a screaming tantrum

[tabtrym]

My 18 month old has woken up in a complete rage in the morning ( also in the night ) for the last 5-6 days in a row and I can't work out what's wrong.

He wakes up and has a full blown tantrum. No shushing him / cuddling / dummy / milk seems to calm him down. He's done it in the night a couple of times and eventually calmed down when taken down stairs.

In the morning it's the same. Unless I take him down, he just goes nuts for ages.

It's a pretty aggressive wake-up call and it's new. Of course he'd cry etc usually, but he didn't go into a full on rage/ tantrum.

I have this feeling that this morning he said ' biscuit ' while he was raging. Could he be absolutely starving ? He eats a lot ! And he usually also has one or two milk bottles over night. ( maybe more like 1 bottle, recently ).

Over tiredness is usually the cause in our case. Longer naps and earlier bedtime should sort it.

Is he teething? Ours did this at 15 months and I think it was his back molars moving and causing him pain. You have my sympathy, it’s not fun.

Thanks. Both could be an option. He hasn't teethed for ages so it could be time

Get him checked for an ear infection/glue ear.

Night terrors? My sister had these when we were younger for several years. Not every night, but she would wake up screaming and crying out of nowhere still half asleep.

He could just be having vivid dreams.

My DD did at that age and would talk in her sleep. So we would soothe her while asleep. If we didn't she could wake up crying and/or screaming.

Assuming he’s actually awake and it isn’t night terrors? They can be scary to witness but the child will be basically completely unconscious still even if screaming, kicking etc.
night terrors do tend to happen at the same time each night/during each nap during the deepest part of sleep. Generally more from age 3 I believe but can happen at any age.

We initially thought our DD's were night terrors but as she got slightly older we worked out by what she was saying she was dreaming of things like playing with other children she knows and having fights/arguements with them.

This meant we ended up saying thing like "Tom give back the ball. Look Tom has given you back the ball.'

I hadn't considered night terrors. I'm not sure if he's fully awake when he does it. Definitely not awake when it happens during the night.