Night terrors or something else?

[Metalhead]

My 3 year old DD has had a couple of awful episodes in the last week that I think are probably night terrors. Both times she woke up crying but when we went in to ask her what was wrong she wouldn't say anything or wasn't coherent. We then tried to leave her to it but she just kept on crying, and when we tried to calm her down it seemed to make it worse. We had full-on crazed screaming, thrashing about, getting out of bed and banging the floor and doors, and this in the middle of the night. The first time this lasted for 30 minutes, last night for a whole hour!! (Thankfully her room is away from the neighbours' side of the house...)

I read up on night terrors and some of it certainly seems to fit, like the not being conscious and not being able to calm her down. But last night she seemed to know that we were there, and who we were, it just didn't help... also it said night terrors should last "up to 10 minutes" - have we just got a very bad case? Is there anything we can do to stop it? Should I be taking her to the doctor?

Oh dear that does sound like night terrors. My DS suffers from them every now and then but only a few minutes each time. I'd have a word with Dr or health visitor.
A pretty harmless 'treatment' is to wake her up an hour after she's gone to bed. Wake her enough for her to briefly speak to you but not too much if that makes sense. The idea is that it disrupts her sleep cycle and hopefull prevents a terror.
Even you give that a try I'd get her seen as 30-60mins is v excessive and horrible for you all.

Thanks corona - it was pretty horrific! I spoke to a HV earlier and she said if it carries on take her to the GP, so I think we'll wait and see what happens over the next week or so.

I've heard about the waking them up to disrupt the sleep cycle, in fact we used it a couple of times to stop habitual waking at a certain time each night when she was little. However, I'm not sure if it would work here as the two episodes occurred at different times, but both times quite late (10pm and midnight, when she goes to bed at 7.30pm). But if it happens again around the same time I might just try going in at, say 9pm, and see if that helps.

Good ideas all round.
I found with DS they occur anything from 1.5 - 5 hours after going to bed so pretty all over the place! I think the idea is that it doesn't really matter when you do the wake to sleep as long as it's at least an hour after bedtime and before an attack. If I left it too late I accidentally triggered a night terror and felt awful!

My DD has thwm constantly. Very extreme in the end we got professional help (still in the process). The hardest thing is not comforting them. They seem awake but they're not. When I see her having a terror. I have to leave her to ride it out and let her fall back asleep without much intaferance (can't spell!) from me. Heart breaking.

We wake her an hour after she sleeps for a cuddle and a sip of water then let her fall back asleep. It's hard!

Best thing to do is make a diary and see if there's a pattern that should help you work out the best time to wake her. It may also help identify the triggers.

Being too warm, day naps and sugar after 3pm are her main triggers.

Diary sounds like a good idea, will give that a try if it happens again (thankfully we haven't had any further episodes so far this week...).

My DS2 had something which sounds similar which started probably about 2 years old maybe younger. He would wake up screaming and be inconsolable.
Seemingly some kind of "terror" but unable to tell us what was the matter. Didn't want to be left but didn't calm down if cuddled. And it would just go on and on. It was frightening to watch. We would resort to just sitting with him on the sofa watching one of his favourite programmes and this would sometimes take his mind off it but not always.

Eventually we noticed that it would happen if he was particularly exhausted and had fallen into a very deep sleep. As time has gone on and he has become more articulate we have narrowed it down to either cramp or pins and needles.

Don't know if this helps but it would have helped us to know about this two years ago.