4yo DS has non-waking nightmare every night, any similar experiences?

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DS was four last Friday. For about the last ten days he has started crying every night at about 9.30-10pm-ish, around 2 hours after going to sleep.

When one of us (DH or I) go up to see him, he's usually sitting up, wailing incomprehensibly and pointing or waving his arms about. He doesn't seem to wake at all and after about 3 or 4 minutes he will lie back down and go straight back to sleep.

We don't talk about it with him and he hasn't mentioned it during the day.

I can't think of any stresses or changes in his life right now. He was hugely excited about his birthday (and party), but that's happened now.

My question: is this perfectly normal?

Its very normal, they are often night terrors, and have no real discernible cause.
I have used a few drops of Lavender oil on the pillow to help my children get back to sleep.

Thanks Mummytime. He seems perfectly happy apart from these brief episodes, and I'm VERY grateful that it's happening at a civilised time of the night.

My daughter does the same and has done since she was 3; she's now 5. Two observations I have after dealing with this so long are these-

1. It almost always coincides with her weeing in her nappy. She's still not dry at night and I think she is coming out of a deeper sleep towards wakefulness but not making it.
2. It's always worse just before and just after a contact weekend so I think it is exacerbated by anxiety or breaks from routine.

Generally I can lie her back down, stroke her hair and she settles. She never wakes up properly, I can have a conversation with her but she's still asleep. As you say, at least it's a reasonable time of night!

Perfectly normal, and the reason he doesn't talk about it is because night terrors (unlike nightmares) are during deep sleep and are never remembered. They are rarely related to any trauma/unhappiness, and really try not to worry.

He will grow out of it eventually (although DS had them until he was 11).

Thanks all. So this may go on for some time. I'm curious, has anyone just left them to settle themselves? I can't help but go in to check on him and offer a soothing presence, but I'm wondering if DH and I will be able to leave him with a babysitter (not that we do very often any way).

Have you tried lifting him and seeing if he'll do a wee? Our dd2 (3.5yo) does this a lot and it's nearly always because she needs a wee

He's always dry in the morning, but I could try that. Thanks.

I always settled DS, mainly because his night terrors manifested themselves in him running around the house sobbing and talking nonsense with a terrified look in his eyes. We just gently guided him back to bed, and as his head hit the pillow - whoof - he'd be out like a light. Really scary the first time but we got used to it.

They seemed to go in phases - one every night or so, fo a couple of weeks, then nothing for a few months, then another little phase. Probably from the ages of 7 to 11, but they are not unusual from toddler age upwards.

And NO MEMORY whatsoever of what he'd been up to!! We didn't tell him for a long time, as we didn't want to worry him.

Thanks CointreauVersial. He's knackered today, so I'm hoping he'll just crash out and not stir til morning. As you say, it's a bit freaky to watch but DS seems completely oblivious.

We had awful night terrors when DS started reception. We were all exhausted as they were going on for hours and I was unable to wake him properly from them. I had some excellent advice from someone at toddler group whose daughter has them. DS's terrors would start at approx the same time each night. She recommended waking DS 30 mins before the earliest time his terror would start. I would take him to the toilet and turn all lights on properly and chat until I knew he was awake. As soon as I started doing this his terrors stopped. I carried on for a week and after that we seemed to have broken the cycle. Will still get an occasional terror but nowhere near the previous frequency.

Night terrors are nearly always within a couple of hours of going to sleep. Which is good, because generally you'll still be up!

Nothing at all last night! :) Hopefully we're in for a bit of a lull. Thanks for all the advice.