Waking up screaming

[mrstumnus]

My lovely DS, who is 20 months and is normally a good sleeper, has for the past week been waking up screaming during the night, sitting bolt upright and sobbing. It's not his teeth, he's not ill - could it be nightmares? And what can I do for him? He seems his usual jolly self in the daytime.

My DS is 29 months and has been doing this for a while too (about once a fortnight). I assume its nightmares but he settles back quite quickly after a cuddle.

Could be night terrors. I would think about seeing your GP, and getting it checked out

DS3 now 4yo did have night terrors from age of two and still does every now and then but much less frequently. My Hv gave me an advice that did really help. Go along with whetever your DS is describing ,he will look like he is awake but IS NOT, he might sound like he is having a tantrum but he IS NOT. Whatever you do do not raise your voice and keep talking to him in a reassuring voice (it might take a bit of time before he really calms down). If necessary you might even have to go along with what he is saying so he sees action is taken and he can go back to sleep because mum/dad have "delt" with the problem.

In my case we had to so far pretend to :
-fill a hole in wich DD was going to fall
-get the little girl of the swing so he could have a turn
-chase people who where going to hurt his sister out of her room
there were many more that are far to complicated to describe. It will sometimes be as scary for you as it is for him as you will NOT recognise your nice balanced child in the "fury" he might become at night.

Night terrors are sometimes related to stress or triggered by something he has heard or seen during the day.
At the highth of his terrors periode, we went on holiday and he did not have a single episode. He started again when we came back but less frequently.

Thanks very much for those comments - I hope like everything it's a phase!