Night terrors???? In 3 yr old

[EvilTwins]

DT2 (3.4) has started waking up in the night, in a real state. It's only been the last 4 nights, but she's obviously really distressed. We have never (and I mean never - sleeping has always been my DTs top skill) had any bedtime issues before, but now she says "I don't want to go to bed" over and over at bedtime, and then takes a much longer time to settle than ever before. She comes out of her room to find us, and gets upset when we put her back to bed. The last two nights, she has woken up (once at 2.20am, once at about 6 (don't usually get up til 7.30ish)) shouting for me really loudly. When I go into her room she doesn't realise I'm there and keeps shouting. When I get to her, she's shaking and needs a lot of reassurance. Is this night terrors? What can I do about it? Any experiences or suggestions would be brilliant.

DS3 had night terrors at least once or twice a week when he was between the age of 3 and 4.

It was very distressing for us as well as it is absolutely impossible to get through your child while this is happeneing. The best advice I was given by our GP was to just get along with what your child is saying and try to confort her but do not try to tell her " do not be silly there is no monster!" or "No your little brother is not trying to steal your sweets" go for " I will take the monster with me now, look, the monster is following me out and will deasappear when he gets outside" or "I just asked your littlle brother to give the sweets back and look, he just did here they are". These are just examples BTW.

I do not remember exactly when or why he stopped having them. We have been having screem free nights for about a year now.

I hope she won't have them too often.

Thanks. I'm trying to be really calm and reassuring about it, but it's so upsetting for her (and for me too, if I'm honest) She's been saying "I don't want to go to bed" since about 3.30 this afternoon, so I'm not anticipating an easy bedtime.

I feel for you, How did it go last night?

I must say my little boy could hardly remember a thing in the morning and was not really scared to go to bed (we were actually more worried than him because we could anticipate)so we did not have that to deal with as well. It must be even harder in your case as she expect to have a bad night,bless her.

The only thing I could suggest is to try and make her as relaxed as possible before bed time (which you probably already do). My mum used to be very nervous as a child and I remember her saying that my grandma used to make her drink water with a few drops of orange blossom water in it (I think nowadays you can even get orange blossom herbal tea) and it apparently was doing wonders calming her down. Maybe you could ask your GP or HV if it is something worth trying or not before bed?

All the best!

Thank you so much for posting! Your advice yesterday was actually brilliant - at bed time last night, I got her to check her room for monsters, and then we all said "go away monsters" and I even ran downstairs and opened the front door to let them out (the things we do as mothers...) before locking the door and pulling the curtain across so they couldn't get back in. And... she didn't wake up last night. We all feel better for a proper sleep (not least her) and I feel so much better that we have a potential tactic to try. It was you saying that I should make sure I take her concerns seriously that prompted it, so thank you!

Hope you are on a roll of nightmare free nights!
I was chasing monsters in his bedroom as he was actually asleep (although not looking asleep at all, eyes wide opened, screaming with fear...) I am glad it also worked as a pre bedtime technic for you!