Are these night terrors?

[WreckoftheHesperus]

A couple of times DD has woken up to a nightmare and then been unable to go to sleep, convinced that she can see animals etc in her room, even when i turn the light on and show her that there are none. The animals follow her into mummy and daddy's bed, so this is no solution, and we end up being awake for 2 to 3 hours, as she doesn't want to risk going back to sleep.

I have reassured her that the animals are not there, and that even if they were, mummy and daddy would not let anything harm her, and that all of her soft toys would look after her.

Any tips? She is 3 years old

Thanks

Is she screaming when all this is going on? Does she remember it in the morning?

My DD went through a phase of night terrors. She would "wake" 2 to 3 hours after going to bed screaming and there was nothing we could do to stop her. We couldn't comfort her, she was too distressed. She didn't look at us, she looked through us iykwim. Eventually we learned to take a step back and let her go through it and it would end 15 minutes or so later. She would then go back to sleep. The following day she was her happy self again and when I would ask her about is she had no recollection whatsoever.

Any of this sound familiar?

in night terrors the child is actually asleep for the whole duration - sometimes it is tricky to tell but over the space of 10 minutes you should be able to.

also they cant ever remember it and it would be extremely unlikely to last for 2/3 hours

does sound more like traditional nightmares (but that's no help to you I guess)

thanks folks, I guess it doesn't sound like night terrors from what you've said, more like nightmares. Still need tips, if anyone has them