2year old night mares/terrors?

[jambomum]

Please help - my ds is almost 2 years. In the last 6 weeks we haven't changed a thing about his routine, life etc. He has started screaming in his sleep, as though he is in pain. Occasionally he shouts out 'no, no'. Sometimes shouts for water, but generally just crying.
This can go on for up to 2 hours in the middle of the night.
DH and I are absolutely knack.
Any support and suggestions would be gratefully received.
We don't take him out his cot, but have spent a few nights on the floor next to his cot!!!

Ds (2.3)has been doing this on and off for a few weeks. If he does it for more than 1-2 nights I always take him to the doctor to check him. Most times I find he has a sore throat or an ear infection or soemthing like that. He has also done this a bit this week but the doctor couldn't find anythign wrong- I did notice howvere that his back molars at the bottom seem to be coming through so I am thinking teething.

If he isn't ill it could be teething, or perhaps dreaming.

Thanks lazycow - he's not ill and I thought we'd got through the teething thing, but maybe you're right.
My best guess is this dreaming thing. I just don't know whether to be stern and not allow him out his cot, or to be gentle and loving and pick him up and soothe him to restful sleep again.
I don't know whether I should be trying to rouse him from his sleep/dream, or quieten him back into slumber.

Wish I could help more but maybe it is an age thing as ds has really been quite bad on sleeping since he turned 2. He was a lot better before. He always woke early but he pretty much slept through without waking up very often.

Now I am having a lot of trouble settling him at night (it took until 7.30-9pm) to get him to sleep last might when he is usually asleep by 8pm at the latest.

He then proceeded to cry intermittently from about 9.30-12pm. I went in but he was pretty much asleep and didn't want to be be picked up. In the end I went to get him at about 1am as each time I started to drop off he started screaming again. I brought him into bed and he slept (a bit restlessly but nowhere near as bad) but only until 5am.

The last couple of weeks have been like this except that he has been sleeping well in the evenings between 8pm-11pm so last night just had the added joy of a broken evening as well as a broken night.

We have been taking ds into bed a lot recently because of this but as I say he has been ill on and off for a couple of months now and his bottom molars are definitely coming through now. He sometimes seems to settle better in bed with us and sleeps through though some nights it just makes things worse and I end up taking him back to the cot after an hour or more of him playing around.

Funny thing is when he is having trouble getting back to sleep and spends ages playing about he often goes back to the cot quite happily as I think sometimes being in bed with us makes it more difficult for him to sleep.

Sorry I wish I could help more but I'm not sure I'm the best person to offer advice on this - You have my heartfelt sympathy though.

My dd2 (2.2) started this a couple of months ago - waking up screaming or screaming in her sleep. I think it was def night terrors. I'd always go and pick her up and give her a cuddle as i figure she's genuinely scared, and a cuddle is what she needs - she's not going to learn anything positive from me refusing to comfort her.

She started saying there were scary monsters, foxes or dinosaurs in the room. I read something about how telling them it's not true etc doesnt' help, so intead, we put crusts outside for them, and tried to treat them like friendly imaginary pets - wave goodnight to them out the window, hope they enjoy their crusts - and in the last 4 weeks, they've totally vanished and she's not had one bad dream.

does she drink fruit squash? A friend of mine had a similar experience and it turned out that it was the fruit squash that she was drinking. she was giving her the no sugar stuff and as soon as she changed to high juice it stopped. Might not be this, but anything is worth a try