1yo woke up crying inconsolably

[Sunrise888]

My 1yo had a normal evening and bedtime. A couple hours later he started crying, which quickly escalated to full on crying/screaming despite trying to comfort and breastfeed him. This went on for about 10-15 mins where we tried everything we could think of.

He bit down on my breast which made me wonder if it was teething, so we tried teething toys, cold wet flannel, formula bottle where he drank an oz, then calpol. He calmed down a little but still cried intermittently. Eventually we put him in a sling and went for a walk and he was fine again, now just feeding him to sleep.

He has 4 teeth already. Teething has never been too bad for us, mostly just drooling and biting. He very rarely had episodes like this, maybe just 5 times in total, and never this long, at least not since he was a newborn, so it's hard for us to figure out what's wrong out what to do.

Any suggestions on what it could be apart from teething? He's due to start settling in sessions at nursery tmw, but surely can't be aware of this.

Could be a night terror. Awful things that sadly you cant do anything about. Generally a phase thankfully.

That's almost certainly a night terror. My daughter has had them since the same age. They are more rare now that she's four... she hasn't had one in months.

They're stressful, but there's literally nothing you can do, and in fact the less you do, the better. I always go in just to make sure DD doesn't hurt herself flailing around, but I don't try to wake her up or pick her up or anything. I just stroke her arm or back gently and sometimes murmur soothingly but honestly, that's more to feel that I'm doing something than actually making a difference to her. Doing less usually means the 'terror' passes more quickly, though I know it feels like a lifetime at the time.

They're not awake during the 'terror' and aren't responding to you even if they're saying things. If you fuss over them for a long time, you might eventually wake them up, which usually makes them quite disoriented and even more upset. If you do wake them up, they may remember the incident, whereas if you don't wake them up, they won't remember anything the next morning. So it's best not to try to wake them. With my DD, eventually she just flops down and in seconds is sleeping normally.

Apparently there is some connection between higher than usual daytime stress or overtiredness, and the likelihood of night terrors, and that's been true in my experience.

the less you do, the better

They're not awake during the 'terror' and aren't responding to you even if they're saying things

Thank you, this is super helpful - I googled night terrors and it does sound like what we saw. That's interesting that we should let it pass without picking him up - goes against all instincts! He is going through a period of irregular bedtimes too so I can imagine he might be getting overtired and potentially triggering a night terrors. I'm just so glad that he won't remember it.

Or at least what I mean to say is I'm glad that in general he won't remember night terrors, but as we did wake him this time, I hope he doesn't remember this one 😥

That's interesting that we should let it pass without picking him up - goes against all instincts!

I know, it took me a couple of practice runs to resist my instinct to pick DD up and soothe her, but I've found it really does go much better if you don't!

DD has been talking well since she was 2, and I've often checked in with her the next day to see if she remembers anything without directly tipping her off - like asking "How was your sleep last night? Did you wake up at all? No? Do you remember Mummy coming in to see you? Did you have good dreams?" etc, and can say with certainty that she has no memory of the terrors.

He's so little that I doubt he will recall it at all.

Thanks. We've definitely experienced this a couple times before. It's good to know what it is and what to do next time.

DS also tends to "sleep-crawl" and even pulls himself up to stand, which we thought was cute if a bit disconcerting. But I've been reading that it's a milder event. We'll have to look at his bedtime routine, which at the moment isn't ideal, and try to help him relax more before bed!