18 month old crying in sleep

[Nc1468]

Hey
My son's 18 months and the last few nights plus naps he's either been crying in his sleep, or waking up absolutely hysterical.

Yesterday nap time I was in the utility room and I honestly thought dh was watching a horror film in the living room until he came down with ds as he's heard him too, he sounded awful!

He's not teething at the moment, but even when he has been he's not been like this. Doesn't appear sick etc, so I thought maybe night terrors. Did some looking around online and most people say they start around 3 so by that he's too young but I just can't think what else it could be!

Hv is coming to weigh DD on Tuesday so I will ask her about DS when she's here but just wondered what everyone else thought.

My daughter has cried and thrashed in her sleep a couple of times a week since she was 6 weeks old. It can be really hard to watch and she needs to be woken up sometime if it's really bad. She seems calm enough when she wakes though, she's only 18 weeks now so she can't tell us what's happening.

I ran it past my Dr who sent a referral to pediatrics at the children's hospital to get it checked out in case it's epilepsy. She said to get the behaviour on video as pediatrics will want to see. I did and had the referral a few weeks ago and they were confident it wasn't epilepsy and not night terrors either. Apparently night terrors will have wide open eyes while crying but still asleep.

My husband went through a period of sleepwalking when he was a child and still moves a lot when he sleeps and occasionally acts out parts of dreams. The consultant said she may have inherited that and what were seeing is her having bad dreams but, although distressing for us, it wasn't anything to worry about and she was fine. He said to get in touch again if it gets worse, she starts having jerky movements or begins to get upset after she wakes up.

My own 18 month old is doing the same atm. What I've managed to glean from the internet is that it could be something to do with the 18 month sleep regression, or simply down to dreaming. It seems, that about this age, their imagination is starting to kick in. So their dreams are probably getting more vivid as a result. Which might be a bit scary initially, even if they're not bad dreams (hopefully not bad dreams anyway). As with most things, it's something they should grow out of eventually.

Oooooh. Cross posted with you there @MariaDingbat. Now you mention it, my husband occasionally sleep walks, talks, and acts out dreams. Not so often anymore, or I'm sleeping through it all. My brother also has a history of the same, and DD motoring around her cot at night while sound asleep is a sight to behold. I wonder if that might have something to do with it, on top of the usual toddler weirdness.