6 month old suddenly screaming in sleep

[EsmeRosa]

He's sometimes suddenly screaming out hysterically whilst being asleep. It sounds like a horror movie scream, really bloodcurdling!
Tonight he'd been asleep for about 30 mins and then suddenly all hell broke loose.
I ran in and comforted him and he slipped back into sleep.
Is this night terrors? Or something else?
Should I be worried?
He hasn't done this before, only started a few weeks ago. He's slept through the night since about 3 months old no problems.

Yep sounds like night terrors.

Keeping my eye out for the answer. DD started doing this at around 6/7 months but wasn't a scream was hysterical crying as if having a nightmare or something. Weird.

I've got an 8 month old who's done this every so often and I think it's sometimes teething pain (? he doesn't have any yet but is drooling and gumming everything all the time!) and sometimes nightmares. Remember their brains are growing massively and new bits coming online all the time!

Quite common I think. DD did this and occasionally still does although very rarely now thankfully as it always scares the crap out of me. I don't think it's a night terror - she's had one of those and was totally inconsolable for about 10 minutes and shouting and crying. It was just a random shriek or scream and then asleep normally again.

Night terrors usually start later on. I'd be more inclined to think it was teething or discomfort.

My daughter did this from 3 months, it was very scary as it was really hard to wake her up when she was asleep and screaming. Strangely, once we woke her up she was fine and often quite happy. I took a video and showed my GP who referred her to a neurologist. We saw him a few weeks later and he wasn't concerned. He looked at the videos and was happy that it wasn't seizures and she was too young for night terrors. As long as we could wake her up he considered that it was just a developmental stage. She's 9 months now and had grown out of it thankfully.