6 month old crying in his sleep....he sounds terrified, is he just dreaming?

[queenrollo]

my ds is 6.5 months old and in the last two weeks has started crying in his sleep. he typically does it after he's been asleep an hour and it is a real top of his lungs wail....but he's fast asleep. sometimes he wakes himself doing this, other times he just sleeps through it.
he does it just once at 8pm(ish) then at random times through the night. he really does sound terrified. is he just dreaming? it's just so unsettling for us to hear, i could do with some reassurance he'll grow out of it.
he has also started waking at 5am bright as a button, when previously he has always woken at 6am. is it just a phase.....with the disturbed sleep and early getting up time i'm worn out.

i do know how lucky i am that he sleeps as much as he does by the way just need some reassurance at the moment.

My 8m old DD cries out like this sometimes (once or twice a week or so). I think it is a dream and nothing to worry about. If he wakes, does he settle back well?

if he wakes we generally just stroke his hair gently and whisper to him and he goes straight back to sleep. occasionally he won't and we have to pick him up and cuddle him, but he usually goes off after about 10 mins of that.

aw, I'm sure he's fine. I tend to think that they are taking in so much information, learning and experiencing new things all the time, they have a lot to process in their sleep. Plus this 45 min/ hour mark is where they shift into a deeper sleep, but become slightly more awake just before - so maybe become roused/wake up a bit upset. I wouldn't worry too much