Night terrors

[BuntyCollocks]

It looks like 2 yo DS is starting to have night terrors. Last Friday and last night, utterly inconsolable, sweating, screaming ... Just awful.

Does anyone have any real life advice?

Also, a couple of days before the clocks went forward, he started awakening at 6am. Despite the clock going forward, he still wakes then! Have tried gro clock ("goooooooo yellow!"), have tried cuddling him back in ... Nada.

Previously he was up between 7-7.30. Not a huge difference but enough poor DH is feeling it. We have a nearly 5mo ebf baby, so the deal is he gets up with DS as I am handling night wakenings with dd. due to her age, and the fact this started well after she arrived, I don't think it's to do with her.

We had these and the advice which worked for us was:

1. Don't say the child's name. The child won't know who you are and may become more scared.
2. Put them somewhere they can do themselves no damage, so lay them gently on the floor, away from corners. Sit quietly nearby but don't speak to them, or try and soothe them.
3. Take them into a different room. We found that a trigger word to end the episode was "downstairs". We didn't actually have to take her downstairs but it somehow helped.

They really are terrifying aren't they? I can understand why some ignorant people might think their child was possessed because that was how it looked at times. Thankfully it only lasted a few weeks before she grew out of it.

Thank you! We did all the wrong things last night - trying to soothe/cuddle him, saying his name, picking him up ... Only realised after googling, but hindsight is 20/20!

We made exactly the same mistakes too, I guess it's just parental instinct to cuddle and soothe. It is REALLY hard to sit by and do nothing, I was nearly in tears myself.

ds1 still gets these at 9. He often has them when he is too hot, or too cold, or worried about something IRL.

I'm not sure what to suggest but hoping he will grow out of it!

what I mean is, make sure she isn't getting overheated at night or maybe kicking off her covers and getting too cold.

They are awful for us parents, but the only comfort is that the child doesn't actually "suffer" or remember the episode for that matter.

world's advice is excellent, but I remember how hard it was not to comfort DD while she wailed and listening to the desperate high pitched screams.