Night terrros or something else?

[Metalhead]

My 3 year old DD has had a couple of awful episodes in the last week that I think are probably night terrors. Both times she woke up crying but when we went in to ask her what was wrong she wouldn't say anything or wasn't coherent. We then tried to leave her to it but she just kept on crying, and when we tried to calm her down it seemed to make it worse. We had full-on crazed screaming, thrashing about, getting out of bed and banging the floor and doors, and this in the middle of the night. The first time this lasted for 30 minutes, last night for a whole hour!! (Thankfully her room is away from the neighbours' side of the house...)

I read up on night terrors and some of it certainly seems to fit, like the not being conscious and not being able to calm her down. But last night she seemed to know that we were there, and who we were, it just didn't help... also it said night terrors should last "up to 10 minutes" - have we just got a very bad case? Is there anything we can do to stop it? Should I be taking her to the doctor?

It does sound like a night terror. Though they are generally infrequent so if its happening every night I would maybe take her to the gp.

I clicked on this thread because last night ds (23mo) had what we think was a night terror too! His lasted about an hour, but that's possibly because we did the wrong thing in trying to calm him and comfort him. Apparently you just need to stay near them and make sure they don't hurt themselves by thrashing around. I think often they do know you're there, but not consciously iyswim?

It's a horrible thing to witness :( but they generally have no memory of it the next morning, and I don't think it distresses them at the time - even though it sure as hell sounds like they're being murdered!

They normally grow out of it by school age, and it's not detrimental to their development or anything. Just not nice for us parents.

I had this - happened all of a sudden one night. We tried to ignore - he cried for hours . Then that set the pattern for the following nights. The only way out was to sit with him with lights off till he fell asleep, then creep out. It took him a few weeks but he did finally completely get over it.