Night terrors??

[louloutheshamed]

This has happened twice now.

Put ds1 to bed at 7ish. He is 2y 10m. At 8.30 he has woken up crying. I have gone in and cuddled him but he looks terrified, looking frantically around bedroom as if he doesn't know where he is. Then he has got out of bed and started running on the spot? Still crying.

It's not until I turn the light on that he seems to become lucid and I settle him back to sleep.

Does this seem like night terrors? I think his imagination is going into overdrive ATM- he keeps asking what is real and what isn't, what comes out at night, tonight he was having an odd conversation with dh about 'people who don't have eyes"

Could this be linked?

It absolutely does sound like night terrors.
I've experienced these to varying degrees with Dd (4) and Ds1 (2)
About a week ago, Dd was running a very high temperature and had them a couple of nights in a row. The first time I didn't realise as she was sort of speaking to me 'mummy, mummy' etc. and I picked her up.

This made it much worse.
On the second night I twigged and just gently whispered 'it's ok mummy's here' over and over again, sat on her bed and waited for it to subside. It was quite upsetting as she looked petrified but she just dropped off again.
I asked her in the morning how she'd slept and she seemed to have no recollection so I feel a bit better about that!

We've had this a bit with ds, just turned 3. His eyes are open and looking at me but it's like he can't see me. Best thing is not to wake them, just quietly comfort untiltthey drop back off. Ours seems worse if the bedroom is too warm, and it's always about an hour or 90 mins after he first falls asleep.

90 minutes is about how long the first phase of sleep lasts. Overheating is a big problem. Try opening the window a little, all natural ( not polycotton) bedding ( it breathes better). And or a thinner duvet. You can always add an extra layer when you head to bed, as the house is likely to be cooler then. It worked for me...

It happened again last night and he did seem clammy when I went up. It's so distressing to see but he has no recollection of it afterwards and once it passes he goes straight back to sleep.

It does seem to happen on days when he hadn't napped- we seem to be in the nightmare dropping the nap stage ATM and he'll only sleep in the car.

hi just noticed this thread while looking for something else and thought I'd chip in, as I know how desperate for help I was when we first went through it. I posted on MN but got no responses

DD suffered night terrors a lot for over a year between 3.6 and 5. About 8.30 ish (I.e. 90mins after bedtime), sweaty even in winter with just a T-shirt and thin duvet, confused, eyes wide open, panicky, speaking but in a very strangulated way. Horrible.

Most 'normal' reactions, like trying to rationalise, wake her up a bit, take for a wee etc., made it worse or last longer. I found the most effective thing was to just whisper 'shhhhh, it's ok' over and over.

I also found that the terrors came in phases, sometimes we'd get a few weeks off, then it would be every night again. Definitely found that they were less likely to happen if DD had had a nap.

Hope it's not too long-lived for you.