Night terrors - what should we do?

[Tiggerish]

our dd is 17 months and has recently started to wake some time between 10 and 12pm screaming. We initially thought she was becoming scared of the dark and put a night light on. Even with the light though she woke again last night screaming. Could it be night terrors and what should we do??

I've no experience of this but I once saw a tv prog with little girl (older than your dd tho - prob 6 yrs) who had night terrors. It happened the same time every nite so they remedied by waking her up before the said time and resettling her before it happened and that was it - it stopped. Worth a try I suppose

Something could be triggering them, my sister used to have them until mum dicovered it was Benelyn cough syrup causing them.

Hi Tiggerish

My ds gets them too and has done since the age of about 2yrs, we find that if he gets too hot this can trigger them and we also find that they are linked to growth spurts, he will often complain of sore legs at bed time so we are forewarned.

You can generally tell it's a night terror if they have no recollection of them in the morning. The general advice is not to wake them as they will settle down again after about 5 - 10 mins but personally i find this absolutely heartbreaking so we generally bring our ds out of his room and cuddle him and call his name until we can bring him around.

The feelings these evoke in you are definitely alot worse than they are for the child, so as long as she is safe and can't harm herself then just let her bring herself out of it otherwise do what we do and try to rouse her gently.

Hoep this helps BEKsmum

This came up on 'City Hospital' one morning last week. A consultant neurologist was interviewed who said that the way to deal with it was not to wake the child as this can be more frightening for them but provided that they are safe just to let it take its course. He also said that it was usually far more distressing for the parents/carers than the child who usually would remain unaware if they did not wake. So it sounds very similar to Beksmum's post - I should point out though that I have no experience of this myself (yet!). There might be some information on the BBC website.

We found with my son that music had a calming effect on him. We used to bring him downstairs (not trying to wake him, just picking him up), then I would cuddle him and we would put one of the music channels on the TV. Any music seemed to work!

I'm not sure if he ever actually woke, but it was really helpful and made it much less distressing for us to know that we had something that would work. He would then go back to sleep quite happily.

Thanks so much for all these replies.

Beksmum - i had no idea it could be related to overheating. I'll definately watch that one.

Will also try all the advice given - its all so distressing though. She is totally inconsolable when it happens.

Thanks again

Tigs.