I know night terrors are normal for a minority of young children. But I am still a bit concerned. DS1 (nearly 3) has been having them for about a year. We have patches where they only happen once every week or two but then very long patches (I mean months) where they happen every night or almost every night (usually about 90 minutes after going to sleep). Worse, within those phases we regularly get nights where they happen over and over again - every 90 minutes to 2 hours all night. For instance, last night, it happened at 10pm, 1.30 am and again at 3.00 am. He screams for 10-20 minutes each time (feels like much much longer . . . I'm sure to the neighbours too). It is impossible to wake him. We have tried making sure that once the first one has finished we wake him properly as this is supposed to avoid the "cycle" continuing during the night but doesn't seem to in his case. It is very unpleasant and also wakes the baby.
I am a bit concerned because most of the descriptions I have read suggest that night terrors are typically either occasional, or regular but only for quite a brief period of time. Also almost every description I've seen only describes it happening once, not repeatedly during the night.
Did anyone else have such an intense experience of night terrors? Should I be worried more generally? DS is a rather sensitive/anxious little boy, and he has always had quite poor sleep (didn't sleep through the night at all until 22 months, for instance, despite all our efforts), but is otherwise healthy and I think pretty normal in terms of development (has just recently started nursery two days a week and they haven't mentioned any concerns).