3 year old suddenly waking up and screaming

[MeadowHay]

The last 3 weeks or so DD has woken almost every night, usually around 12-1am ish but sometimes a few more times within the couple of hours after that too. She wakes up screaming, shouting for us and sometimes for her dummy (4 of which are in her bed with her on a sleepytot bunny...). One us goes in straight away but even before we get there she is absolutely hysterical, honestly the noise is earsplitting. She then just cries and screams and says variously that she wants to get out of bed, she wants a cuddle, she wants water, she needs a wee (then often changes her mind and won't get out of bed to go the toilet - she wears pull up over night anyway), she wants her dummy (there in her bed...), she wants a different teddy that is downstairs...basically she will say something then switch to another request/delaying tactic. All the while absolutely screaming hysterically and refusing to lay down. Tends to go on about 15-20 minutes and usually she burns out of steam and then eventually will lay down and go to sleep, but sometimes she won't so we can end up repeatedly going in and out every few minutes for half an hour or so whilst she screams like she's being tortured.

We have no idea what's brought this on, whether we just need to ride it out, what we should do about it?! Has anyone been through anything similar and find anything helpful to calm them down? She is so hysterical it's awful.

Is it night terrors? My 3 year old sometimes wakes in the night and starts crying/howling/screaming. Nothing stops him and I let him how for a bit then stick some nursery rhymes on the iPad from the bbc. It’s the quickest way to stop the crying.

I don't think it's night terrors, because I've read about them and it seems the child isn't actually awake when they happen and they have no memory of it the next day. Whereas when talking to DC they seem to remember and understand they were upset in the night but can't explain why, and also if they weren't awake I don't see how they could try the endless delaying tactics asking for loads of different things?

You are just getting to the age where nightmares become a thing, and being scared of the dark, or monsters under the bed etc.

A night light might help. Making sure she doesn't get too hot in the night (which could wake her up). White noise on continuously through the night can help too.

I wonder if it is just nightmares, rather than night terrors, and she is delaying because she is only half-awake, frightened, confused and just wants you there somehow?

Our dd had a lot of nightmares at this age - often involving being scared by animals ('I don't like the monkeys in my hair' was a scenario we had more than once I think). And she did scream, though perhaps not for so long. She was verbal enough to understand with a cuddle and some reassurance that it was a dream and not real - perhaps this is the age when dreaming gets going and gets more vivid and odd (possibly to do with the age when they a re learning a lot and starting to use their imaginations?) and they have to learn it's not really happening?

iirc it was pretty frequent for a while, but eased off gradually. I think we got the hand of reassuring her more quickly, or she got the hang of being reassured?

I did think it could be nightmares. On a few occasions in the past when I've asked her the next day why she was upset in the night she has said there was a cat on her bed . I have explained calmly that it must have been a dream and there is no cat etc and she seemed to understand this and hadn't mentioned it for awhile but she did the other day when I asked too. So animal nightmares might be happening here too perhaps.

She has this thing attached to her bed that she can press and it plays lullaby music which gradually gets fainter until it stops over the course of about 30 minutes. She frequently used to turn this on herself when she woke in the night as often I'd go past her bedroom to go to bed and hear it on etc so she can use that herself which she uses to soothe herself.

We could try a nightlight but she's not mentioned any fear of the dark and I don't want to jump the gun and create one iyswim...also, she is really light sensitive and sleeps much better and longer when the room is really dark.

Good to hear that it's probably just a phase that will pass though.