2yo waking nearly every night screaming and crying, please help!

[KirstyP0594]

My 2yo DS for the past few weeks has been waking up most nights screaming and crying, he is pre-verbal with very limited understanding and we suspect he is autistic, just had some referrals made for him by HV but we have about a years wait until he can get any help according to the HV. With him being unable to communicate he can not tell us what’s wrong, he will wake up crying and screaming hysterically and gets very angry when we try to comfort him and will kick and hit us, the only thing that seems to calm him down is wrapping him up in a blanket and taking him downstairs to the sofa in the living room and cuddling him, he won’t let me or his dad cuddle him upstairs. What could this be?! I thought if it was pain related i.e. molars coming through, he wouldn’t just calm as soon as I get him downstairs as the pain would still be there surely, he has always been such a good sleeper until the past few weeks/couple of months, has anyone else experienced this or have any advice??

Any advice would really be appreciated at this point, just want to help him bless him 😞

This is a phase many DC go through, I have been there too OP. They are called night terrors. A statistic I read said 40% of children between ages 3-7 will have them. Usually they outgrow them.
https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/terrors.html

My LO has just been through this, with it still occasionally happening. There isn’t really anything we can do with our one except just be there and wait it out - as you say, attempts to intervene just resulted in more tears and anger from her. I tend to just try and verbally reassure her that I’m there without touching her and eventually she wakes up herself, has a cuddle and then goes back to bed.
She never remembers the ordeal
come the morning!
So far I would say we had about a month of it being fairly regular with it having reduced now. I’m aware that it may come back…

Night terrors or pain would be my guess. My DD had both at different times. Is it shortly after DS goes to sleep? Is it at a fairly similar time each night or random?

Night terrors. They suck.

Get his ears and tonsils checked just in case they’re infected and causing pain.

Thanks everyone. I have thought about night terrors, @EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness it does seem to happen around 10.30/11.30ish every night and he quite often won’t go off sleep until 8.30-9ish, so it is similar every night! He doesn’t seem to be in a sleepy state when he wakes though it’s just crying and screaming and he will fight you if you try to cuddle him to get down and walk around the room whilst still screaming and crying! Seems like this is something we may have to just ride out by the sounds of it!

That does sound like night terrors, they can seem very awake DD did. I had a brother who sleep walked, you could have entire conversations with him, but he wasn't actually awake. Best thing for DD was leaving her alone, like in the room quitely but not touching or anything, no lights. I found she had them more often when she was tired or overheated. There is a technique where you wake them up about 20-30 minutes before they usually wake for a few nights, DD would wake briefly and then drift off, sometimes it's stops the cycle, sometimes not. Making sure she wasn't overheated helped.

There was a stage where DD was waking a lot crying and I thought maybe it was teething pain, so I tried giving her paracetamol 30 minutes before bed and that kept her asleep. Had to do it a few nights before she was out of it. If you think he could be teething might be worth trying it once.

When mine had night terrors I found that giving them a couple of sips of milk was very helpful in waking them up just enough to shake the terror but not too much, and the normal physical action seemed to ground them more than talking to them or hugging them did

Something else that could be waking him at night and distressing him could be threadworms. They are horrible and cause intense itching at night. It’s worth checking and getting treatment into him asap if you spot them.

Ds still has them, he is 21! They appear completely awake but they are not. When Ds got to early teens he wanted to know what it was like for us so did a sleep app thing on a phone to listen to himself shouting out in his "sleep" which he said was disturbing as he has no recollection of any of it.

We can laugh about it now, the best one was Dh and I were in the lounge around 11pm, we heard him yelling but it stops after a few seconds but then he appeared in the doorway spoke some gibberish and then seemed to come to. He said why on earth have you brought me into the lounge? I said well son, either you have walked yourself down the stairs or we have lifted a full sized adult child from their bed, brought them downstairs, stood them upright and then woken them up for what I assume is fun. He didn't think it was funny until the next day.

So don't assume they all grow out of it. Ds has to tell uni folk who live in the rooms next door to him, no I am not being murdered. Hotel stays are often interesting.

You can attempt to disturb their sleep pattern, make a note of when they got to sleep, what time the night terror takes hold and then work out when to lightly disturb them by making some noise. Google suggests 15 minutes before it hits. It is hard when they are very little because they are screaming and yet pushing you away. But you are not alone.

Night terrors, my eldest had them occasionally. You have to kind of get them awake enough to realise it's ok before they can calm down.
As others have said possibly pain but also could be too cold/hot?
Also weirdly I think when she was more like 3 she would have them if she needed a wee in the night?? I would sit her on the toilet and she'd wee then go straight back to sleep. I think somehow her body was trying to wake up but couldn't quite get there!

Yes. Night terrors - one of my dc had them at this age.

My 2 year old went through this phase for around 2 months. It honestly had us up the walls as to what it was but the only thing we could put it down to was night terrors.
We actually cut out dairy products in the afternoon and evening and noticed a huge difference and then they stopped completely. Read somewhere that things like cheese can make it worse... who knows if that's true but it certainly worked for us

Night terrors. Ds was most likely to have an attack if he was over tired and/or anxious. And always with 1-3 sleep cycles (40 minutes each) of falling asleep.

Sadly this meant babysitters often dealt with it as I guess the slight anxiety of my sister or SIL being there. Definitely on nights he was overtired too. If wr got him to bed on time and he slept easily (unusual), we were less likely to experience them.

He is ND.

Night terrors are similar to sleep walking. Often while they are screaming and crying, they are still asleep.

Thank you everyone, the past two nights have been not so bad, he does wake every night but the past couple of nights it has been just to get into my bed rather than screaming and crying, I have been trying to get him to bed a bit earlier so that he’s not overtired as I feel this could be having an effect and causing the possible night terrors, and it seems to be helping so far!

For communication try signs makaton watch something special
Simple visual choice boards
Use photos on fridge point to milk or juice
Park or shop or car photos to explain
Photos of people in his life
Insist on slt referral do not wait a year to start implementing communication strategies
Look up PECS videos
Download free aac apps free trial like gridplayer

@cestlavielife thank you this is really helpful. Getting his attention is really quite difficult as he will not respond to his name or engage with anyone for very long at all, he cannot use any gestures so cannot even point to things that he needs or wants. We have a portage referral made for him which is about a 3 month wait and the HV reckons this will help him, but she said speech and language therapy will be next year, just want to try and help him as much as I can whilst waiting for all of these things! He is also due to start nursery for 2 full days a week in September which I am hoping will help him!

Try consistent use of objects of reference

Shoes mean let's go out so show him shoes before going out
In time he will bring shoes to ask to go out
A cup means drink etc
Try see if any drop in SEN sessions you can go to for under fives

https://www.sense.org.uk/information-and-advice/communication/objects-of-reference/

@cestlavielife thank you those are great idea I shall definitely start with him, I took him to an SEN group yesterday run by portage workers in our area suggested by our HV, he didn’t like it as he just wanted to run and pace up and down the outdoor area but I am going to keep taking him as I’ve heard they are brilliant there and can really make a difference!

Yes definitely keep going our kids with Sen need time to get used to new places and what is expected

Both mine went through this at just turned 2. My eldest lasted longer with it. My youngest was a week or so.