Baby Squared

hmm Eric has night terrors every once in awhile. Not like what Clio had though. His are more he is crying/screaming and really scared like he had a bad nightmare. We run in and hold him and comfort him and he goes from being scared to wanting to go back to his crib pretty quickly and then he quickly almost instantly falls back asleep. I think he has nightmares. I wonder what he dreams about that can be so scary. It upsets me to see him all terrified because I know how upset my zombie dreams terrify me (I have frequent dreams of when zombies take over and how horrible it will be. It is like the only thing that scares me and I have my zombie escape plan all figured out....).  

I read that age 2 is when the night terror/nightmare thing really starts so I guess Eric at 21 months is a little ahead of the curve because he has been doing this since 18 months maybe.

Do you have the light up lullaby Curious Georges? That is what my boys sleep with. I think it helps with the being afraid at night.

Charlie was recently really sick with a stomach virus and we went through a similar episode.  I found that the sickness amplified his already present irrational toddler behavior tenfold.  And, a little warning to you, there was backlash.  Our attempts to keep him hydrated, comforted, rested, etc... led to him wanting all of these measures after he was better.  I hope the girls feel better soon & you stay well!

Every few months months my son will wake up in the middle of the night screaming and flailing his arms and legs, scream for 10 or 15 minutes, and then fall back asleep. I couldn't figure it out until I realized that they seemed to correlate to his growth spurts. I am pretty sure that he is experiencing growing pains during these episodes, but I can't say for sure. They could be nightmares or any number of things, I guess. Just another one of the frustrating things about trying to raise a toddler.  

I had exactly the same experience last week with my 19month old, only it was at 3am and she screamed for 3 hours.  In the end I decided it was a night terror because while she in some ways seemed to be awake I think in reality she was not.  I have decided that so far it is by far more traumatic for the parent then it is for the child.  Good luck and I hope that it doesn't happen again!

Hang in there Jane!  My (then) 16-month old did the same thing last month.  Normally a great sleeper, he had a tantrum for about 25 minutes (seems like hours, though, doesn't it?) and was simply inconsolable.  All I did was hold him and make sure he didn't hurt himself, as he was trying to bang his head.  Then, sleep, just as suddenly as it happened!  No other episodes since then...so, hopefully this thing with Clio is also a one-time thing.  

Maybe because of being sick she was uncomfortable and really tired.  They just don't know how to handle that.  That happened once with Michael last year.  I think it was his first ear infection.  He doesn't do that anymore, if he fully wakes up then he wants to play.

Well, my mom is an EXPERT on night terrors, since Evan used to have horrible ones when he was really little. So if you ever figure out that the girls are having those for real, my mom can give you all the information you ever wanted (and then some). It's possible that Clio could have had a night terror. Evan, when he has night terrors (these happen now if something disturbs his sleep at a very exact moment, like if someone gets up to go to the bathroom at EXACTLY the wrong time. Its pretty rare, but it can happen) does sound a lot like he's throwing a nervous tantrum, but he's totally asleep. I know I can carry on full conversations and be so lucid-sounding my parents (parents! These people who know me so well!) think I'm awake. (Most famous and recent - I promised to do something in my sleep and my parents thought I was awake. Naturally, I did not do it, leading to a fight and me getting a wrist-slap for not doing what I promised to do.)

Now I'm not saying this is what Clio was doing, it's entirely possible she woke up and felt awful and cranky and didn't know how to tell you, but it IS possible it was a night terror. Hopefully it's a one-time thing and you'll never have to figure this out, but the best (and only) way to know is to wait until she's old enough to remember if she was awake or not. If she doesn't remember being awake at all, its a night terror. In which case, pass go, collect $200, and contact my all-knowing mothe.

Our 2 1/2 year has had a few spells like what you describe. Usually accompanied by not feeling well, and after a visit to the doctor turned out to be an ear infection. She just couldn't get comfortable, and was miserable until she wore herself out. I hope your girls feel better soon :-)

I agree with esther, it seems to be tied to growth spurts for my kids.  Also this happens for "learning spurts" when they suddenly and dramatically increase their vocabularies or learn a previously impossible task.  

The random and impossible demands are so very familiar to me.  One of the first times I realized that I couldn't really help was when my (at the time 3 year old) son, at 2am, screamed "I want, I want, I want . . . DIAMONDS!" while sobbing and thrashing in his bed.  I sat with him and told him it was okay until he finally settled down.  Then I laughed hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all.  

YES!!!!!! My daughter had a similar episode when she was about 15 months old. We took her to the emergency room, and the dr. said it was night terror (she was calm by the time we got there). My son has weird tantrums too. Nothing can calm him down sometimes. We have no idea what starts these. One thing we've noticed with both of them is that these crazy sleep disturbances seem to happen when they are overtired. A late night, an altered schedule, falling asleep in the car instead of in bed, and not taking a nap during the day are all things that lead to a greater chance of our kids having one of these freakouts in the middle of the night.

THIS WAS MY NIGHT LAST NIGHT! I have twin girls 20 months old. Although-- I was not so lucky and one woke the other up. Not a good night, but glad to hear I'm not alone. HOPEFULLY this is a (quick) phase......

My 26 month old son Devan has had an "episode" for five nights in a row now. The only thing i find different from most cases of night terrors is that he is violent with me when i try to console him. He always wakes up between 1 am and 3 am. He is screaming but he sits up and eventually gets out of bed and wanders the house while he screams. It usually lasts for an hour to two hours. Just when i think it is over and he quiets, he will start again. He will scream with intervals of 5 to 10 seconds of quietness in between. He has actual tears and will kick like a tantrum.

We have a 9 year old girl, 2 year old girl, and a 3 month old boy.

My question regards our 2 year old. She is the middle child, whether that is relevant or not. When she was born, the first few days were easy because she slept and was as content as any newborn. Shortly after she came home and became aware, she was really clingy to mommy and wanted to be held all the time. She never slept in her own bed because no matter what we did she just wouldnt budge. She fits ALL the signs of a 'high needs' baby. She was breastfed. We dont believe in forcing a child to wean, but we had to for her last year. But she was old enough to not need formula.

Anyway, she's the brightest, most affectionate creature on earth. But she has her ONE HUGE FAULT. She has what seems like tantrum overload. She will wake up from a nap anytime of the day, crying and screaming. She doesnt ever seem scared (she loves the dark). She will go for hours and no matter how you reason with her, she will not budge. If she wants something, she will get worse if you give it to her. She constantly rubs her ears when she cries and rubs her nose. We use to think she might have ear issues, but i dont think she does anymore. But she gets mad if she doesnt get what she wants and that too sometimes triggers an episode.

Night terrors is irrelevant in our case. But I just dont understand why a kid carries on this way. After an exhausting 2 or 3 hours, she acts like nothing happened. But she will still get pissed if you dont give her what she wants. The thing is that we dont spoil her. I wish I could know if it has anything to do with jealousy. We have a new baby. Our first girl never saw 'terrible' twos. But I wonder if the second one is getting them times 2.

DISRUPTIVE is the keyword here. She has the worst possible timing ever. And we literally have to stop what we are doing to be tortured by our 2 year old for 1, 2, sometimes 3 hours until it subsides.

We tried discipline which does nothing. We have a special spot in the room that she must go if she misbehaves. It seemed to work for awhile because a simple bluff is all it took. But now it does nothing. Her crying and intense screaming just goes no matter what.

Any ideas here?

I have a 16 month old (almost 17 month old) son. He is the sweetest happiest kid during the day. of course he has his normal tantrums that most kids his age do but the worst happens at night about 5 hours after he's fallen asleep. he wakes up screaming and is inconsolable for a while. he will eventually calm down for a bit but as soon as we try to get him back to sleep, it starts in all over again and it lasts usually around 2 hours. he's not hungry, he's not thirsty, he doesn't seem to really WANT anything. i have a 5 year old daughter who just started kindergarten and she needs her sleep but she hasn't been getting it the past few nights. this has happened 3 nights in a row now. i actually had to keep my daughter home from school today because she didn't get any sleep last night. its the first week of school and she's missing already. this is not good. i need to figure out what is going on with my son. any suggestions or ideas would be great. thanks!

I had the same thing happen last night with my 24month old. It was scary. She seemed awake and screaming, but when I went to cosole her she would kick me and scream louder and yell - NOOOOOOO! Nothing I did helped her calm down. I have no idea what was going on, but I sure hope it doesn't happen again!

I am so glad I found this site!!  Last night, our 13 month old son, who never did this before, woke up an hour after we put him down.  I thought it was the pacifier as well, maybe a bottle.  The cry progressed until I turned on the light, left his room, paced the hallway, massaged him, let my husband hold him, gave him his favorite stuffed animal(big mistake!), and eventually, we sat him on the living room rug and let him roll around.  I really thought he was having a seizure or something....we ended up calling 911 and of course, just as they arrived, he calmed down.  He was all smiles to the EMS guys and I felt silly, but it was such a horrible evening.  I hope it was a tantrum and I hope it doesn't happen again like that.  Unbelievably scary and exhausting.   Glad to hear others are experiencing similar things.  THank you!!!!

My three year old had on for over an hour in the middle of the night. He becomes very demanding, and if you try to appease him it still doesn't matter. He kept yelling about his blanky being messed up. We couldn't console him. Every time we tried to meet one of his demands he was on to a new set of troubles. He also is a very clingy child, and very high demand. No easygoing personality here. He also sleeps in bed with us. He usually waltes into our room sometime in the middle of the night even if he goes to sleep in his own bed. He also has a lot of ear infections and was just diagnosed with another yesterday - has been sick for a while. He wakes the whole house up when he has these. Afterwards we finally were able to somehow get him to go back to sleep (with a lot of back rubs, appeasement, and stories of daddies adventures when he was a child). This morning when I got out of bed and accidently grazed his face with the corner of a light blanket he almost started up again (until I told him it was an accident quite a few times). This seems to be a real disorder. I wish I could help him. He never slept well, also He has always had digestive/bowel stuff with constipation that they have chalked up to an immature system, and he's always been a poor eater - very picky. I wish I knew what to do for him.

My 13 month old has had a few of these episodes described above; wakes up HYSTERICAL.  He doesn't want his usual comfort measures which are the binky, stuffed animal, bottle.  He doesn't want mom, or dad.  He doesn't want to be held or put down.  He kicks, screams, cries like he is in agony.  It is terrifying as a parent.  I've never seen my son do anything like this during day light, only night time hours after we put him down.  Can a 13 mos old have night terrors?  I don't know if I should take him to the doctor about this or not?