Night Terrors: maybe, maybe not?

[Kimberlina]

Hey ladies, could do with a hand...

My little man (7.5 mo) has a generally good schedule but has started waking in the night ... SCREAMING. Nothing will soothe him. I've tried consoling, feeding, sh/pat, everything but nothing helps. The only thing that does is a stern "JACK. THAT'S ENOUGH." followed by cuddles. That seems to boost him out of his rut, but sometimes he won't even respond to me when I do it - it HAS to be DH. This seems to be symptomatic of night terrors, as my little sister had them when she was 4 and it was about the same.

It's happened on Friday night at 4:50 and he didn't get back to sleep until about 6:00. It happened again last night at about 11:00. (That turned into a blazing row with DH, so I have no idea what time he got back to sleep...)

From my research, night terrors happen from about 1-4 hours after bedtime (which is 6:30pm - 7:00pm here), so the 11:00 showing would have fit in... but not the 4:50am one!

Research also said that it was down to being OT? J has a 12 hour night (usually...) and 2 day time naps (1.5 & 2h).

The other thing was illness (yes - but better now for weeks) and a developmental milestone looming. Which ones are imminent? He does seem to be nearing crawling...

Anyone have any advice? Any experience? Any tips? (Article suggested W2S, but if they're not regular, I can't!)

THANK YOU!!

[<Catherine>]

Definitely sounds like night terrors Kim, funnily enough my DH seems to have more effect when DS has them too.

OT is ALWAYS the cause for us. Strange that they're happening without any obvious cause, but it definitely sounds like night terrors from what you've described. Although I think it could well be down to developmental changes, DS gets affected by OT at these points too.

Sometimes DH can 'wake' him from them, but generally we just have to let him thrash it out in his cot, staying with him and trying to calm him.

[Kimberlina]

Thanks Cath, love! It is so distressing, isn't it?!

Last night was uneventful (thankfully!) but at 6:00, he woke ... SCREAMING. I tried to let him thrash it out in my arms, talking gently and pat-pat-patting, which sometimes seemed to help... but after 20 minutes I gave in and switched the fish tank light on and let him play with his Christmas toys. He was very needy (not like him) and really struggled to keep happy...

The good ol' excuse of "teething" has appeared again... but it seems to be real this time. Rosy cheeks and whingey all day today! I wonder if it's a bit of both? We're calpol-ing him tonight and seeing if that helps.

[<Catherine>]

It is really distressing, so big hugs. Thankfully Ds seems to be handling OT much better these days so I'm hoping he's growing out of it.

Hope the Calpol does the trick......blooming teeth

[*Ali*]

How is Jack now Kim?
Cadan had night terrors when he was on antibiotics and they are really distressing. But they did stop as soon as he was off thoses meds.
I heard a fever can trigger it too so if he has this due to teething maybe it could be that?

[Kimberlina]

Hi Ali, thanks for asking!

My memory is non-existent these days, but I seem to remember it happening once again about 1am (DH sorted it, bless him!)... and then not again!

He's now gone the polar opposite and is waking up at 2am and 10pm-12am happy as larry! Bipolar baby sleeper, or what?!

He's not so warm with teething at the moment, but was a bit at the time - so I think you're probably right that it was related...

CROSS YOUR FINGERS that it doesn't happen for a while!

[*Ali*]

Fingers crossed.