Last night we experienced our first night terror or nightmare. Not sure which. He fought going down for sleep (nothing new-very frustrating) but surprisingly didn't wake after the first 'fight' to go down to sleep which was about 8:30 or so. He woke at 10:45 screaming a really unusual scream unlike any we had heard before. He had colic that ended a few weeks back so we are definitely aware of that scream but this was really high pitched and frantic. I went in and pat/shh'd and nothing would calm him. I eventually picked him up once I realized that something was definitely not normal and that didn't even calm him. His eyes were open and he was rocking from his side to his back (he was aussie swaddled) and was looking around with the creepiest look on his face. It has been about three+ hours since his last feeding so I thought I would feed him to see if that would help to calm him down. He grabbed on to my shirt and pulled me close and buried his head in my neck. He seemed as though he was terrified! I did get him to suckle (not enough for me to let down) and he did seem to calm. I laid him back down and he went back to sleep and so we both went back to bed. Fifteen minutes later he woke, screaming the same scream again and would not let up until he got in my arms and clung to me like before. I snuggled him into my side and he slept with us for a few hours, woke and wanted to eat and we settled him back in his crib and he woke at 6:30.
Was that a nightmare or a night terror? And how should we deal with it-I don't want to start him sleeping with us be we tried everything to get him to sleep in his crib (turning on a dim light in addition to the night light, putting a t-shirt with my smell on it, paci, hand on his back/tummy/side...) after waking the second time to the same scream. Not sure how to handle that situation again...
Thank you in advance!
