Crying hysterically in sleep?

[Jbla17]

Hi all,

I didnt know whether to post here or night wakings.

So, what has been going on lately is baffling me a bit. My LO is just 7 months and over the last few nights has been waking crying hysterically one to two times at night 10:30 ish and 3am ish. I go to her room and see that she still looks like she is sleeping but watch  her and she continues to cry. I pick her up and she calms down and falls back into calm sleep. Is this nightmares do you think? She has been sleeping through from about 8 weeks old consistently.

Also, she has just in the last week or so decided to attach herself to a lovey which was planned but im also finding she really needs the dummy at this stage to go to sleep. She has always been a very independent sleeper and we have only used the dummy on rare occasions. She does spit it out when asleep and so far has slept all night without it, besides these nightmare /crying wakings.

Backgound....during the day she most of the time will get very upset if I leave the room, so I thought this whole thing could be separation anxiety???

Developmentally, she is sitting up and desperately trying to crawl. Her A time is anywhere from 3 - 3.5 hours and I get decent naps out of her most days.

I hate hearing her cry like this as she has never been a crier and it upsets this mumma!!

Just want to know if any of you have experienced this and how and if you got through it.....

TIA x

[clazzat]

We did have this, and I never worked out what it was! We did pretty much the same as you are doing and it passed fairly quickly. I think there is lots going on in their little heads at this stage and that just disturbs them a bit. I don't see anything wrong with what you are doing from your post, so I would just ride it out.

[Jbla17]

Thanks for replying clazzat 

We had a better night last night although she did wake crying at 4:30am. She was definitely awake this time, so I went in and gave her the dummy and found her lovey. She panicked when I started to leave the room, so I think I do have separation anxiety on my hands and its starting with naps now too by the looks of things. I ended up putting my hand on her and she stroked my hand for a few minutes and then rolled over and went back to sleep til 7. So I had a win there. Resettling during the day now is another story! As you said I'll try to ride this out, I'm sure she will get used to being on her own away from us fairly soon.

Thanks again