Waking up Screaming

Ok I could be wrong but my little girl has been doing that and she has teeth coming in and I think they bother her more when she is by herself verses when she gets loving attetion.Also I have a little lamp I have been leaving on now.I also have a thing that plays music and puts designs up on the wall for her to watch and fall asleep.Hope this helps!

K.,

This sounds like night terrors. My daughter went through them from 1year to 3 years old. Not all the time, just for short periods of time. All you can do is comfort her and keep on doing what you are doing. I also gave my daughter chamomile pills. Hylands brand has a good one that melts in your mouth upon contact with saliva. That is a teething pill and relaxer. Plus she will love them. My daugther is 8 now and I still give them to her when she gets upset or can't sleep. It is not a pill that she will get addicted to it is all natural. Plan on nights of very little sleep. Don't do what I did and take her into your bed. You will never get her out. I am still having problems with that. Good luck and I hope it doesn't last to long for her.

E.

My daughter did the exact same thing when she was just over 1 year old. I actually took her to the doctor because she seemed so miserable I thought she may have an ear infection. Her doctor told me it wasn't an illness but could be two other possibilities. She said she may be having nightmare which are comforted by you but when you place her back in bed by herself she may panic remembering the nightmare. She also said that at her age children start cutting their first molars and this causes a lot of ear pain even if they are not pulling on their ears. We would stay up with her for hours and end up sleeping with her in our recliner some nights. We finally decided to try giving her a dose of tylenol just before bed and it seemed to sooth her enough to sleep through the night. I'm not a big advocate of drugs but it gave all of us a good nights sleep and her molars did show up shortly after these episodes! Good luck!

My son has started doing this about a month ago (he is 17 mo. now) the doctors told me he may be going through the clingy stage. Where he will wake up in the middle of the night and since he hasnt seen me in a while just start screaming for me...

I have now gotten him to start sleeping through the night again but instead of the middle of the night he gets his screaming and clinginess at the beginning of the night. I have to rock him and calm him down pretty much let him just about fall asleep on me then when I put him in his crib he will only cry for about 5 minutes and then go to sleep...

All babies are different... what works for me or anyone else may not work for you. Good luck!

Surely sounds like 'night terrors', and I believe about 25-50% of children have them at one time or another. Only way around it is through it, I'm afraid, but I don't think they remember them afterward. Just stay calm and comfort her. If you're upset, it makes it worse.

Night terrors dont usually hit til two or three, it sounds like developmental stage. Be careful not to let her train you to come in at midnight every night... it will be harder to break the cycle.

I have found with night terrors, a child that goes to bed over-tired is much more susceptible.

They are on a huge learning curve & thinking about sooo much at that age, they often "drop" a learned skill for a while to concentrate on another.

It might be that she is waking up thinking about getting to that new skill she wants to practice. Perhaps if you can figure out what it is, you can let her get to it before bed time.

There is probably no "solution", just patience. Non of these stages last very long. Hang in there.

My daughter did the same thing --also around 1 years old. It actually turned out to be food sensitivity. I got her on an very pure diet (no preservatives, artificial colors, chocolate and dairy) and they stopped. To this day if she eats chocolate too close to bedtime, she'll wake up screaming a couple time a night.
(Note on the chocolate: Apparently --and I didn't know this til recently--non-organic chocolate has pesticides in it! :(

Hi K.
My son (2 now) did something like this when he was about 18 months old. He has slept through the night since about 6 weeks old. He's always slept well and then when he hit about 18 months he started doing what you have described "waking up screaming". I can almost assure you that it is probably not night terrors. Night terrors happen when the child wakes up screaming but is almost uncontrollable. It's almost like the child doesn't even see you come in. You can google "night terrors" to see the exact description. If your child is calmed by the sight of you, it doesn't sound like night terrors. I talked with my pediatrician about this and they didn't feel it was night terrors. She gave me a suggestion: use a night light (this helped us!). Another suggestion was to not pick him up when you go in because then he would expect that every night - then no one gets any sleep. I had a hard time not picking him until I gave in. Fortunately he was only doing this once per night, but it was still scary to here him wake suddenly and start screaming. I've tried to sit next to his bed and pat his back to try to calm him, this worked a few times. But the mother instinct in me just wanted to reach for him and hold him until he calmed down. I actually did this against advice because I wanted my son to know that he can count on me to comfort him. I would then put him down before he fell asleep so that he can still put himself to sleep - to keep some autonomy. This went on for about 3 weeks then it would just happen once in a while after that. I would first wait a minute or two to see if he would just calm himself down first, then I would go in to get him. I hope that this is just a phase, most are. If you are still concerned, try calling your pediatrician. Babies/toddlers grow so fast and as their surroundings start to expand, I feel like this eventually catches up with them and they need a way to vent. Just my thoughts though. Good luck, sorry this was so long. Email if you need anything!

P.

Hi K.. This happened to us at two different periods with my daughter and I was so confused. The first time it turned out she had an ear/sinus infection that wasn't so bad during the day but the pressure built up and caused a lot of pain during the night because she was laying down (according to the doctor). A round of antibiotics, tylenol, and pain drops in the ears cured those episodes. The second time she was getting molars and laying down seemed to make this worse as well causing more teeth and ear pain. Tylenol before bed worked that time as well. I try to refrain from giving my kids drugs, but I always will give them a pain releaver if I think it will help because I see no reason for them to be in pain unecessarily. So, you could try Tylenol before bed, or it may be worth a visit to the doc just to rule out illness. This doesn't sound like night terrors to me because when they have those they aren't waiting for you to come in or responding to you when you get in the room. They are kind of half asleep sort of like what you would imagine in a sleepwalker. Good luck!!

Hey, my son is almost 13 months old. He occasionally does this. 99% of the time, we look at the clock, wait 5 minutes and he's gone back to sleep. So, I suggest just leaving her alone. If you need to, go in and check on her, make sure she's dry then wait a while. Go back in as little as possible. She'll learn that she's just fine. I think it's just because they're waking up during their sleep cycles...nothing is really wrong.
Good luck!

Hey K.! My oldest one did that and my youngest is doing it now. In both cases, I go check on them to see if they were wet or running a fever. If so, then I changed their diapers or gave them some tylenol. If not, I would comfort them for a moment and then lay them back down. I did this for the first few nights that the screaming happened. Afterwards, when I knew that they were hurt or sick, I would delay my response to them and finally waited to see if they would stop crying. Most times they would go back to sleep. It was only when they were sick that they would wake back up and cry. Then I would get up and take care of them. It doesn't hurt to check up on them, especially if they've been around other little ones and might have picked up a bug. But if you're sure that they aren't sick, it won't hurt to delay your response to them over time and finally let them go back to sleep on their own. I hope that this helps.

If she lets you rock her then it's not night terrors. Night terrors are when the kid is screaming but still asleep and dreaming. They are caused by lack of sleep.

My daughter is afraid of the dark and has been since she was born. Maybe it's a little light outside when you put her to bed and when she wakes in the dark later that night she's scared and disoriented. Make sure she has a night light, and a glo-worm toy, and a crib toy that lights up. Promote an attachement to a stuff animal that can be with her for comfort.