Sorry OT - Is this night terror?

[PetiteMoi]

I've posted this in another forum but I've had such good response in here before and I know a lot of you have toddlers so please excuse my off-topic post!

My daughter will be 3 in August. Last night she had what I think must have been an attack of night terror, but after reading about it there are a few things that don't match.

For example, it started off with her just crying normally like she does when she wakes up sometimes and I settled her by just stroking her head. Then a minute later she woke up again crying and I left her for a bit thinking she'd settle like she normally does but the crying got worse so I went into her room.

The next part fits straight into the night terror theory - she started thrashing about in bed, hitting her teddy, crying inconsolably and got more upset the more I tried to comfort her. Singing, which usually works really well, made her scream even harder. I couldn't get through to her at all, she didn't want me there but she still didn't want me to leave the room.

I went to our bedroom and asked my DH to go in. He did but then she came running to me and finally I could cuddle her. I rocked her in our bed until she calmed down a bit and then lay her down next to me. She was calm for a couple of minutes, but then she had what seemed to be another attack. She screamed and hit around her and I couldn't comfor her at all. She also pointed to the ceiling saying 'I want that!!!'.

She then wanted a cuddle (which didn't seem typical of night terror?) and I held her until she fell asleep. After a few minutes she nearly gave me and DH a heart attack when she let out a really sudden, high-pitched horror like scream but she stayed asleep after that.

The whole thing lasted for about 45 minutes. I read night terrors last for max 15 mins.

What do you guys think? Is it night terror or something else??

 

[October2013]

Oh my gosh, poor little baby! That sounds frightening for her AND you.
I have no experience or advice to offer but I would most definitely guess a night terror or a really bad series of nightmares. I know someone who actually remembers having a night terror as a child, and he was also swatting around his head... He thought there were bats flying around him.

 

[PetiteMoi]

Oh my gosh, poor little baby! That sounds frightening for her AND you.
I have no experience or advice to offer but I would most definitely guess a night terror or a really bad series of nightmares. I know someone who actually remembers having a night terror as a child, and he was also swatting around his head... He thought there were bats flying around him.

Thanks for your reply hun

Did your friend remember these attacks? They say with night terrors you're not awake and you won't remember them, but DD seemed to calm down when I said her name loud and clear and seemed somewhat 'there' between attacks of being unreachable... Scary

 

[Georgia7]

I used to have night terrors all the time, your half awake and half asleep. I used to have ones that someone was trying to drag me under the bed and I was struggling to fight them off... There strange because when its happening I would think in my head, right okay this is just a night terror, try and wake yourself up. So I think the initial struggle is you trying to wake up so it ends! There awful things. It sounds to me like she was having a night terror, I've had ones where I have them. I wake myself up, then drift off seconds later and it's happening again so perhaps this is what was happening to her. Poor little thing though. There not nice. But as scary as they are at the time the next day I always felt completely fine xxx

 

[PetiteMoi]

Georgia - thanks for your reply Sounds like you've had a hard time with those night terrors So that means you DO remember them, even though it says everywhere that you don't. Sounds like something similar happened to my daughter as she sort of came in and out of it. Did you find that doing anything specific helped prevent them? Sounds awful

 

[shaunasmommy]

My dd used to have them almost every night. She would wake up, but she wasn't awake. I could not get her to come to, and would just have to be with her until it passed. She would wake up thrashing and screaming, and after a couple minutes would just fall back in bed and be sound asleep. She never woke up through it at all. Eventually, after about a year or two, they have completely stopped. But now, she will wake up, and walk around the house and maybe get a drink of water, or say something off the wall like "Please can we go to Holiday World tomorrow?" or "I refuse to eat that cereal for breakfast!" and then she will go back to bed and like with the terrors, not awake and completely oblivious to everyone around her. but when I talk to her it isn't a reality. She usually thinks I am someone else, whoever she is dreaming about at the time. Sometimes me, and sometimes her teacher or a school friend. But instead of being terrors now, she just sleep walks. And she never remembers it in the morning.

 

[PetiteMoi]

I heard night terrors usually affects people where sleep walking or sleep talking runs in the family, which it does in ours - I guess they are all connected... My DH talks in his sleep and my sister used to talk AND walk and she would be in a world of her own.

 

[Amsan]

I'm only expecting my first but that's what it sounds like to me...

I remember being little and having night terrors about a vampire and these thorn bushes that killed all my friends.

Even to this day there are some nights where I'm in between being awake and asleep and really think that something is there in my room with me. There have been times I thought someone was laying in bed with me until I jump up and shine my phone light on the bed, or someone else in the room with me, sometimes animals too. Its weird. I wish I had some sort of advice to comfort her but I don't remember anything working for me when I was little

 

[BubsMom17]

My son has typical night terrors. He "wakes up" restless, then the crying and yelling and kicking and thrashing around starts and there is no getting through to him. It is like a combination of being very scared and being very angry at the same time. His eyes are open and everything but he isn't actually awake. Then suddenly he will just pass back out and be fine and have no recollection of it. He hasn't had them since he was two (he is almost 3 and a half now).

I think when they are very little they can't remember them, but as kids get older they may have more of a capacity for recalling their dreams.

 

[Oasis717]

My son who's 5 in Nov has had these since he was 1. I'm really hoping he grows out of them as they're so distressing, his eyes are open but he doesn't respond to me, he just cries mummy, mummy over and over again, turning around and screaming at things that aren't there, touching him or talking to him makes him cry more so all I can do is sit with him til it's over. They're worse when he's tired and when he's ill he can get them much more. Many times he'll just cry first a bit, then go back to sleep, then cry again and the night terror starts, feel so sorry for him but he remembers nothing the next day xxx