15 month old waking in the night, screaming and hysterical
My 15 month old has suddenly started waking at night crying. We go into her room to try to comfort her, and sometimes bring her into bed with us, but our presence seems to make things worse. Sometimes she screams and becomes so hysterical that nothing will calm her down for 30 to 40 minutes. In between these episodes, and during the day, she is otherwise totally normal and her daytime behaviour has not changed.
Are we dealing with separation anxiety or is this closer to night terrors? She always seems awake and aware when she has a screaming jag. We haven't had trouble waking her, so I am thinking it could be separation anxiety. We recently took a 3 week vacation overseas and it was hard for her to adjust to the time change and jet-lag...could that be the reason for these outbursts?
Whatever it is, these tantrums are very scary...I am not sure now whether I should pick her up at night or not. I can't stand the thought of letting her scream alone...and when I go to her and try to comfort her while leaving her in the crib she becomes even more angry.
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I have 5 year old triplet girls. Each and every one of them experienced what you are describing (night terrors) off & on since at least 18 months of age. All of their 'terrors' were deep & frightening, just terrible to work through and I always thought it was something a person just had to outgrow. HOWEVER, my husband did a lot of investigation and found that when we tracked them for about week, each girl had their terrors around their own same time every night. This is a big indicator that it is, in fact, a night terror (also, that they happen within 1.5 - 2 hrs after falling asleep).
solution: If we woke them up 30 minutes prior to their night terror time 3-4 nights in a row, it broke the cycle.
As long as we caught them BEFORE the terror happened, we didn't have to wake them up for long. Just enough to stand up and have a few minutes of coherent conversation to make sure they fully woke.
*Also, night terrors can be very confusing for caretakers, too, because the person having them can appear to be awake. DURING a terror, if you ask them to answer a question, or perform a task, they can almost do it. For example, most recently my husband asked one of our girls to go pick up one of her stuffed animals. She walked right to it, and made the motion of reaching out and grabbing it, but missed it by about a foot. She 100% believed she had it in her arms. Keep giving them little tasks (walk to the bathroom for a drink of water, etc.) until they fully wake.
Here's an article about what night errors are and scheduled awakening therapy. www.nightterrors.org
Perhaps she is getting her molars?
Our daughter had those nightly terrors when she was around 13 months.
The only thing that calmed her down was chewing on bread / toast.
During daytime we just noticed a higher flow of saliva...
Those are called night terrors. I suggest bringing her into your room where, when she starts, you can just put a hand on her back and reassure her back to calm. I had a grandson who would have those...they grow out of them...but you need to have something to counter whatever is "terrorizing" them during their sleep.
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