Waking up screaming

[swan1]

For the last week Charlie has been suddenly screaming in his sleep, he is 13 months, he has always had a bedtime routine and nothing has changed and he goes down happily about 7.45pm. It usually starts between 12 and 1am and when i first go in, he is screaming but still has his eyes shut and appears asleep, after giving him his dummy he may settle for 5 mins or so and then it starts again and by this point he is awake and standing up in his cot.

When i go in and comfort him and talk to him he calms down but as soon as i try to leave its hysterical again. This can go on for anything up to 2 to 3 hours. He has had a cold recently but doctors checked him out and there was no infection anywhere so i am at a loss as to what to do. I really dont think he is being clever and is doing it for attention, he has done that before but this is different, its like he is really scared and upset.


I dont know if children of his age have nightmares or not but thats the only thing i can think of. He wont settle in my bed, I have never had him in with us and he doesnt associate my bed with sleeping and just tries to sit up all the time.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

alison

 

[Nicky_Jones]

Firends of ours had this with their boy at about that age, and were told it was "just" night terrors. They found that when they woke like this giving them a dose of Medised helped them get back to sleep. They went to the doctor because they were worrying about giving him it too often (we are only talking one dose a night) and the doctor said it was much better for them to have a good nights sleep than we awake for hours and not have the Medised. It stopped about a month or 2 IIRC.