does this sound like night terrors?

[Chachah]

Dd (10 months) has always been a good sleeper, she goes down at 7pm easily and usually sleeps through.

In the past ten days though, she's woken up 3 times around 1-2am, crying but still lying in her cot, and when I pick her up she becomes really upset, thrashes and arches her back against me. (Really really unusual for her, if she does wake up at night I find her standing waiting for me, and she calms down as soon as I pick her up.)

The first time it happened - I accidentally banged her head against a wall trying to get her some water, and weirdly it completely calmed her down, she went right back to sleep

The second time, I eventually managed to calm her down but she would start crying every time I put her back into her cot, so I took her to bed with me. She was quiet but took over an hour getting back to sleep.

The third time (last night) I gave her water which did calm her down, she went back to sleep but woke up again crying 20 minutes later, again thrashing etc if I picked her up. Put her in bed with me, again she was quiet but took over an hour getting back to sleep.

Does this sound like night terrors? Any advice on how I should approach things?

[BunnyPotter]

I don't know if it's night terrors, but it sounds like an option. The key - I found - was they they need to be fully woken up in order for it to stop and then go back to sleep. The accidental bang in the head sounds like that happened. We found that turning lights on, talking normally BEFORE picking child up helped a lot. Then we'd go downstairs - again with lights on - and get water. We did this every time and they stopped within 10 days (can't remember how long).

Before we did that, DS would go utterly nuts if we tried to touch him. Apparently that's because they're still having the nightmare and you're the demon actually touching them! Pretty horrible!

[worldgonecrazy]

We had this for a few days. A bit of googling brought up the following:

Don't use their names - they don't know who you are and it just scares them.

Remove anything that they are likely to be damaged by, or place them on the floor away from furniture.

Taking them into a different room or downstairs can help.

It will pass and it's not personal - it is however horrible to have your child terrified and screaming at you.

[WarmTunaRolls]

Aww poor girl, my son is the same. when his night terrors happen he screams like a maniac! I tried everything from cuddling him to giving him more toys around his bed. Turns out he was having the night terrors BECAUSE of the soft toys I gave him. Sigh, oh well you learn from your mistakes. I now know my DS doesn't like happy tree friend toys, and he now sleeps like a log. Good luck hun hope your dd sleeps better soon x

[Chachah]

thanks everyone!!

the googling I've done says you shouldn't wake them until after they've calmed down, but maybe it depends how it's done. I guess I'll have to try a few things and see what works...