10 Month Old Son W/"night Terrors"

this sounds JUST like my son.

my son had night terrors, just like i did as a child.
still, 25 years later, they still dont know why some kids get them, others dont, and what exactly to do about it.

heres what i know both as a parent, and a child care provider required to keep up with child development information....
night terrors are distinguished from nightmares by the fact that the child will not wake up, they will last around 5-10 minutes, and your child will go right back to sleep as if nothing happened, and wont remember it. (like he could tell you about it anyway at his age)

nightmares however, which my son has now, the child will wake himself up crying, will be unconsolable, and will NOT go back to sleep on his own.

whats worked for me (ive NEVER used the cry it out method. www.askdrsears.com has reasons...) is to immediatly get my son out of his crib. we are usually watching tv or something in the living room, it doesnt matter, we remove our son from his bed, and bring him out to the living room where there is lights on and that kind of thing. he snuggles with us, sometimes gets a drink of water, but mostly he just snuggles calmly and goes back to sleep, and then we put him back to bed.
the reason i feel that this works, is when a child wakes up from a nightmare, they cannot reason their way through it (kids dont have inner speech until around 8 YEARS of age - which means they cant talk themselves through ANY situation) they cant tell themselves that it wasnt real and that they are safe. they genuinly feel fearful. removing my son from his crib in my opinion disconnects the dream from his bed. instead of sitting in his crib and remembering the dream alone, he can snuggle, which promotes GOOD feelings, and he can calm himself from the dream. distracting noises from the tv takes his mind off the dream. he gets the good feelings of love and safety and he falls back to sleep. i feel that if he were left in his bed to remember the dream, he wouldnt get those lovey feelings of safety, and he would start to connect the crib with being scared and having scary dreams. he would figure out that we wont come get him and comfort him in the way he needs... and that would make him more scared.
just think about how you feel when you have a nightmare (unless you are lucky enough not to remember your dreams) and how though you can talk your way through it, you still feel your heart race, you still sit up awake for a while after from the disturbance of the dream. and remember again, babies, children to age 8 cannot talk their way through it saying its ok, its not real... that kind of thing.

its MORE than ok to pick up your son. dont let anyone else tell you that you will spoil him, that he will expect it every time until he goes to college, that he will start waking at night just to get attention... those things just arent true. its more important to comfort your child during a time of need than it is to 'teach' him that he needs to be self reliant, especially at 10 months old! in order to grow to be independent, your son needs a healthy dose of dependence. he needs to know that you are there for him to fulfill his needs and then he will naturally grow to be independent all on his own. its not something you teach, its something you nurture. independence, like empathy, is not a teachable skill, its something they can only learn by feeling. when a child feels safe, and they know their needs are met at all times, they can confidently go out into the world knowing they are loved, their needs are fulfilled, you know? a child who is unsure whether or not their needs will be met will go out into the world unsure of everything. after all, if their own parents couldnt understand them and love them the way they needed, how could anyone else? how could they love themselves?

it just makes sense i guess. i look at the world thats full of kids (through adults who were put through cry it out techniques) who cant deal. they are angry, they dont have any self esteem (which, again, you cant teach, you have to nurture) they cant love anyone else because they dont understand love to begin with, they will always equate love with hurt. after all, if a parent's love means that they have to hurt you by leaving you alone to cry... well, then that must mean that i have to hurt the ones i love..... whatever way that means. i dont know. its open ended. the short story is, if the majority of parents use cry it out, and the majority of kids and adults these days misunderstand love, their parents, etc,..... then obviously crying it out isnt good for anyone.

anyway. dont let me change your parenting. i dont know your baby. i cant hear his cries. a little crying it out now and then at his age isnt that terrible, as long as your heart isnt hurting when hes crying. your heart will instinctivly tell you if he really needs you or if, for example, hes just tired and needs to go to sleep. however, even then, simply rocking or singing or reading to him will help him to not have to cry. trust me, your child's lungs will develop without having to cry. my son has great lungs. im reminded every minute of every day with his loud talking, laughing, and playing :D. so just do what you have to do, what your heart tells you to do, no matter what anyone else says. they may think they have the best advice, but they dont know your son as well as you do, and they never will. they dont have to live with the consequences of your parenting. thats why it is VERY important to NEVER do anything that makes you uncomfortable, no matter who tells you to do it; even if its the doctor. you should NEVER have to do anything that makes your heart feel funny. thats instinct. find ways around it. parent the best you can by following your heart. :D
good luck. feel free to write me if you have any questions... and i dont mean to offend, just inform... so i hope that nothing ive said offends you....

My 4 year old had the same thing. They started around 1 and lasted until he was 2 1/2. He would just start screaming inconsolably. Sometimes he would wake up, other times he would stay asleep. In reality, I have no real advice about why they happen or what to do. My husband and I would try to wake him up and just cuddle him and reassure him everything was fine. We always stayed with him until they were over and they didn't usually last more than 30 minutes. I did notice, they happened more frequently when we traveled. He is a very sharp little guy and he never seemed to remember anything the next morning. I'm sorry that I don't have a solution for you but I hope all goes well and that he grows out of them like my son.

Hi. My son who is now 2 1/2 does this same thing. He will wake up screaming and won't quit till we wake him up. We also try everything. sometimes if I just stand next to his bed and very quietly say his name and tell him it is ok, but don't touch him, he is ok. sometimes I have to rub his back and tell him it is ok... but other times nothing works. We then have to wake him up and sometimes it takes up to an hour!!!! We just kind of rough house with him...talk to him, we only know when he is truly awake when he will take a sippy or a snack. We have never given either one of our children chocolate or caffeine so I know that is not the case with him. I have heard that it is pretty common and that they grow out of it most of the time. (thank goodness) But he has been having them off and on for about a year...i really notice it when we get off of his schedule a lot during the day, that is when we have a lot of trouble. But he doesn't go to bed untill 8:30 and gets up at about 8. he also take one nap during the da, but if he doesn't get that nap or if it is really late that day, he usually will have one. I hope that helps a little. sorry I don't have better advice for you. good luck!

Try the homeopathic remedies Phosphorous, Kali brom., and/or Aconite.

Any chance it could be acid reflux? My daughter cried out during the middle of the night her first 2 months. Our doc suggested trying the medicine and that did the trick. It took about 2 weeks to get the dosage right, and then she was on it till 15 months. I tried at 8 and 12 months to take her off of the medicine and both times she started the night-time crying again so I put her right back on it!

Just an idea, but worth thinking about.

I think your son's night terrors are escalating due to the fact that he's at the age where separation anxiety is strongest and you should take a look at the Dr. Sears link suggested by Ericka. I suggest cosleeping but a lot of people don't understand how helpful it can be for a baby so they never try it...Dr. Sears explains it really well on his website and in his baby book!

C., our son had those. They seem scary, but as you know, it's common. There were only 2 things that worked for us. They both involved "getting his attention" (talking to him didn't work...). The first thing that always worked was to step outside with him. You don't stay out there. Just step out. The cool air will wake him up and cause him to try to figure out whats going on. Then you can hopefully put him back to bed. The other thing that worked for us is to sit in the living room in the dark and turn on a cartoon. I know your little boy is still really young, so it may not work. But for our little guy, it totally captured his attention. It only took maybe 10 minutes and we were able to turn it off and put him back in bed. Of course, now you are wide awake. :-) Good luck. Hope it works!

My now 5 year old had night terrors. He would get out of bed and run screaming down the hallway and run back into his room still screaming. His episodes would last about 5 minutes or more sometimes. The good thing is unlike nightmares, they don't remeber them in the morning. I asked my doctor what I could do to help him and he recomended playing music. I bought the Einstein Lullaby cd and I play that for him. The music keeps them from getting into the really deep sleep when the terrors happen, but it still allows them to sleep. After I started playing the music for him the terrors happened less often, he was having them almost everynight. Now he seems to have grown out of them, but I still play the music just to be sure. I hope this helps. It worked for us. Good luck.

Hello C.! I was going to suggest what Christy said! My daughter would wake screaming and the Dr. was convinced it was night terrors. It turned out that she had severe acid heartburn. She had it when she was a newborn and I thought she had grown out of it.
We didn't need to put her on meds this time (so far) but make sure she doesn't go to bed too soon after eating and we try to pair complex carbs with protein and limit white flour and sugar all we can.
Also, has he ever been to the chiropractor? Is he learning to pull himself up or walk? When my kids reached certain milestones they got very tight muscles in their backs and would often have tummy trouble.

If this doesn't ring true then just chuck it out! :) I do hope you find a solution! It's hard for baby AND parents!

My son did this also, and his night terrors usually took about an hour. I have read that children don't remember anything from night terrors--they're not like dreams, where they wake up afraid. I don't know, but my son never woke up upset about his terrors. We actually got up with him and rocked him, even took him outside in the chilly air once. Ours routinely lasted an hour, but he outgrew them by about 2 1/2 or 3 years old. I'd say unless they're really frequent (in which case, maybe a doctor has some more serious advice about getting sleep), it's just a matter of waiting it out. My son also seemed to be awake, but wasn't. His eyes were open, but you could kinda tell by the way he held his body and didn't respond at all to us--or soothing--that he wasn't truly awake. We actually didn't know they were night terrors until we'd tried soothing him for a while, only to realize he was oblivious to our presence, because his eyes were open and he was even talking/babbling, although not in response to what we were saying. Good luck; I know it's quite a disturbance!

My son did this also. It is really terrible because you feel like you cannot comfort him. A few things that worked for us:
Baby Einstein videos are very calming in the night. We also would bounce him on an exercise ball because the motion seemed to help.

Another thing that worked very well was to put him in a swing (the blue kind you see outside in the summer for babies). We hung one in our basement - and it was a lifesaver for getting things done as well. I think the motion of swinging was good. This kind of swing works well because it is a bigger swinging motion.

You may also want to try homeopathic calming tablets. You can get them at a co-op. We use Hyland's Calms Forte - they are all natural and gentle.

Good luck!

My daughter did this a few times. What i heard is to hold them (not tightly) just to keep them safe. But not to try to wake them up as just your voice might frighten them. My daughter thought bugs were crawling all over her bed. Here is a website i just found that might be helpful:
http://www.nightterrors.org/

This sounds very similar to my son, and it happened around 9 months with him and luckily didn't last very long. What helped with us was to wake him up completely by taking him outside, running the bath water, turning on bright lights, etc. It seemed to snap him out of it, and then we were able to console him with his sippy cup.

My eldest daughter had severe night terrors starting at about 14 months old and lasting until she was about 3 quite frequently.
We went to her doctor, and she told us to just let her cry it out and to keep her in her room with her door shut. I suppose it was so she didn't get out and hurt herself....
But it broke my heart to listen to her cry and seem to be so scared.
What we did is we cut off caffeine after 3:00pm. (no pop or chocolate) This did seem to make a difference....but when she did have a night terror, we found that if we woke her up she would go right back to sleep.
We tried everything to wake her up....we tried nudging her, wiping her face with a cold wash cloth, turning on the lights,etc...nothing worked. Her eyes would be open, but she was still asleep (it was odd) Finally, we put her under the shower (jammies still on) and she would finally wake up and give us the strangest look and ask why she was under the shower when she was older. Then we would change her and tuck her back into bed and she usually would go back to sleep and sleep through the night immediately.
Just a quick FYI...we did research and found that night terrors usually happen when the child has to much caffeine, is overstimulated, and their brains are working overtime to process information. Usually the night terrors occur within the first few hours of going to sleep.
Hope this helps, and sorry you have to go through this...but they do outgrow it. I should tell you though, that my eldest who is now 10 1/2 when she is overtired, she will sleepwalk. Thankfully, it isn't to often. Plus, she still doesn't get caffeine or cough syrup or benedryl after 3:00...just in case. :)