I've done the benadryl thing, repetively every night for a couple weeks - because of allergy problems, not sleep problems. When it was time to take her off - she actually had problems going to sleep. Sometimes the assistance doctors suggest, backfires!! When he's awake, if you get him to calm down will he respond to a question? If not, then I would say that he may be having a Night Terror. Our youngest daughter has them, and it's the scarriest thing, and it usually takes us a good 30 minutes to wake her up. Her eyes will be open, and she'll be screaming really loud and high pitched. Once she feels us holding her she'll start to calm down - but never answers a question. If we go to put her down before she starts talking, she'll scream again. We usually lightly shake her, tickle her, whatever - we'll try everything short of being mean. Once we get her responding to our questions, she'll start to nod off and we can put her in bed. We've actually noticed a pattern to them. If she's going to have a Night Terror it's before 10:00 p.m., wish we knew what night though - sometimes it's 2 or 3 times a week, right now we're in a stretch that she hasn't had one in about a month!! Good luck!