Waking Baby - Truckee,CA

Since he seems to settle down after a few seconds, it could be a phenomenon calles night terrors, in which the child never actually wakes up, and doesn't remember the event later. Nightmares are also possible, but generally the child will come fully awake and need comforting to fall asleep again.

Here's a useful link explaining both (look at the second link at the bottom of the first page to read about nightmares).

http://www.babysleepsite.com/night-terrors-nightmares/bab...

There is nothing to do. If he goes back to sleep on his own, that's what he is supposed to do. Some kids have night terrors. They don't remember them and they don't wake from them. You can't control dreams. He is growing and learning how to take care of himself. Very important skill for a child to learn. Try not to worry. He sounds fine.

It sounds like he is learning to self soothe. I wouldn't worry about it. If he's had 6 ear infections, he might actually be dreaming about them.

As long as he's just crying out briefly and falling back asleep I don't see any problem. Visually check on him each time, if that makes you feel more comfortable, but don't disturb him. It could be dreams, or just a bit of restlessness in his sleep pattern, but doesn't sound like anything serious. Most children go through this type of thing at some point... and I think we adults do something similar in our sleep too.

My 13 month old is doing the same thing, and in addition to the night terrors, my doctor also explained to me that when kids are super actively learning to use their body in all these difficult ways - like learning to walk, climb etc - during their sleep they are stirred by thinking about these movements - kind of like if you have ever gone skating after not doign it for years - how the image of your feet gliding can stay with you for hours or days.

For babies - this is learning to move their bodies, it keeps them from sleeping heavy, and can startle them to wake up - then they scream, and then realize they'd rather be sleeping- that they really aren't up and about. Like I said, my daughter does this a lot, and as a good sleeper, it concerned me a lot. But this explanation made a lot of sense to me, and now it doesn't worry me at all!! And, when I hear her yell, if I go in her room that wakes her up more. If I'm really worried I wait 5-10 minutes to make sure she is back ASLEEP before I check on her. If I go in when she is screaming - we are up for 30 minutes or more trying to calm her down. I also then try to make sure she's fallen asleep in a comfortable positions - sometimes she can be in some really odd ones that make me think she'll wake up again!!

Hope that helps!
D.

If he is going back to sleep on his own I would just leave it alone. He is learning to self-soothe and seems to be doing a good job of it.

My 4 year old daughter does suffer from night terrors and she never remembers the incident the following day. The night terror usually lasts a few minutes and then she just falls back asleep.

Around 14 months of age both of my kids woke up from teething pain but that would keep them awake and they would need some kind of relief from the pain to be able to go back to sleep.

My baby does that now at 18 mos. If he isn't doing it for long and falls back to sleep, then it could be that he's scared when he wakes up in a dark room. Do you have a nightlight? I put one in my baby's room. It's helped a lot! I wait to make sure he's not waking up hungry (which he's done a few times and I get up and change/ feed him. Most times I think he is talking in his sleep and scared so I wait to be sure. Sure enough those times he falls back to sleep.