Night terrors or nightmare?

Twice in the past 2 weeks my dd has awoken screaming, her eyes are open and she seems at first to be alert but I can't understand anything she is saying (she is 3). She just screams Mama over and over again and nothing I do can console her. It seems once I turn on the light she settles but it's like she doesn't know I'm there at first. With night terrors I read that they don't respond or realize you are there and but in her case at first she doesn't but then she seems to acknowledge my presence after a min or two and will allow me to pick her up, so that's why I am thinking nightmares? She will eventually lay back down but with me and she opens her eyes every few minutes almost as if she is making sure I am there. I have not asked her the next morning if she remembers. I read that with night terrors they won't remember it happening. Should I be calling her pediatrician about this or is this just normal toddler stuff. I am a first time mom so this is all new to me. I am so sad for her that she is so scared.

Re: Night terrors or nightmare?

I had night terrors growing up. My mom used to put me on the toilet to pee. I can remember SO many times walking up on the toilet tearing streaming down my face hysterical but having no idea why! I don't think you're supposed to wake the person up, but I think by going to the bathroom you'll wake up naturally.

My younger brother had them too. One time I witnessed one. He was hysterical over his spelling test thinking he wrote "s h I t" instead of ship. My mom was holding the test trying to show him he didn't write a bad word lol. For what it's worth we both grew out of it and are relatively normal well mannered people now!

Also I used to have a reoccurring nightmare for years too. Until one day around age 9-10 it stopped and I never had it again. I still remember it so vividly and no matter what it doesn't make much sense.

Night terrors or nightmare?

Thanks for your response. She still in an overnight diaper so I wonder if that would work. She went back to sleep but she was so unsettled so I'm wondering if maybe she is just having nightmares. Did it happen every night for you when you were younger or more of a sparatic thing?

Re: Night terrors or nightmare?

If it is night terrors, there really isn't much the ped can do.

I suffered from them and to this day, I will randomly have one. Not often but it does still happen at random.

Most of the time I wont' remember them in the morning . Sometimes I will have a vague feeling of being disturbed that i can't put my finger on and sure enough DH will ell me I screamed in my sleep. Or jumped out of bed.

I do remember waking up with my heart racing so fast that I thought I would just drop dead of a heart attack. Its like pure pure terror and you don't remember why.
Like I didn't even know it was possible for your heart to race that fast.

Hopefully it was just a nightmare and she will outgrow it, but even if it's a night terror, they aren't really harmful, just difficult to deal with as an observer...in general the sufferer doesn't even recall it.

Night terrors or nightmare?

actually night terrors there is something they can do if your child has enlarged tonsils and/or adenoids - recurrant night terrors can be fixed for some kids if their adenoids and/or tonsils are removed

I had recurrant night terrors as kid -for years and would wake up screaming and scared but never could describe what I was scared of. I had enlarged adenoids - back then they did not know to remove them to help night terrors - but my night terrrors ended at puberty when my adenoids started to shrink

my cousin's daughter had her tonsils and aednoids removed also had a lot of strep and the night terrors disappeared

Night terrors or nightmare?

Both my twins' have night terrors. With my Son we figured out it happened more frequently when he had sugar at night so we stopped giving him anything with sugar in it after a certain time. He still gets them every once in a while but nearly as frequently as he was. With my Daughter she is going through them now pretty badly and we don't know why. It's just the way you describe your DD but hers are lasting much longer. Last night I was out and DH called me to come home because she was going on 20 or 30 minutes screaming and crying asking for me but had no idea he was there. She doesn't remember them in the morning. And when she is done with her night terror she's not really awake but will acknowledge we are there and when we ask her if she is ready to go back to bed she will shake her head yes and lay right back down and fall right back asleep. Poor thing has had 3 nights of them so far this week. Sometimes she will have 2 in one night.

Message edited 12/19/2014 8:56:36 AM.

Re: Night terrors or nightmare?

Both my kids have nightmares.
They can tell me what they are...

"Ants"
"Scary goofy"
"Brother ate all my ice cream"
"Papa ate all my soup"
"Captain Hook"

I think it's normal stuff. I hug them & reassure them it was just a dream.

I have pretty vivid nightmares too.