awake with a shriek

[LucyG]

I have read the Weissbluth book, and we are getting into a pretty good nap routine. The morning nap is going very well, and the afternoon one is "in progress." Anyway, quite often, DD (5 months old) awakes about 30 minutes into her afternoon nap and about an hour after we put her to bed at night. When this happens, she cries out with a loud shriek. It's almost a cry of pain, but there doesn't seem to be a source. There is no preceding fussing, it's just out of the blue. At first, we tried to let her fuss, to see if she'd settle back down. That doesn't work, though, as the crying rapidly progresses to all-out screaming. Putting her pacifier back in sometimes quiets her, and other times she has to nurse to go back to sleep. I'm wondering if this is normal? She often doesn't even appear to be really awake. It's more like she's startled awake (we aren't sure by what), and is more mad than anything. Is this happening with anyone else's baby? If so, what do you do about it? Thanks!

[lizajane]

YES YES!

i bet she is having "night terrors" which can happen at any age. it has happened twice to Schuyler. he screamed bloody murder, but was sound asleep. fortunatly, i had heard about this from my mom because my sister had them at 18 months. ds had them before 12 weeks. my mom says that they are in a different level of sleep. all you need to do it help them switch to a different level of sleep. she said not to pick him up, because then he gets scared. but instead, to pet him and talk gently to him until he switches. the second time it happened, dh went in there and picked him up. he screamed and screamed, but was totally limp asleep. he called his name a few times and suddenly, boom, he was quiet and still asleep. he put him back down and we didn't hear another peep until he woke up. he shouldn't have picked him up maybe, but it didn't do any harm that time. the process took less than 5 minutes.

whew. long story.

HTH!! i know how scary it is!!!

liza

[COElizabeth]

I think it's normal and related to the transition between different phases of sleep. James used to wake up about 45 minutes after going to sleep at night, and it would take a couple of "tries" to get him to sleep for a long time. He would also do it sometimes during naps. I don't have a magic solution. I would sometimes wait a few minutes to see if he would go back to sleep, but if not, I just started over getting him to bed. Even today he woke up with a shriek from a nap but then went back to sleep pretty quickly for another hour or so.

Elizabeth
Mom to James
9-20-02