6 Mos to Young for Bad Dreams

I am not sure if 6 months is to young for bad dreams, but when my son was 1 year old he would wake up screaming, tears rolling down his face and would continue this for at least 45 minutes. I took him to the doctor and the doctor said it was something called night terrors which is like a bad dream. Even my holding him and turning the light on would not calm him down. He had these every couple of nights for several months and hasn't had any in almost 2 years now.
Put a call in to the doctor it can't hurt.

Someone told us that when our little guy was about that age that they "could" be dreaming about their birth experience. I wasn't sure that I believed that. He definatley had some night terror type things that bolted him awake and seemed to scare him though.
Good luck!
B.

Yes, it could but can she be teething. Usually at that age some kids begin teething and it does hurt and they cry.

How long has she been waking up like this? My son had bad ear infections and never once showed the typical signs such as red ears, pulling on ears or fever. It could be the pressure in her ears builds up. My son was able to nap without problems but overnight was just too long laying flat. Just a thought.

Someone told me that my daughter "must" have an ear infection when she did that about the same age. We went to the Dr. and she was fine. I was told that they can have bad dreams that young, but I haave no clue what they are dreaming about! Good luck, and I hope you all get some sleep!
E.

I don't think it's bad dreams. Does it happen 1-3 hours after you put her to sleep? It's probably what they refer to as "night waking" or "night terrors" (in older kids). She screams and screams but she's not really awake, and the only thing you can do is flip on the lights and suddenly she "snaps out of it"? If this is the case, it's just a disruption in her sleep cycles. Believe it or not, the best thing to do is let her scream it out. When you flip on the lights or nurse her you're just waking her up. She will learn to settle herself and fall back asleep very quickly if you just stand near the doorway and make sure she doesn't hurt herself (not really an issue with a 6 month old, though when older kids do this they sometimes sit/stand up - in that case laying them back down and tucking them in will help.

The Ferber book (Solving your child's sleep problems) actually has a really good explanation of why this occurs - I believe it's pretty common. Our son did this around that age too. The thing that caused us to be OK with letting him cry was that he was definintely not awake, and it seemed to be more disruptive for him if we intervened than if we just left him alone.