Child Waking up in the Middle of the Night Screaming.

Hello, my name is E.. I am a 27 year old mother of one. My daughter recently went through a similar situation. She really never had a problem sleeping before. In early October she started waking up screaming. Not a whine but like something was wrong. I took her to the doctors and she had hands foot and mouth virus. Well, that pasted in about a week and she started sleeping for a couple days, then she started waking up screaming again. That went on for the rest of the month. Around the end of the month she had her 15 month appt. The doctor said sometimes when they get an illness, they regress back. The schedules they had are out the window. So you have to get them back on a schedule, again. She also said it could be nightmares, or night terrors, but i read up on the internet about it and the discriptions don't seem to fit. I think she was just use to us baby-ing her while she was sick and she wanted that. She is also, teething as well, which may had something to do with it. I tried to keep her up as long as possible, around 10-11 at night, not let her take long naps, so she would sleep at night. Then every night put her to bed a bit early. Her schedule used to be 8:30PM -6:30AM when she wasn't sleeping it was 8:30PM-12:30AM and was up until 3-4AM. Then i had to be up for work early. It takes a lot out of you, i know but eventually it will pass. Even though it seems like forever.

I second Jamie S. suggestion. Try Hyland Teeting Tablets. They work wonders. It could be that her first molars are coming in which is extremly painful. They sell these tablets all over the place, including Acme, and Whole Foods. Plus they are homeopathic so they won't interact with anything else you might give your daughter. I have used them successfully since my daughter was 4 months. And she would really only wake up in the middle of the night because of teething. I hope this helps, and good luck.

It very well could be that your husband not being around much lately has something to do with it. When my daughter was around 17 months old, my husband had to work out of town and was only home on the weekends. My daughter has always been a very big daddy's girl and she took it very hard when she was not seeing him very often. She was having night terrors almost every night. At first I had no idea what was going on. I thought she was teething, had bad gas, or something. A friend mentioned night terrors so I did a search on the internet for night terrors and sure enough, that was exactly what was happening. Although there is nothing that can be done about the night terrors, the internet does have a lot of helpful information. I would definitely recommend looking night terrors up and seeing if that is what is going on.

When my twin sons were younger they would start screaming while they were sleeping (they were maybe around 5-6 months) and the pediatrician said they were having night terrors, it might be this. I would talk to the pediatrician about it more.

Hi C.,
My daughter is 21 months old, and unfortunately she still wakes in the middle of the night. She is a great sleeper, and loves going to bed, but sometimes during the night, even during the day naps, she will wake screaming. I used to go in and try to comfort her, but quickly learned that that just starts a bad habit and stopped going in. She now will cry for a few minutes and then just put herself back to sleep.
I hope this helps, but moreover I hope she starts sleeping thru the night again.
T.

My son did the exact same thing at 17 months....freaked me out.
He didn't sleep through the night for about 3 weeks (awful sleepless nights!) and woke up screaming and shaking. The first week I just stayed up with him comforted him and it stopped....for a day. Then the next week, I thought he had learned this behavior and I would comfort him, change him and make sure he had a sippy cup of water (if favorite cuddle toy) and put him back into the crib (still shaking, mind you).
The third week I was FRAZZLED. Lost my temper a few nights and let him cry it out for an hour then went in and paid the price...he wouldn't go back to sleep. Eventually I just went in, picked him up to make sure he wasn't hurt in anyway and then put him right back down....this worked after a few nights and haven't had the problem since. I think it was partially a learned behavior - he got used to me coming in and holding him and he liked it. Use your best judgement is about all I can say, but this too shall pass.

Possibly she doesn't need the nap in the day?
My son keeps changing all the time. It's tough but then i realize...oh, he needs something different. He went from needing 2 naps a day, to one. Has always slept through the night, but then bedtime would get later.
I kinda think of it like when I was a teenager and required less or more sleep depending on what "stage" i was in. Just seems like different "stages" and once I realize what is happening I adjust accordingly. He also had the "night terrors" and it was like he was half asleep. If i tried picking him up he flopped around like a fish out of water. I found that just rubbing his back for a few min and talking quietly calmed him down (that is when it was REALLY BAD). I think I have also said in earlier posts that I use a radio turned down low to a classical station and he "sleeps like a baby" hahaha. No, it really works. It's like they can kinda hear it so they know they're not alone.
Hope this helps.

it might be nightmares my son has them the best thing to do is comfort her and let her know your there and oput her back to sleep it might just be something she saw during the day that may have frightened her like new people or situations.

could be night terrors. if this is the case there really is - unfortanately - nothing you can do. one way to tell if these are night terrors is if your child does not want you to comfort her when this happens. my son went through the same thing at around 16-18 months old. the only thing you can do is pretty much let them "work through" it. it's very difficult to do - i've been there, your first instinct is to comfort you child any way you can, but with night terrors (which are kind of like nightmares, but not really) you can't comfort them. look it up on the internet and see if you can find any suggestions on getting through it. it lasted about 2 - 3 weeks with my son.
good luck, and hopefully you'll be through this soon!

My daughter is about the same age as yours, but she has all her teeth but 4, but when she was getting teeth, I use to give her hyland's teething tablets. you can get them at walmart i use to give her 1 tablet 3 times a day and then 2 more before bed. We had no problems what so ever with teething. The tablets help soften the gums to make the teeth coming thru alot easier on her and you.