Toddler, almost 3, normal?

amother

Thu, Nov 21 2019, 12:03 am

Is it normal for my toddler to be waking up each night screaming & crying? I hug him and calm him down and then he's fine. It's not the type of crying where I can ignore, he sounds scared. Is he having bad dreams? What is it? Is it ok and normal?

FranticFrummie

Thu, Nov 21 2019, 8:19 am

Between 2 and 3, DD used to wake up crying and screaming at 2:10am like clockwork.

It wasn't night terrors, because she was alert and could talk to me, and tell me a little about her dreams.

I had a rocking chair in her room, and I would rock her and give her a snuggle. I told her that when she sleeps her brain gets bored. Her brain starts telling itself stories. Some stories are nice, and some stories are scary. If you don't like the story, you can wake up and say "Brain, I don't like that story! I want a NICE story!"

It was so cute to hear her at night, telling her brain what to do. I told her "You are the boss of your brain, so don't let it boss you around!"

amother

Periwinkle

Fri, Nov 22 2019, 12:19 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

No, it’s not normal. Maybe common, but common does not mean normal. Some of the known causes are poor sleep quality and sickness. If it’s poor sleep quality, figure out what’s causing the poor sleep quality - does he breathe through his mouth at night or his nose? Does he snore? Any signs of sleep apnea? If it’s sickness, there are other things that fall under the sickness umbrella that might not be so obvious- things that the body may be fighting that you’re not aware of, like pinworms or parasites.

Worth it to figure out the real cause.

amother

Magenta

Fri, Nov 22 2019, 10:59 am

Quote:

No, it’s not normal. Maybe common, but common does not mean normal.

We took DS to a top sleep dr at a world renowned children's hospital and he told us it is one hundred percent normal. Like other posters said it is most common between ages 3-6. The dr told us to just comfort the child and make sure they don't harm themself or anyone else and not try to wake them up. After 2-3 minutes they'll calm down and go back to sleep. 99% of the time they remember nothing in the morning so don't bring it up.

miami85

Fri, Nov 22 2019, 10:59 am

amother [ Periwinkle ] wrote:

It's not "normal", but very common, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there's an illness or what to be cured. My toddler is doing this too at night, I think another one of my kids did this too. You could set your watch by it.
It can be night-terrors or some sort of glitch in their circadian rhythm
I've heard that one thing to try is to knock their schedule out of whack so that they have to be "reprogrammed" to sleep again. I'm going through this too. We may have turned a corner, but too soon to tell. The kid who did this now sleeps well at night so there's hope for my current toddler.