Waking up Crying in the Night

My son does this every now and then. Now that he speaks well, he tells me that he had a bad dream. When he was 3, he would do the same thing. He would cry and ask me to lay next to him. Then he would move around in the bed, toss and turn. Later on it became less and less. Now it happens every now and then as I stated before. When it happens I ask him what happened and recently he told me he was dreaming about a giant dinosaur. I told him that dinosaurs are extinct and they are no longer around. He looked at me and said oh. He is getting much better with this, he can go back to sleep without my help.

I would assume she is having a bad dream and don't know how to express it. I would ask her if she saw anything while she was sleeping. Just see what she says.

My daughter is 3 now and this was happening to her from about 18 months - 2.5 years. Her pediatrician said it was probably night terrors, and an adult friend of mine who has night terrors suggested a night light in her room because she said a night light helped snap her out of them. Anyway, the nightlight worked wonders and she has been sleeping great since we put it in her room. Good luck!

I suggest mentioning it to her pediatrician. If its happening often they might refer her to a child psychiatrist.

Night Terrors could be the answer. If she is fairly consistent with timing in the night, you could do as I did and set an alarm and go and rub her back and tell her Mommy is here before she is able to get "into" the dream. This curbed my daughters in about a week and I was able to go back to my normal sleep schedule. If she seems like she still is asleep she probably is. Also talk to her about the dreams and see if she remembers them and also make sure you start talking about things that bother her like something froma TV show or something she happened to see in public. This way she deals with them while awake and not asleep.

Sorry BeeBee, but your answer seems a little excessive.

I'm no Dr., but it seems this may be a prime age for bad dreams to begin. Who in the world doesn't have a bad dream? And a child this age doesn't know how to differentiate between reality and dreams. Or it could simply be that she is afraid of the dark.

I'm going through the same thing with our 27 month son. We put in a night light in his room a few nights ago and that seems to be helping.

I hope she feels better soon!