Screaming during sleep?

[Lauren31]

My baby girl sometimes screams in her sleep and wakes herself up from sleep. I know this bc normally I am sleeping right next to her! Friends have said it could be teething. Does this sound right? I am quite confused. She does not seem sick or anything. She is 5.5 months old.

[ann_of_loxley]

Could be dreaming as well.

DS1 did this shortly after his birth. It only happened a few times.

Could be teething - she could be in a bit of pain! You could try something for that - to give her before she normally goes to sleep or maybe buy an amber teething necklace?

[ErinYay]

My baby did something similar around 2-3 months? (I actually posted a Q here asking about it at the time.)

It seems to be a dreaming thing, and/or a sleep stage transition thing; when we shift between stages of sleep, sometimes it feels like falling, and babes sometimes freak out when it happens. For us, it only lasted a few days.

It was HEARTBREAKING though, for sure!

[Lauren31]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

It seems to be a dreaming thing, and/or a sleep stage transition thing; when we shift between stages of sleep, sometimes it feels like falling, and babes sometimes freak out when it happens. For us, it only lasted a few days.
!

That is an interesting take on things... poor baby... I hope she learns how to transistion soon if that is the case!

[Knitting Mama]

This has happened to Cecilia once, a couple of weeks ago. She had only been out for about an hour or so when she woke up screaming and inconsolable. It took around half an hour to calm her back down, and another 15-20 to get her back to sleep. I thought it was night terrors at first, but my research seemed to indicate that they don't develop until after 2. One thing I noticed is that she was very overly tired that day-- she didn't take any afternoon naps. I imagine that contributed to her not getting into a good sleep easily.

[Catubodua]

we've had this happen periodically and i believe that he's having nightmares. he'll continue to scream / cry for a good long time and it only seems to stop if i turn a bunch of lights on and get him to really wake up.

sadly, sometimes that doesn't even help. i always feel awful for him.

[mrs.t]

Glad to see this post even though it's a horrible subject. My 4 mo DS does the same thing, about 3 times now. I think maybe it's related to him being gassy. The first time he did it DH and I thought we were going to have to take him to the emergency room! It took about 20 mins to stop him from screaming. Unfortunately the only thing that really snaps him out of it is taking him outside. Fun at 3am!!!

I noticed, though, that he passed some gas and then went right to sleep, so I guess the pain was enough to jolt him awake and he didn't know what happened? IDK, it's all guesswork on my part. It's really heartbreaking!