Any experience or advice on night terrors?

My ds is 4-1/2 and he has night terrors. Not very often. Maybe 1-2 times every 2 weeks. The first few times it happened it really freaked us out. We thought they were nightmares but then I remembered the term night terrors and did a bit of research and that's definitely what my ds has. He wakes 30-60 minutes after falling asleep in the evening, he is sweating, shaking and not really aware of us. The first few times it happened when I looked in his eyes I was so freaked out I actually started looking around the room to see the monster that was coming at us . He also has no recollection of anything.

What works for us is to not say much at all but gently pick ds up and take him to the living room and sit in the rocking chair and rock him back to sleep. When we tried staying in his room with him it would take 15-20 minutes for him to "wake up" and settle down. Taking him out of the room seems to speed up the process and he's usually back to sleep in 5 minutes.

I have heard that they might occur more if your child is stressed. My ds is a very anxious child so I'm sure that it doesn't take much for him to feel some sort of stress. I've also heard that they might occur more if your child is overtired. We've seen that coorelation here.

They do usually outgrow them although I'm not sure when. Until then, everything I've read says to comfort them during the episode. Keep them stress-free as much as possible and keep bedtime regular and very predictable and soothing.

Oh mama, these are hard to deal with :

My dd had night terrors for about a year when she was three and has had a few since then (she's almost 5 now)

From what I've read, they are more related to sleep-walking than nightmares. I havn't read that they are related to stress. They do grow out of them, but often turn into sleep-walkers when they get older.

You are not supposed to try to wake them up, just be there to support hug them and take deep breaths yourself as they pass. Boy, what a way to wake up!

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From what I've read it sounds like you won't really be able to wake them up during a night terror anyways so don't bother trying because you will just get them more agitated (and yourself!). I did read another suggestion if you're dealing with very frequent night terrors. Wake them up around 30 minutes before the night terror and keep them awake for about 5 minutes. This interrupts the sleep cycle so they avoid that time when night terrors commonly occur. I've never tried this as my ds's episodes aren't frequent enough.