[sak9645]

Most doctors say that night terrors are not a sign of stress unless they persist past age six.

My daughter had night terrors from age 18.5 mo. to age 4, and then they stopped cold, with never another one.

Night terrors are believed to be genetic and closely connected to sleepwalking. It is quite possible that your child's birthparents either had night terrors as babies or were sleepwalkers. My daughter did both, although sleepwalking was infrequent compared to the frequency of her night terrors.

Your description of your son's behavior sounds very much like normal night terrors. One way to reduce the frequency of night terrors is to be very, very rigid about bedtime and naptime scheduling, since any parent of a child with night terrors will tell you that they arise most often when a child is off schedule or overtired.

Some parents find it helpful to wake a child up before he/she usually gets a night terror, if the child tends to get them at roughly the same time every night. While this works for some families, it doesn't necessarily work for others, because the child, once awakened, may want to be up and about.

Sharon