Does your child wake up at midnight and start screaming or shouting? And when you go to pacify him/her the child would all the more start shouting loudly pushing you back. This is because the child is in his sleep and is not recognizing that the person he is screaming for is by his side only. This type of phenomena is known as night terror. Here the child becomes uncontrollable and devastated but it is just for few minutes and then the child is fast asleep again. The child won’t be aware of his last night’s terror the very next morning which is distinct from a nightmare.
Reason behind night terror
Night terror generally occurs between an age group of 3-5 years. This is because of the disturbance in sleep. These age group children generally sleep an hour or two in the afternoon and then if suddenly they stop taking a sleep during daytime results in a night terror. When a sleep cycle changes, part of child’s brain is forcing him to sleep while another part wants to remain awake resulting in a night terror.
