Night terrors are a common disorder that affects about 3% of the population. This condition mainly affect younger children and are technically classified as one of the Parasomnia disorders. It occurs more with boys than with girls, and there is often a positive family history.

Night terrors (also called sleep terrors) are periods of extreme agitation with manifestations of intense fear, crying and screaming in the middle of the night. The difference between night terrors and a nightmare is that night terrors usually occur just a few hours after falling asleep. A nightmare tends to occur towards the end of the night or early morning, and will be remembered.

Yes we had a terrible time with our youngest. I read up quite a bit about it at that time. When a child has a night terror, waking them can be difficult. He or she might have their eyes open but will look straight through you, similar to someone sleepwalking. The child is not dreaming, but in a deep sleep. They will not be able to recall the incident in the following morning.
Night terrors seem to occur in cycles. They may happen every night for several weeks, then disappear for months at a time. They are also more common in children whose family members have a history of night terrors, sleep walking, sleep talking, or bed wetting. It is said that by the age of 8 years old, half the cases will have grown out of this, but about a third will continue into adolescence. (Luckily ours didn't!)

I have found out that Night Terrors are now thought to be caused by increased brain activity, and the common thought among researchers is that a chemical trigger causes the brain to 'misfire'. These misfires can be caused by many factors such as stress and various other medical ailments.

Typical Symptoms of Night Terrors are a sudden awakening from sleep. Persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating and confusion. Normally accompanied with a very rapid heart rate and an inability to explain what happened.

Usually the person has no recall of any bad dreams or nightmares, but may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, tigers or even people in the room. They are unable to be fully awakened and are difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day.

When someone is having a night terror it is easy to feel that it is a very frightening and serious state of affairs. But the truth is that some people have episodes of night terrors that may occur less than once a month, and do not result in harm to the patient. In its severest form, the episodes occur nightly, and can result in physical injury to the patient or others. Consulting your doctor is the only way to go if you are concerned.

Nightmares are quite common in young children, and usually occur sometime after 90 minutes of sleep. Typically, a child with a nightmare wakes up completely feeling very anxious, and usually remembers the content of the dream vividly.

Childhood nightmares normally and require no treatment, except for reassuring the frightened child. Occasionally, when nightmares become more frequent or occur on a regular basis, it may be a sign of stress in the child's life or environment.

Also, the content of the bad dream or nightmare may be a clue to what is stressing the child. In extreme situations of persistent nightmares, it may warrant an evaluation of the child's social environment and psychological state.

The Main Points are that this usually affects children between 3 and 12 years old, but can occur at any age and it does tend to run in the family. It usually occurs 15 minutes to 1 hour after going to sleep and the child or person doesn't awaken and is unable to be comforted and will not respond to the parents. These terrors can last between 10 and 20 minutes and in the morning the child doesn't remember the night time incidence. There is often an increased occurrences during times of stress or over-active daytime activity and there is an 18% incidence of sleep walking and some children even manage to actually leave their homes. It is obviously very important to protect the child from injury and parents can be reassured that usually, night terrors will spontaneously disappear.