Night Terrors vs. Nightmares: What’s Normal and What’s Not

Few things are more unsettling than walking into your child's room at 2 a.m. to find them sitting up, eyes open, screaming — and seemingly unreachable, no matter what you say or do. If that sounds familiar, you may be witnessing a night terror, which is quite different from a typical nightmare, even though the two are often confused.

Nightmares

• Usually happen in the second half of the night, during lighter stages of sleep
• Your child wakes up fully, is aware of what happened, and can often describe the dream
• They typically seek comfort and can be soothed back to sleep relatively easily
• They may remember the nightmare the next morning

Night terrors

Night terrors happen in deep sleep and the child has no memory; nightmares happen in REM sleep

• Usually happen earlier in the night, during deep sleep
• Your child may scream, sit up, thrash, or appear terrified — but their eyes might be open without truly being “awake”
• They're often difficult or impossible to console in the moment, and may not even recognize you
• They typically have no memory of the episode the next day

What tends to help

• During an episode, focus on keeping your child safe rather than trying to wake them — most episodes pass on their own within a few minutes
• Keep a consistent, sufficient sleep schedule, since overtiredness is a common contributor
• Reduce stress and overstimulation in the lead-up to bedtime
• Keep a simple log of when episodes happen — patterns can be genuinely useful information

Most night terrors are a normal (if dramatic) part of childhood development, and children typically outgrow them. But if episodes are frequent, intense, persist well past early childhood, or come along with signs of disrupted breathing during sleep, it's worth having them evaluated — sometimes there's an underlying sleep issue contributing to the pattern, and addressing it can help everyone get more rest.

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