Question

Mine has done this twice recently but both times he woke up at night crying and nothing seemed to help him out of it. He didn’t seem to be in pain or anything, so I thought maybe a nightmare? It was pretty weird though. It lasted about 15 min each time and after that he was ok. He never cried like that when awake though or during the day, is that what your little one did?

He doesn’t wake up like this it’s usually around bedtime and we can’t calm him we don’t expect him to go to sleep but he cries and screams and the first couple of times we thought he was in pain but eventually goes to sleep he can last up to 2 hours crying it scares me

Autistic spectrum person here. It could be overstimulation. Is the room darkened? Have you tried doing like a weighted lap pad? It's a little bit early at this point, but my understanding is that there's an add ( autism spectrum) screening at 18 months). Autism looks different in everyone. Autistic people when overstimulated can tend to shut down in varying degrees , from early overstimulation being starting to shut down.... To heavy overstimulation, to what most people would call a meltdown in a non autistic child or adult ( I know this from personal experience, even though my formal diagnosis was just a few years ago)

https://www.parents.com/overstimulation-in-kids-how-to-deal-with-sensory-overload-7550046#:~:text=Young%20babies%20may%20be%20more,play%20a%20role%20in%20overstimulation. An article on overstimulation in kids

I work with individuals with Autism so I am thinking he is on the spectrum- his melt downs are so long and he doesn’t know what to do or what he wants. Doctors say he is early and he does everything else fine but his melt down that usually happens at night or where he only wants one person/parent and to hold him standing up so that is why I ask.