Night terrors?

Ever since Lauren was about 5 months she has these episodes where she'll randomly start screaming in the middle of the night or during a nap. The first time this happened it was at night and I jumped out of bed my heart pounding only to look at the monitor and see her still fast asleep. The scream/cry that she lets out is unlike any of her "usual cries" and just sounds terrible. Its as if she got hurt or extremely frightened. At first it only lasted a few seconds but lately it's been a 1-2 minutes or longer. I used to just let her cry and let her be but lately since its been lasting a little longer and I can now tell the difference between that and her usual cry I started going to her. When I go to her its as if she is still asleep and doesn't recognize I'm even there. She'll stop and then when I lay her down she's fast asleep again. As a parent it is so terribly saddening when its happening because the cry/scream is so bad and so sudden.

I never knew that night terrors could happen to an infant until I started doing a little more research. They usually happen in the toddler to school age child. Only 1-5% of children even get them (go figure our little Lauren has to set herself apart yet again) and it can happen for years. A lot of these kids have them on a regular basis - usually when their sleep pattern is off or they're overtired. Lauren had one 1 & 1/2 hours after putting her to bed last night and it makes sense since she didn't nap well at all during the afternoon. We'll see if I start to notice a pattern but for now it's been very random although more frequent. I work with her pediatrician who first mentioned that these could be night terrors and she told me that it's causing no harm to her. In fact Lauren won't even remember that she's had them - that's the difference between a night terror and night mare.

I'm praying that this is just a phase and our sweet little girl doesn't go through this for long. Its so hard for me when she has one and breaks my heart to hear her scream and cry like that. So for now we are just trying to make sure she doesn't get overtired and keep her on as much of a routine as possible when we can.