Re: 16-month old cries every night - why?

I had more or less the same thing, although less severe.  Yours does
sound like it is what I've heard of night terrors, but mine was
because the man next door worked 2nd ****ft and that was the time he
came home and put his car in the garage and shut the overhead door -
we lived in a row house and the party wall wasn't all that soundproof.

I got so I just brought her back to bed with me for the rest of the
night and nursed her to sleep.  That was the only time I did anything
close to co-sleeping.  We moved when she was 16 months.

My mom had a problem with me waking and screaming when I was put to
nap outside on my grandmother's ****ch (also not night terrors).  My
mom eventually realized that there was a swallow's nest with babies in
it near where I was napping.  I waked up and cried when the mother
bird (or the father bird - either one) came back to the nest with food
for the nestlings.  She should see the baby birds sticking their heads
out of the nest with their beaks open.  She decided that the birds
must be making a very high pitched noise that I could hear, but she
could not.