STM, Night Terrors?

[veenie]

DD was a mess last night. As I posted in the randoms thread, I am pretty sure it was an allergic reaction to some flowers I had in the house.

Anyway, she woke up crying for me around midnight. She was thrashing quite a bit, and then at 2 woke up crying again. I tried to hold her, but she wouldn't calm down. It wasn't until she screamed "but I want more ketchup" that I realized she wasn't awake.

I am doing some reading about them, but some real life experience on how to handle these would be great.

[shmee]

I'm not sure if my daughter has nightmares or night terrors, but a few times a week she will wake up a couple hours after she goes to bed and she's inconsolable. She doesn't want to be held, doesn't want to be touched but just won't stop crying. She's not really awake, though. I usually just pat her head and say "mama's here, it's okay" over and over again. Usually she calms down within 2-3 minutes. It's scary! I hate them.

[la79al]

We thankfully only had these with one of the girls.  There's not a whole lot we could do.  Sometimes I would half wake her up before I went to bed and that seemed to help a little bit but really we just had to wait for that very very long phase to end

[veenie]

@la78al I read that could help. Did you wake her up about the same time every night?

[jko454]

My DD does this once in awhile too. So confusing (and scary too) when it happens. She is a restless sleeper and always cries out in her sleep multiple times during the night, but sometimes she sounds horrified and I go in. I do find taking her out of the room into the hall usually helps it to end more quickly.

[shmee]

I have also noticed she's more likely to have them if she's overtired.

[miraclebbye]

My oldest DS had these for a few months. He would be completely asleep but screaming bloody murder and his face would be deep red, they would last a good 15min or so. His pediatrician and all the research I did said never to wake them during an episode, just do your best to console them by talking without moving them and to also keep them from hurting themselves. I found my son did them the most if he had a very eventful day where he missed a nap and was over tired or something tramatic would happen. For example, my brother would scare him by coming around a corner fast, my DS would laugh nervously but that night he would in turn have a night terror.

I eventually found a great article that said to play soothing sounds during the night on a radio or something. I went and bought a rainforest CD and started playing it on repeat every night, he had 1 episode after I started this and then never again. They say the sound helps soothe the mind.

[veenie]

Interesting miraclebbye, we had people over yesterday she was scared by an adult she played hide n go seek with!

I will have to try the sounds, thanks!

[CTri17]

don't try to wake her up, just hold her so she doesn't hurt herself and hopefully within a few minutes she will go back to sleep. it is so scary though

[amelandre]

My son has these occasionally. I pick him up and start patting his back and humming to him and wait until his breathing calms down before I put him back down.

[limad]

Ugh, we haven't experienced this yet, but that sounds scary!
DD cries out in her sleep a lot but nothing like a night terror. I like the ideas of playing soothing music, I will keep that in mind! GL and hopefully this phase ends soon for your LO

[jil]

Feb 2, 2015 14:18:34 GMT -5 CatLady said:

]I know sleep terrors are absolutely terrifying, because my husband is one of the rare cases that continues to have sleep terrors in adulthood...I can't imagine what it would be like to watch your child go through that. I hope she grows out of it soon!

My DH has them too! They have gotten a bit better over the last ten years. He definitely has them more frequently when he's stressed out but otherwise we haven't figured out why. His family says that he has had them since childhood. He most frequently is dreaming that he sees things that aren't really there. Usually he calms down if he gets up to check.
He also failed to tell me about his night terrors early in our relationship, so the first one I witnessed was extra fun for me. I had no idea what was going on!!

[hotcoconuts82]

Feb 2, 2015 13:22:18 GMT -5 shmee said:

I have also noticed she's more likely to have them if she's overtired.

This is when my dd has them too.  We just sit with her until it passes.  She will be 6 in April and seems to be getting them less and less frequently.

[Deleted]

Feb 2, 2015 13:22:18 GMT -5 shmee said:

I have also noticed she's more likely to have them if she's overtired.

This, when my boys have had a hectic day or missed their naps during the day they have nightmares. Also watching tv before bed will do this. I usually try to wind them down by reading a story and praying before bed. 

[mpiemont]

My oldest doesn't really have night terrors but on occasion he will have nightmare and it's awful. He's not fully awake and I just sort of lay next to him and hold him until he settles. And he often says weird stuff that I know he isn't fully awake. And definitely like shmee said, it's more common when he's overtired.

[silentsara]

Feb 2, 2015 14:58:45 GMT -5 hotcoconuts82 said:

Feb 2, 2015 13:22:18 GMT -5 shmee said:

I have also noticed she's more likely to have them if she's overtired.

This is when my dd has them too.  We just sit with her until it passes.  She will be 6 in April and seems to be getting them less and less frequently.

Another one who has them when over tired here. Dd gets rigid and just screams. Its awful, but I know she isn't awake and there is really nothing I can do.

[lgsdesigner]

It can also be sleep paralysis. This is caused when they have disrupted REM sleep, or as pp stated, are overly tired. It can cause someone to have hallucinations or to act our their dreams and think they are awake when they are indeed asleep. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to prevent it except making sure they go to bed earlier or before they are too tired.

[veenie]

She not quite 3, so I just asked her how she slept. She said fine, so I dropped it. I figured she'd get confused by too much info.

We had a busy weekend, so maybe she was overtired. We are usually much more rigid with her schedule.

Thanks for the suggestions! This helps a lot!

[snapdragon]

Feb 2, 2015 13:22:18 GMT -5 shmee said:

I have also noticed she's more likely to have them if she's overtired.

veenie, I was going to ask you, how is her sleep in general?  I have no experience with night terrors, but I remember reading a section about them in Healthy Sleep Habits where he talks about how lack of sleep can cause/exacerbate the problem.  Then again, he seems to think that every problem in the world stems from lack of sleep (and maybe it does???) so maybe take that for what it's worth, but he did do a ton of sleep research personally so he's generally worth listening to about this kind of thing.  I have the book lent out right now, but it's a short section and I'm a fast typer so I can re-type it for you if you think it would help.

[Poppy]

Oh these break my heart. I remember my sister being completely distraught when her son would get night terrors. She felt so helpless. I'll have to remember the sounds trick.

[ksmith0803]

I had actually forgot about these. DS got them frequently as an infant but hasn't had one in a couple years. I know it used to terrify me that something was wrong. I would usually just try to hold him and sing soothing songs, but I'm not sure it really helped. We'd just have to wait until it passed.

[veenie]

snapdragon, I think in general she sleeps well, but I have no idea if it's enough. As I mentioned she'll be 3 in March and sleeps from 9pm-7am (sometimes closer to 8 when we can let her) and usually naps for 1-2 hours.

She fights naps pretty hard, so they are increasingly hard, especially on the weekends. We try to do something active in the mornings so that she's tired, but sometimes she won't settle down until late afternoon, which makes the 9 bed time difficult too.

But, we try pretty hard to stick to that schedule.

[veenie]

Oh no @blackpearl08! I hope you got back to sleep!

[snapdragon]

Feb 3, 2015 4:03:55 GMT -5 veenie said:

snapdragon, I think in general she sleeps well, but I have no idea if it's enough. As I mentioned she'll be 3 in March and sleeps from 9pm-7am (sometimes closer to 8 when we can let her) and usually naps for 1-2 hours.

She fights naps pretty hard, so they are increasingly hard, especially on the weekends. We try to do something active in the mornings so that she's tired, but sometimes she won't settle down until late afternoon, which makes the 9 bed time difficult too.

But, we try pretty hard to stick to that schedule.

That's a tough one!  If she's not waking up at night, that's not SUCH a bad amount of sleep and might be fine for some kids, but since she is having night terrors I'd try stretching out the night time sleep to closer to 12 hours.  It's possible that another hour or two of nighttime sleep will really help.  9:00 is really on the late side for bedtime at that age, but if her nap is so late then it's not possible to make it earlier.  First I would try starting the naptime at 12:00 or 1:00, but if she's still not asleep in an hour then skip it and put her to bed early.  If it's not possible to move the naptime earlier, since she's almost 3 I'd actually try letting go of the nap altogether and moving the bedtime way earlier, like 7:00.  Many kids are ready to give up their naps when they're close to 3.

[veenie]

snapdragon, her daycare naptime is 12:30-2:30. We kept on that schedule as long as we could. She takes a while to go down for them too. I know she's not ready to drop the nap because if she skips, she'll usually fall asleep on the couch in the late afternoon. I usually wake her up 60-90 minutes in, hoping we can get her down earlier (on time even!)

I would love her to go down earlier because my bedtime is 9:30. We'll have to see if we can get it moved up.

[snapdragon]

veenie That's so frustrating! I hope you can get bedtime moved earlier! GL! I also wake up my DD (3.5yo) from naps, otherwise she won't fall asleep until 9. I found it easier to stick with a time of day rather than length of nap; I wake her by 3:30, 4:00 at the LATEST and only in special circumstances. I find that if she's up by 3:30 I can get her down by 7:30.

[tabH]

My DD has started to have these over the past month. I do the same thing as shmee and just rub her head or belly until she's calm. I find that she has had them when we skip bath time, so I try not to do that. But it's winter and I don't want to bathe her every night or else her skin gets super dry. I guess the skipping disrupts her routine that much?

I get these too though, to the point where I not only see things that aren't there but I will get up and walk around the room. Sometimes I'll hit DH in my sleep. Freaks him out even though he's used to it.