Seeking Any Suggestions for Dealing with a Child Who Has Night Terrors

my 5 month old son still wakes up for just a few seconds/minutes with a loud shriek, but quickly calms down and goes right back to sleep. Seems that all these night terrors are happening to boys!

My 3 yr old son has night terrors and sometimes it takes me half an hour to get him to shake it. I have a couple of his favorite parts of sesame street on DVR and I used to stand in front of the tv with my back to it, holding him so his head would rest on my shoulder and he could see it. Sometimes that would shake him out of it. I have learned to let him come to me. Many times I have run in there only to have him freak out and crawl under the bed or something. I hope he grows out of them because my brother had them until he hit puberty. The only thing that has really ever helped was actually sleeping with him so he can reach over and touch me in his sleep. MOst of those nights he does not have one and if he does it lasts a very brief time.

WIsh I could help more, just wanted you to know you are not alone.
T.

I don't know about the getting stuck in deep sleep because the need to pee part, but she is correct about the waking. My husband, who is a pediatrician states that one approach to abort night terrors. Is to wake (arouse from deep sleep) the child 30-60 minutes after falling asleep. You don't have to completely wake the child but partially awake the child. This disrupts the sleep cycle and may abort the night terror. If this doesn't work your pediatrician is correct they will eventually grow out of them.

My oldest son has had night terrors since he was four and a half months old. At first this was hard to deal with because with a night terror they are not awake. They push you away because they are in their own dream. I will wake my son up and take him to the bathroom. Sometimes he just has to pee and is dreaming. With a night terror if you wake them up, they look at you and then fall right to sleep with no notion that anything is happening. My son doesn't even know he had a bad night in the morning. My son is six now and he still has night terrors. there have been times that I wake him up two or three times in a row and eventually he will either go to the bathroom or fall back asleep. My son has one once every couple of months now and he has never remembered any of his night terrors. Sincerely, Abigail C.

My now 12 year old had night terrors when she was that age she would be terrified of the flowers on the bed sheet. She would tell me the flowers were talking to her, and she knew flowers did not talk. She told me all this at 2am and not even remember the next day. It lasted a few weeks and never happend again. I was told by my family not to turn on the lights its like sleep walking they get confused even more they also said that not having good sleep could have triggered it in the beginning. I would talk to her about the flowers and sing her back to sleep while she lay on my body, after a few minutes it was over for the night. Another thing I tried a couple of times was waking her around 1am (terrors were usually at 2am) asking her if she needed to go potty that seemed to work she wouldn't have one that night. Yes we could have removed the sheets, but we really liked them and wanted her to get over it, and she did. They are in a different state of mind all you can do is help them feel protected.

Advice you're receiving is pretty much in line with my experience (yes, I've only heard about it happening to boys, too...)

My son is 38, now - his last night terror was at 14-yrs-old.

They did gradually decrease. I began to notice a pattern, like one person mentioned, that when my son was having "stressful" days - like taking a swim class despite his fear of the water, or going to school for the first time and fighting shyness around the other children - he would get up in the middle of the night, eyes open, running around trying to go home or wanting his "mommy", even though I was right there saying, "mommy is here!". For me, it was heart-wrenching to see his seem so frightened.

I tried something strange when he was 5 and the issue was the swimming lessons...Without any clue from him that the problem was the pool, I still thought maybe it was and I "entered his nightmare" and said, "Do you want to get out of the pool now?" He stopped running and said, "uh-huh..." And I said, "yes! let's get out of the pool, now. You were soooo brave! And you did such a good job! That's enough now. Let's get out of the pool. Okay?"

He seemed to wake up, looked at me as if to say, "Why do you have me down in the basement in my pajamas? Why don't you let me go to sleep?" I said, "Let's go back to bed". I asked him in the morning and he remembered none of it - not even the going back to bed part.

I find that my young fellow is the most sensitive of my kids (and they all were/are caring - but - he just feels for other people almost as though he really can feel their pain). I don't know if all that sensitivity gave him more stress than a young guy could handle - but - eventually he did learn to sleep through the night without getting up and walking around.

Good luck!

the best thing to do is NOT to wake them up or disturbed them at all... what I used to do with mine was just go in there to make sure he wouldnt hurt himself but that was it!!! it is really hard, but if you wake them or try to console them it gets worse... remember they dont have any recolection of what is going on, so if you try to wake them they will be disoriented and upset b/c they dont know what is going on...
Good luck and it will pass

K.,

You are fortunate for only 5 minutes. My daughter had 20 minutes every single night for about 3 years or so. It was exhausting.
The only thing you can really do is to talk calmly to him, hold him, if he will let you, and rub his arms, legs, back, etc.. very gently in a calming way. Make sure he doesn't harm himself or anyone else.
He will probably grow out of it eventually and it may get worse before it gets better. Be patient and understand that he has no control over it and will not even remember it. You may want to also eliminate as much TV as possible from his daily life. Also, making sure he gets plenty of exercise.
Whatever you do, don't try to wake him up. He doesn't even know it's happening, and it will only make it worse. There are times when you shouldn't even touch or talk to him, just keep him safe.
Take Care,
T.

My daughter started having night terrors around 18mths. She is now 3 yrs old and only gets them sometimes when she falls asleep in the car. The thing to remember about night terrors is that they aren't bad dreams, they child wont remember them. My pediatrician said to just let her cry and she will fall asleep on her own. Of course I was never able to do that. The only way to deal with it is to wake them up totally, lights on etc. Then put them back to sleep. It is hard having to deal with a child screaming and out of control at night but that is part of being a parent and one of the many things we have to deal with for the joy of having a child in our life. Good luck

You know I just posted something like this a month ago. My daughter has them too. She is almost 3 1/2, and is going to be a big sister very soon. I have come to the conclusion that it is stress and change that triggers them. She also slept walked. This all started when we started talking about the new baby. So in conclusion, I have worked hard to make her feel less insecure. She has them every now and then, and usually if she gets into trouble. So let him work it out but be supportive.
Good luck, Jen

K., my son started having signs of night terrors and I started doing tons of research and I talked with my son's doctor, he said that night terrors occur when kids fall into REM sleep to quickly, it is the same stage of sleep that sleep walking occurs. He said that there is usually a pattern that happens, they will have the night terror typically 45 minutes to an hour into sleeping, if you know when it is going to happen you can wake your little one up about 15 minutes before the night terror would happend and rock them back to sleep. It brings them out of that deep deep sleep and lets them go through the stages of sleep more slowly so night terrors don't happen. I hope this helps, I know lack of sleep gets very very wearing....

When you say night terrors, actually he's dreaming about something that scares him. Let's get him making new memories that he can dream about. Get new disney videos. Take him to a fun city park and let him play and make new friends. Take him around the neighborhood walking or pulled in his little wagon and have fun. Then maybe he'll have new things to dream about. that's all I can suggest.
T.

Hi K.,
I have a now 7 year old daughter that has ended up in the ER because of her night terrors...she started about how your son did. Before it could happen again I frantically looked on line and found information that made sense. Night terrors start around the time they start potty training. What happends is after about 2-3 hours of sleep they start into the deepest sleep (I wish I could find the website that helped me)and get stuck there and the reason is because they simply have to go to the bathroom. Any way...what I did and it worked immidiatly is; I put her to bed about 2 hours before I went to bed (Or I would set my alarm)and at that time I would NOT wake her, but I would carry her to the potty, sit her down and with my nails gently scratch the lower part of her back and she would pee. Then carry her back to bed and NO more night terrors. I did that for a few weeks then I would skip a night here and there and just taper off. The night terrors stopped and have not been back. I am looking for that website and am so suprised to see so many websites that say that there is nothing you can do and dr's have no clue about them...I'm certain this will work for you and when I find the site I will pass it along to you. Try this and get some rest.
S. :)

I found it!! http://www.drgreene.com/21_1148.html
Look toward the bottom of the page "A Novel Approach – The Greene Technique"

Happy Dreams!!

Both of my sons went through this at around the same age. I tried comforting them, like you described, but it seemed to make them worse! Our pediatrician actually recommended the opposite strategy -- keeping stimulus to a minimum, avoid trying to comfort them and even turn off the night light and close the door until they settled. The logic is, since they are not actually awake, they can't truly be comforted, so the goal is to get them back into deeper sleep as quickly as possible. It seemed to make the night terror shorter when we tried this approach. The other consolation I would offer you is that my boys didn't seem to remember it or be disturbed by it the next morning, unlike a nightmare when they would wake up scared and crying. Knowing that helped me manage. Good luck!

MY boy, age 6, began having sleep issues - sleep walking, talking in his sleep and a few bad dreams, but never night terrors. I took him to his pediatrician and she told me that statistically, sleep issues are caused by the inability to process what they saw, heard, watched, listened to, and did during the day. So, the kid worked out these issues in their sleep.

She suggested reducing some of his stress. No more than 30 minutes of TV and 30 minutes of gaming per day. It is really hard to enforce, but I can really tell a difference. Now, when I get lax and he watches a lot of TV, when he sleep walks, I tell him "You watched too much TV, so no TV tomorrow." He usually jumps into bed and go right back to TV (as TV time is VERY precious to him).

Good luck,
S.

My son had them at the same age. I found if I could get him to take a drink of water it would wake him alittle and calm him. The Dr. is right, he will grow out of them, but my son is 29 now and still talks in his sleep, and is very restless sleeper.