Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Nightmares & Sleepwalking and Sleep in General

Mr W (25 mos) is very challenging lately.

He goes to bed at 8:30 and wakes up at 5:30. He always wakes up at least twice a night if not more. When he wakes up, he comes in our room and wakes us up and we then put him in bed. We have reached a peace with this.

Lately when he wakes up, he is sobbing uncontrollably and it takes time to calm him down. A few nights ago I went into his room and he was walking around saying "NO! NO! NO!" then he started crying.

This new phase has created a situation where we get very little sleep from 1-4 am every other night due to him being upset about something.

Has anyone been through this and what has helped?

My DD used to have night terrors. She would scream and/or cry for an hour suck between awake and sleep. I could not calm her down or wake her up.

Sometimes, not often, it would help if I walked her around outside.
It was just a phase for us, it lasted about 6-12months.

I did hear somewhere that children are more likely to have them when overly tired or if they are overdressed and sweating during the night, Don't know if if it's true or not, but could be something to look into?

I don't have any mircale advice but you definately have have my sympathy

Floridama beat me to it. My daughter had night terrors. Started about that age. Lasted until she was four. Not on a nightly basis. For her they were triggered if we stayed somewhere away from home. Only occasionally did she have them at home. Look for something that could be triggering them. Over tired? Something new or different recently? Hope you find the answer.

Hi there- this is a timely thread. My 2.5 yo son, Nick, had a sleep terror last night- it's been ages since his last one! You have my empathy. Nick had major sleep disruptions for 2 mos from age 7 mos-9 mos. It was horrible- sleep terrors, sleep walking/crawling, sleep talking, etc etc.
As a result, I have learned a bit about them.
Here is some information on sleep terrors/night terrors:

1. They typically happen the first 1-4 hours of sleep, so if your LO is going to sleep at 8 PM, an episode would start anywhere from 9PM-midnightish.

2. A confusional state/night terror happens when your child's body is active, but their mind is asleep. They are stuck between 2 different sleep phases, and they will have no memory of the episode in the morning.

3. You will be essentially unable to wake your child, they will cry out/thrash about/talk in a confused manner/sweat/stare through you. It looks like they are "possessed" to many parents. And when you go into their room to calm them, they don't calm down, may become more agitated, and don't seem to recognize you.

4. They typically last 5-45 mins, and abruptly stop on their own. Trying to wake your child, talk to them, etc may actually worsen a night terror. The best thing to do is to quietly observe them to make sure they don't hurt themselves and wait it out. They usually sigh/yawn, roll over and just fall into the next sleep phase without any intervention from parents- very odd.

5. A nightmare usually happens in the second half of the night, in the early morning hours, your LO will recognize you, and respond to your attempts to calm them. THeir mind is active, but body is not- those tips can help you to differentiate what is happening- a nightmare, or a sleep terror.

6. Night terrors are related to sleepwalking/talking. It tends to run in families and boys appear to be more prone to those kinds of sleep disorders.

7. Being on the brink of developmental milestones or being overtired can contribute to sleep terrors. It is very important to maintain a fairly regular sleep routine to help kids avoid these. Try to assure your LO gets plenty of sleep/naps.

There is great info in a book by Dr. Ferber- the latest edition of "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems". That is the one book I have found that actually describes sleep disorders in detail.

I hope that info helps and that I haven't confused anyone with my descriptions!

Hey, happy belated birthday to Mr. W! Sorry to hear his brain is in overdrive in the wee hours. Maybe it is just nightmares, since he seems to be awake when you get to him... is that your feeling or do you think he has to be 'woken up' when you get to his room?
Does he remember things? Will he talk about it?
Speechie's description should be very helpful in figuring out which...

Sleep seems really fleeting around here, up until lately anyway, ds3 is finally sleeping well in her own room, and even going to bed with little fuss, so I am not expert. Dh was really the one to make that happen. I am a pushover for the cute kid standing by the bed at night (or just a pushover for sleep...)

This may sound a little odd, but I'll throw it out there for what it's worth--two of mine did something like this (Chico still does occasionally), and my standard operating procedure became picking child up, taking him to the bathroom, and sitting him on the toilet (with just a nightlight on in the bathroom). They usually continued to cry, but did have a bit of a piddle, then I carried them back to bed, tucked them in, and the crying stopped, and sleep came quickly.

I think here it may have been related to some anxiety about staying dry through the night? Or maybe not, but in any case, I didn't see that a quick trip to the head was going to hurt anything. I don't think mine were having true night terrors, though.

peace
minnie

Thanks everyone.

He is learning to read right now and exploring numbers.

We are going to try taking him for a walk every night as out first step to see if some extra exercise will calm him.

My son started having night terrors around the age of one (of course at first we didn't know what they were!!!!!). We also found, as did Minnie, that the best way to shake them from that awful in between state was to turn the light on and have him go to the bathroom. We would sit with him in there until he calmed down and until he was a little bit awake. Sometimes it would take another time but for the most part he would go back down and would be calm for the rest of the night (and we would get some sleep without feeling so bad!). Hope this helps.

Jules

DS10mo doesn't have night terrors, but when he wakes at night it's almost ALWAYS that he needs to pee. For a while he did it on me every waking of every night, until I got the timing right. In any case, he doesn't want to go in his diaper, he wants to go in the toilet (I can get it in the potty if I'm really good, but mostly he wants the toilet)

If he doesn't get to go in the toilet, he thrashes and cries and screams and wimpers and bites and pinches and won't quite wake for at least an hour before settling.

Here is what we have done.

1. He falls out of bed a lot. ( We added a block of wood to tilt his mattress to reduce this.)
2. Wet diapers. ( We change his diapers when wet and he is crying.)

With these two changes he now wakes up maybe once a night.

Thanks all!!!!