Daughter Having Night Terrors?

For a baby that young, don't know if this would work or not, but my son who was probably 5 or 6 at the time would cry and sit up and yet not be awake and act really upset, and the only way I could soothe him was to get a warm wash cloth, and wash his face while talkeing real soothing to him. He never would wake up, but would be o.k. then. It was usually when he was over tired that this happened, but don't see how this could be the babies problem.

I hate to say this but, someone might be scaring/startling her or even worse, mistreating her. Please look into this and in the meantime just do all you can to make her feel safe and loved.

My son is almost 3 and sometimes does this. We've been using a homeopathic remedy called Calms Forte for kids by Hyland's. There are no side effects except a great nights sleep for your little one. Your 8 year old would benefit too, but I would give the one for the adults to him. You can by it at any Vitamin Shoppe, Whole Foods or Sprouts. Good luck and I hope this helps!

My 4 year old started having these as a baby too. We called 911 when he had the first one and the fire department came to the house. We thought he was having a seizure.

We found out they were night terrors. All we can do is try to wake him up. We pat water on his face sometimes. It didn't always work.

The only other thing is to hold her close and try to calm her as much as possible. When they do wake up, they don't remember a thing. It's MUCH worse for US than it is for them.

My 4 year old has them from time to time still. And can sometimes be real aggressive when we are trying to comfort him. You just have to work through them.

I hope this helps.

My oldest daughter had night terrors from about age 4 to about age 9. She would get out of bed, she would wimper and cry, her eyes would be wide open looking straight ahead. If you tried to talk to her she may or may not have looked at you (through you wa the way it felt), it was as if you were not even there. She would never bump into a single piece of furniture. When I first saw this it scared me to death, I thought she was just out of it and ignoring me, but I was wrong. We discussed the issue and our concerns about her hurting herself with our doctor and she advised us NEVER to wake her up when she did this. She told us that waking her could cause her to become confused and disoriented and could scare her more than whatever is going on inside. We were to gently guide her back to bed and tuck her in. The kids never remember what has happened as they are in too deep a sleep, unfortunately it is not the same for the parents. We are really the ones who suffer because there is nothing that we can do to help them and that is a parents worst nightmare in itself. I would however mention it to your doctor and see what he/she has to say. My daughter is now 20 and I am sure some things have probably changed in that period of time. I hope this helps and good luck.

Hi A.!
My 9m old son does the same thing and has since he was only a few weeks old! All we do is just hold him to us and talk softly to him. We even take him around the house trying to wake him up and show him his favorite things, like the bird's nest outside! Eventually he wakes up and we just put him back to sleep for the night!
I don't think there is anything to worry about! My mom said I used to do the same thing and sleptwalked and she just would wake me up or redirect me to bed and everything was fine!
Hope that helps!
H.

My daughter is turning 2 in July and she too has done this since she was about 6 mo old. I was pretty disturbed by it also. As she is getting older sometimes she will even sit up and be all out crying but still asleep. Luckily its not very often and we just comfort her through it.
Sorry no real advice, just wanted you to know that your not alone! Good luck.

My son experienced night terrors for about 3 months. I researched on the internet what was happening and determined that it was indeed night terrors. What I had to do to break the cycle was first determine what time of the night the night terrors were happened. For him, he would have night terrors about three different times at night. I determined the exact hour and 15 minutes before I knew the night terror was due to occur, I would wake him up, having him seat in my lap until that time passed. When the next one was due, I would repeat it again and again. After about one to two weeks, I finally broke the cycle and he began sleeping again. One thing I might add that really made it worse was when me or my husband would walk it and touch while he was having a night terror because he would be running around the room. If touched, he would began screaming as if terrified. Hope this advice helps.

What you are describing sounds EXACTLY like something my husband has suffered from since he was a baby. As an adult, after much research, he was able to determine that he suffers from "sleep paralysis". My understanding of this is that when we sleep, the body releases a chemical signal that paralyzes the body so that we don't get up and start acting out our dreams. If your son is sleep walking, then his body isn't producing enough of this "signal" to stop it. With sleep paralysis, the exact opposite happens - sometimes too much of this signal is produced, which means your child could actually be awake, but is paralyzed. Now, don't freak out - that sounds scarier than it is. Her body is functioning normally (breathing, heart beat, etc.)

Here's how my husband describes it - he's having a dream and then feels like he is waking from the dream and suddenly has a feeling like there's something heavy holding him down. If he opens his eyes, there's nothing on top of him, it's just a heavy feeling. With a minute or less, his body snaps out of it and he can move freely. The terror part of this for my husband is when he is somewhere between dream and waking. Sometimes he'll think he sees or feels someone in the room (i.e. a shadow or reflection). Of course, there's no one there and he has to remind himself that he's just having an "episode". He has learned to put every effort he has into moving a finger. Once he can gain all his strength to move a finger, he comes out of it right away. I've also learned to recognize his episodes based on his breathing/moaning and can put my hand on him and speak softly to him, reassuring him that I am there.

As you can imagine, as a child this was horrible. He was scared to go to bed at night and his parents didn't understand what was going on with him or why he was so frightened at night. When we were first together, his sleeping habits were horrible - he'd stay up all hours of the night until he was sleepy enough to go to bed. He's learned now that there are some triggers for him - like stress, poor eating/sleeping habits, or naps (he always has this happen when he tries to take a nap during the day).

Unfortunately, my husband has never been to see a sleep specialist. He doesn't think that is necessary. But, I recommend you look for or ask your pediatrician for a referral to a sleep center, especially since you've also noticed sleep walking with your son. I know that Baylor has sleep centers in Irving, Grand Prairie, etc., but I'm not sure if they treat children.

I would like to refer you to some books by Sylvia Brown--yes the psychic. The one on Psychic children refers to night terrors & some causes. No matter what your belief systems are, if read with an open mind, I think you will find some helpful information & hopefully a way to help you deal with your situation or at least a direction to go.

My son, who is now 10 did this as a baby and young toddler. I have no idea what caused it, but I could not wake him up. I just sat with him and talked to him and stroked and patted him until I could get him to lay back down. Once I could get him to lay back down, he usually settled back down and went back to sleep (even though he was actually asleep the whole time). He very rarely opened his eyes. When he did, it was usually to sleep walk, not because of night terrors.

Then, comes my daughter, now two and a half. There is absolutely no soothing her when she has one. She is also very violent when she has one. Unlike my son, she is usually wide-eyed and flailing about. She will scream, kick, hit, bite, whatever to get who ever is trying to sooth her away. She had one in the car that was so bad that I had to pull over and stop to try to get her to wake up. I was scared she would really hurt herself. With her, I just prepare myself for the "beating and biting" and do my best to restrain her and keep her from hurting herself. I also try to "talk her down" which is really hard when she just bit you so hard you are sure you are missing flesh, or she just gave you a black eye. This one really scares me. She too will sleep walk and has, on occassion, started knocking things over and about when in her way. Have talked to the doctor and know that I will just have to watch her like a hawk. Which is why she sleeps with me. I sure hope she grows out of it soon. :O) My son still sleep walks every so often. One morning about 5-5:30, he went out and let the chickens out of the hen house. How we figured this one out is 1) they were out and 2) he said he dreamed about hearing the chickens really loudly and thought they must be outside his bedroom window.

One thing I would definitely do is talk to you doctor about it. They will probably tell you there is nothing you can do about it, but make sure it is recorded in your child's chart. I say this because if sleep walking occurs with your child and they wander out of the house and God forbid, something should happen and the authorities are called, you have documentation showing your child's condition. This advice came from my doctor who told me he was glad I mentioned my son's sleep walking because of such a scenario as above happening with one of his patients in the past.

Other than that, just try to calm your daughter down and get her to "go back to sleep" for lack of better words. With you son, put a chain or slide bolt up high on every exterior door. You could try putting a child gate or two (stacked) across his door. That may keep him in his room.

I wish you much luck in this. It can be very trying. With my son, when he was a more active sleep walker, he would get up two or three times a night sometimes. Those were the nights that I didn't get much sleep.

Blessings,

L.

Well, I don't have any advice, other than to just keep doing what you're doing and try not to worry or upset yourself over it. My son did a similiar thing as an infant, but for him, there was major screaming (like someone was killing him) and he would be literally pinned to the crib mattress on his back when we found him (arms and legs looked to be held down). He did this every now and then and we would try to comfort him and it seemed that he'd "wake up" after a bit, even though his eyes were open the whole time. I figured it was night terrors, but when I researched it, they say that it's older children who truly get it. My son is 3.5 now and hasn't had any probs since under 1. I'm not quite sure what was happening (sorry)- it's very disturbing, I know. I hope that your daughter grows out of it like my son did. There is hope- it doesn't mean she'll have it forever.

I have a son, who will be 4 on August, and he started having night terrors when he was about a year old. I took him to the pediatrician who said he would grow out of it. The whole ordeal of it all is quite terrifying because you can't console them when they're having them. I can say though that the terrors have slowed down quite a bit. When he was younger he got them at least 2 times a week...now if he gets one, it's maybe once a month. The only thing I know to do is hold my son until he stops crying. It may not make him feel any better but it helps ME through it. Good Luck!

My son did this as a baby too. I think it must be normal and is more upsetting to us than them. He also has had screaming night terrors when he was older. Those are really scary because you can't tell if they are awake or asleep.

I definitely think you should talk to your pediatrician about your son's sleepwalking. It can be very dangerous and signal that there is a medical condition needing attention.

my son actually did this, he was a little older though. i would say about 9-10mos. yet he would get up and his eyes would be open and he would cry a different scary cry. he was not awake that i could tell he was still asleep. seemed to be having nightmares. i never had heard of this either until i talked to a friend who has 3 girls and she said 2 of hers went through it and she called them night terrors. basically it is a faze that her girls eventually got over and same w/ my son he soon got over it. it didnt last long for any of them. she said her girls stopped going through and it lasted 2 wks max. same w/ my son 2 wks and that was it. it was hard w/ him though he was older so he screamed and cried very loudly and there was nothing i could do to get him to stop, but fully wake him up and put him in a good mood and try to put him asleep again. i dont know if you believe in prayer but thats what i would do. i prayed for him before he went back to sleep that no bad spirits or nightmares would interrupt his sleep.

My 13 month old used to do that when she was smaller too, and it concerned me because my grandmother and I both have suffered from nighmares (to the point of needing medical treatment). Her doctor said it was normal for her to do that. I still don't think it was, but there wasn't anything to be done really. She hasn't had that happen in about 7 months now, so maybe it was a phase.

Does she wake up rested? I'd tell her pediatrician next time you go in and be sure to mention her brothers sleep issues so they know about that.

My firstborn experienced night terrors starting at the age of 3yrs old. The doc said that the normal span of when it usually stops is around 8yrs of age. My son was almost 9yrs when he stopped having them. We were told to hold him or put him on your lap, but never talk to him. Their eyes may be open but they are sound asleep. If you look, you can see that the child has a glaze over their eyes. My daughter(16months)has now started to cry and whimper in her sleep. When we go in there, she has her binky and her eyes are closed. What I do is I pick her up and I dont talk to her at all. I rock her and I make the shh shh sound until she calms down. I read one of the other posts here about figuring out the time when your child starts this, and waking them up before that time. I heard that really does work to knock the cycle. Good Luck!

There's a really good section on night terrors in What to Expect; The Toddler Years. I just read it the other day, it tells how they are different from nightmares and what you can do for them. Rarely they are a form of nocturnal seizure and it tells you how to know that too. You can probably get the book from your library, look in the index for night terrors.

Ohhh, not fun. My daughter started around 9 months, but was not diagnosed until she was 2. Every night she would scream and cry and roll around. The more we tried to comfort her the worse it got. The doctor told us Night Terrors had nothing to do with dreams or any type of stress and that it wasn't our fault. They are similar to sleep walking because it's a transition in sleep that doesn't go correctly. He did give us medicine to give her every night for a month and it worked for a while. It came back and we gave it to her a second time and I guess she just grew out of it. Also, as hard as it is, we found out not to touch her when it was happening. When we stopped trying to console her they went from 45 minutes long to 15 or less. I'm NOT one of those parents that believes in letting my children cry themselves to sleep so this was really hard for us, but when it was a night terror it really made a difference.

We had the same problem with my toddler although she was a little older - she would fall out of bed and writhe around the floor, all the while screaming and/or talking, sometimes her eyes would be wide open but she would still be asleep (not responding to us but still screaming; dreaming and talking nonsense). We tried waking her, which never worked. We just had to stay with her throughout the episode and make sure she didn't bang her head on the furniture or hurt herself. Eventually she calmed down and would let me hold her until she went back to sleep, but sometimes it took a good half hour for it to stop. Now the episodes almost never occur, she just turned three. Looking back I think they were almost always triggered by her being overly tired or off of her regular sleep schedule. Good luck, it sounds very normal, but don't hesitate to ask your pediatrician if it will ease your mind.

Hello A.,

I remember my son doing that when he was a few months old. He did it during the day. then it went away. Sorry I can't offer any advice, just writing to tell you that I've been there and don't know what made it go away. Have you thought about putting one of those "sound" machines w/ wave sounds, creek, rain sound, etc. I think you're doing the right thing by conforting her. try massaging her forearms and legs. it's very soothing too. put one of your worn t-shirts in the room so she can smell your scent while she sleeps (of course far enough that she won't pull it into the crib).
Good luck! ~C.~

Contrary to how the name sounds, Night Terrors have nothing to do with nightmares. Just ask any liciensed therapist. Night terrors occur when the process of falling asleep happens to quickly. The child moves from 'dozing off' straight into REM. The quick transition sends out a physical reaction that the child is most likely not even aware of. Recommendation.....pray yourself through it, as it is mostly hard for the parents. Don't make the mistake of picking them up, statistics show it can lengthen the process. However, mama usually knows best so if you feel this may not be what your child is experiencing....go with your instincts.

My son (9 months) did the same thing around 6 months. Our pediatrician said that he could, in fact, be having bad dreams. I don't know what a baby's bad dream could possibly consist of, but I understand how upsetting it is to witness.

To comfort him, I would nurse him. That's the only thing that would help distract him or wake him up a little. Sometimes it took a little while for him to settle down - for the hiccup breathing to stop.

The good news is that he doesn't do it anymore.

Good Luck!