Nightmares? - Denver,CO

My son has nightmares too. They started around 2.5 and he still has them occasionally, now at 5.5. I find that the more tired he is the more likely he is to have nightmares. At this point I can pin point the nights he will have a bad dream. If the day was really busy or filled with excitement or he was late going to bed, he will be restless for the first half of the night and wake up shaking, crying and mumbling about things. It has scared me a few times, being woken up out of a dead sleep with a freaked out kid :(

So my best advice is to just be cautious with his sleep schedual. The more tired he is the harder it is going to be for him to rest well.

Good luck. Just snuggle that little guy in close :)

Hi T., so you have to lose so much sleep. We lose a lot of sleep too. Our little girl wakes up screaming sometimes and there is not much to comfort her. Sometimes we are able to get her back to sleep in her room and sometimes in our room. On her birthday, that evening she woke up screaming and so I picked her up and tried to put her in my bed. She got up and took off running. I caught her and put her back in her room with the baby gate up while I went to get a blanket and pillow, thinking she would wake everyone in the house up. Well, she threw a fit and plopped herself on her behind and then threw herself backward and hit her head on the dresser.

I scooped her up and held her head in my two hands and tried to give her comfort by rocking her. My husband woke up and came running in turned on the light and was asking what happened. As I was telling him I had her and he could go back to sleep, I removed my hand from her head. I had felt it wet but thought it was tears and snot. My hand was full of blood. We both fumbled over eachother trying to get her out the door and to the doctor.

It was a very minor cut, but bled a lot. She got one staple and the doctor sent us on our way. The nurse mentioned that when they have a busy day, they go through all the events of their day and it becomes too much and scares them. Well, it was the same evening of her birthday party. With no nap during the day.

I would just try to keep the excitement to a minimum and be sure they get plenty of sleep. We also do an unwind before bed too. I play the sleep music while we change into PJ's and braid her hair. Not that it always works, but it has gotten better.

Best of luck.
C.

My son started having nightmares just a couple of months ago. I have had some friends whose children have night terrors and asked people on this website for advice. The ideas that i have implemented and have worked it putting some soft music or calming sounds (ie. ocean sounds, CD's from target that play calming music)- this really helps him sleep and he has not had a nightmare in over 2 weeks since we started it. Also someone told me about a dream catcher box that you can get from Michael's that we are going to implement as well. My son was waking up every hour or so and was scared to close his eyes because he thought the nightmare would come back, but now the only time he wakes up in the middle of the night is to use the restroom.

It is normal at this age to start having a fear and nightmares of things. They are just grasping reality of things and trying to make sense of things at this age. First, go online, research WITH him about bees, how they help pollenate things, give us honey, etc. Tell them all the good things bees do, mainly not attack humans for no reason. Explain that they sting only becaue they are afraid of us.
Then the same about snakes, like how many snakes species their are, why they attack and that they aren't mean.
Giving him some logic behind his fears may help. My daughter had a huge fear factor of tornados. I started letting her watch Storm Chasers on Discovery channel, she was so excited to learn about them, get educated on them, see that they weren't "These monsters" but weather related thing, we went over what to do in the event of a tornado and it seemed to totally help her fears.
It may be a great idea too you put him in his own bed. His tossing and turning and causing you to wake up then you wake him up isn't good either, if he can get himself back to sleep without you waking him up that is the best thing for his sleep cycle. Believe me, if you are trying for another one, get him in his own room, own bed so there won't be resentment when the baby comes and he feels like the big boy..just a suggestion.
Having him too dependent on you right now could cause problems later.

I think you need to talk with your son about the fact that nothing will hurt him and that he is safe. You have to not show fears around your children or they will learn from you, my husband has made that clear to me. Being a parent is about setting an example, if he sees you running from Bees it is going to instill a fear of Bees in him that are obviously affecting him in his dreams. Tell him when you are in the home you are safe and maybe read him some statistics so he knows that Bees and snakes will not harm him outside either, unless provoked. Make him realize he'll be okay and not harmed in our out of the house and try to be cautious with the example you are setting.

I have an absolute irrational fear of all bugs, but my nemisis is the spider (insert shudder) & from watching how I react to the little beasts, my daughters are now deathly afraid of them.
Since your son is having nightmares, it obviously affected him deeply to see his Mommy being "threatened" by something. Maybe it's not so much the bee as the fact that you were upset & that makes him upset.
Maybe try getting him a stuffed toy bee & 'buzzing' it around or have him try & 'get' you with it so you could make a game out of running away from it. (It might make him feel better to see you running from it laughing & having fun?) Maybe some bee books (Buzz buzz, Busy Bees by Dawn Bentley is a touch n feel book that's GREAT) to make bees fun?
I hope you find something that works for him, it's always sad to have your kids having nightmares. Good luck!

Try to not wake him up actually, the less you interfere the faster he will actually settle back down. During the day talk to him about it though- tell him that those things aren't really scary and that in his dreams it is all just pretend. Also, is he napping enough? My daughter tends to have bad dreams on nights that she skipped her nap.. good luck!

I'm so sorry, this sounds soo familiar! I have a 2 year old who has always had difficulty sleeping well, but recently just started having night terrors. It IS terrifiying, for all of us! She was co-sleeping with us, due mostly to the fact that she would wake up so often, it was easier to just have her near us. But we have done a few things recently that have left her sleeping like an angel, so I thought I'd share. . .

First, our pediatrician recommended NO TV or even children's programs 2-3 hours before bedtime. This can overstimulate small children and cause them to have nightmares. We decided to not allow any TV other than very mild Baby Einstein DVD's in the afternoon and evening to play it safe. It has worked miraculously--she hasn't even woken up once since we did this!

Secondly, we got her to sleep in her own bed--just a twin mattress on the floor. We put fun sheets and comforter on it, made it cozy, and spend a long time winding down and reading together before going to sleep. I still lay down on the floor next to her mattress as she's falling asleep to transition from co-sleeping, and she's doing great. It's only been a week so far, but a week of NO nightmares or night-waking is AMAZING and unheard of in her little life thus far!

Hope you can implement some of these strategies and find what works for your little guy! Good luck!!

Sounds to me like your little boy is beginning to have the very common "Night Terrors". I have not found any information that tells what causes theses Night Terrors, only that they are common in children around 2-5 years old. There is not much you can do to calm them since they never fully wake up and are unaware that you are there. My advice is to be patient and be there to comfort him as the terrors will go away as sudden as they appeared.

This is a night terror. Ive read that when this happens, to just make sure they can't get hurt, but do not wake them up. It'll pass in about 15 mins, and I've also read that it's a phase. good luck!

it's amazing what can affect them. I took my daughter to see a horror movie when she was 6 months old, and soon after, she starting half waking up and crying. I didn't think my daughter even understood what was going on in the movie, so I asked her Dr. about it, and sure enough, she said that children are very connected to their parents and it probably wasn't the movie itself as much as it was me being scared. you just have to be careful. She suggested singing a song when this would happen as it would let her hear my voice and it should have a calming affect (and it did). she suggested NOT waking her up as we have a tendency to only remember the dreams we are disturbed from. I followed her advice and sure enough, after about two weeks she was back to sleeping though the night. I don't know what of this would apply to a 2 almost 3 year old, but I would suggest talking to your Dr about it. Good luck! :)

I have no clue, but do remember reading about it on www.askdrsears.com. He has a bunch of info on nightmares and night-terrors. I hope that helps!!

Let me know if any of your thing work to get a girl ;). I have a boy, and am hoping for a girl next! We'll probably start trying again in a year when our son is two. We co-sleep too!

Hi T.,
Sounds like you are going through a tough time. What you describe sounds like night terrors. Your almost three is transitioning from the concrete stage in development to a new hightened pretend stage. Sometimes the nightmares can be as simple as what he did or did not eat in the evening.
Try to restrict any voilent or adult material on TV, even most children's cartoons are not safe for five and under. They just don't have the reasoning to handle visuals that they can't explain. Stick to "baby safe" programming such as Nick Jr., Sesame Street and Baby First network. Be reassuring during the day and night and always watch TV with your child, if you watch.

S. P- Preschool teacher

Wow! This sounds almost like what we went through with our daughter. When she was just about one year old, she woke us up screaming in the night. The scream was "different" than anything we'd heard before and she was in the crib pulling her legs up toward her stomach as if in pain. After about an hour of trying to calm her and wake her (it seemed as if she wouldn't wake up even though her eyes were open), I put her in the car and took her to the emergency room to make sure she didn't have an appendix problem or something like that. She fell asleep in the car on the way, and when I woke her at the hospital, she was just fine and happy.
The doctor told me that it was "night terrors". He said a LOT of children have them and the best thing to do is to try and get them back to sleep because they have no memory of these once they wake up. Trying to wake them isn't a good thing because it can scare them.
Well, my daughter had them until she was about 5 years old. Sometimes several times a week (usually after a long tiring day and when she may have missed a nap. It also would happen like clock work - about 3 hours after we put her down). The Dr. said it was something to do with the "type" of sleep she was in. It made it tough to have babysitter, because it would freak them out.
My husband and I found what worked for our daughter after a lot of sleepless nights. We taped several "Bugs Bunny" episodes (her favorite) and when she would have these, one of us would bundle her up, talk low and soothingly, cuddle on the couch and turn on Bugs. She would buck and scream and cry at first, but pretty soon she would focus on Bugs. Then like magic, we'd have our little girl back. We would ask her if she wanted to go back to sleep and she'd yawn and nod and we could put her right back down and she'd have no memory of anything the next morning.
Please do a search on "night terror" and it will give you a LOT of good info. See if this pertains to your son, if so, this information can be invaluable to understanding it.
I know this can be distressing and we just hated seeing her like this, but she did grow out of it with no lasting effects. She's nine now.
Best of luck to you!