So my 4 yo just had another "episode" last night - she seems to have them once every couple of weeks (seems to have started after I had our second baby 3 months ago). Last night we went to see Toy Story 3 on ice and she didnt get to bed around 1100pm. At 1:17am she woke up cryiing. I went to her room and she was laying horizontal across the bed, crying and kicking. I tried to comfort her with words which didnt help and every time I tried to touch her she would pull away - still crying. I would try and put covers on her and she would kick therm off - agitated, still crying. I asked her why she was crying and she said she wanted Jesse's hat which I gave to her but she still continued to cry and kick. I then gently shook her and told her repeatedly to "wake up" and then she immediately stopped crying and asked me to pick her up which I did. She quieted down, I layed her back in bed and she then asked me to lay in bed too for a little bit which I did and she fell back asleep. The whole process took about 20 min. I just dont know what to do and its pretty scary I have to admit. Its like I can have coversations with her but I'm not really sure if she's awake or asleep. If these are "night terrors" how do I handle them? Do they grow out of it? Could they be happening when she is overtired? Is there a way to prevent them? I've heard that they usually happen around the same time every night and to keep a log book of when they happen and try to wake them up 1/2hr before the "terror" will begin to prevent them???
Forgot to mention too, she does talk in her sleep on occasions. I have had to sleep with her a few times the whole night and have been awoken by her talking/yelling. And when these terrors/nightmares happen and afterwards when I ask her why she was crying/kicking she never has told me that she was scared about anything. When I ask her this evening she will probably tell me cause she wanted Jess'es hat which I gave to her but it didnt help calm her down at all. And many times during these "episodes" her eyes are open too like the one woman posted about her child - yet she is still crying and I cant seem to do anything to calm her down. One time, she was crying and I was in bed with her going thru one of our episodes and all of a sudden she just turned over and quit crying and fell back asleep in like seconds. It was like on and then off - just like that.
Sounds like it. They usually happened with my son when he was off his schedule. A lot of times it was when he would fall asleep in the car on the way home from somewhere and we would put him into bed asleep. Not much you can do but keep them safe and let them ride it out. He is six now and has completely outgrown them.
This totally sounds like night terrors. My 3 yo son has the same thing and I can now with certainty tie them to when he's overtired. I did some research on this topic and found that most people say that you either have to leave them alone and let them get through it (obviously, monitor them to make sure they don't hurt themselves) or try to slowly wake them so that you can actually approach them and calm them down. So far we haven't found the magic trick, I'm sorry to say. The best recommendation is making sure she gets plenty of sleep. I wish you luck!
My daughter had night terrors - which seemed that she was in an actual state of terror - crying, screaming eyes wide open no matter what I did she wouldn't wake up, wouldn't respond to holding, cuddling, etc. She scream for mommy and I'd try to tell her "mommy's righ there, I'm here honey, mommy's holding you" - it never registered. She'd scream eyes wide open in sheer terror as if the scariest monster you could imagine, was chasing her. They would last about 10 - 30 minutes and as a parent my husband and I were horrified by them! My husband hadn't seen them initially and dismissed my concerns until he was awake for one of them and was visibily shaken by it. After he witnessed a night terror he insisted that we take her to the doctor beucase he was convinced something horrible was wrong with her.
She would have no memory of it and would return to a peaceful sleep as if it never happened. They occured perhaps 5 times over about a 6 month period. They stopped as suddenly as they began. She's now 14 and they're just a distant, but disturbing memory, for us. She has no recollection of them at all.
My son never had a night terror. But both kids would have nightmares from time to time. We never allowed them to watch scary shows or movies so their imaginations would just go wild. Nightmares are scary - but they'd wake up and want mom or dad close by to comfort them until they fell back asleep.
Good luck with this - and don't think too much about it. Every so often I still will have a nightmare that seems so real that I have to spend a few minutes to shake out the cobwebs and realize it was only a dream.
That definately sounds like one! If you google it, there is a bunch of info on night terrors. My son just had a few this past week. But his were assciated with high fever from being sick. But extreme exhuastion and interuption in the schedule will also cause the terrors. It's the scariest thing! My son was vomitting during his episode....it almost looked like he was having a siezer (sp?). Hope this info helps!
Take care!
A.
night terrors are NOT caused by foods or by what shows kids watch, has nothing to do with dreams or night mares, night terrors happen when you are partly aroused in non rem sleep, it all has to do with brain activity and sleep cycles, your child has night terrors because the brain it rapidly functioning to change sleep cycles. night terrors are associated with sleep walking and talking. when non rem sleep which is a deep sleep cycles over to REM sleep (rem sleep is when dreams start) the brain is going nuts sending signals, and sometimes they slow down, so you get caught between the change of the sleep cycle. so basically your daughter is stuck in-between non rem and rem. and nothing that you do will help her, talking and touching will make it worse and if it does not make it worse then its not night terrors. you cannot wake up out of this it has to change to rem sleep. and she would not know of anything that had happend
so by the sounds of it, your daughter DOES NOT have night terrors
This sounds more like sleepwalking than a terror. My daughter had both- when she had terrors, it was really like she was terrified- her eyes were wide and she would scream or look like she was screaming but nothing would come out. The first time I saw it, I thought she was having a seizure and rushed her to the ER. She had woken from it by the time we got there and they essentially laughed at me. She was around 2 when hers started, but the talking/walking in sleep started before that, sometimes she would cry or have some dialog with me, but like you said, would drop back off to sleep.
My mother is in her 50s and has sleep walked her whole life. She says the things that have helped her most are to not have stimulation before bed (she has a huge fear of spiders and snakes, so she makes sure to avoid those subjects, as well as sad/upsetting tv, etc) and to just gently speak to her and encourage her to go back to bed. Sometimes she remembers quite a bit of it, and sometimes she remembers none of it. When she was little, her father would yell at her and try to wake her up or tell her the scary things really were there and instill more fear in her because he thought it was funny and she would not remember it (but she did and it made things worse.)
I would try for an earlier bedtime. My girls sleep best/most soundly when put down around 7pm. I have a 10 yr old and 3 yr old and they have similar bedtimes and it still works for them. My younger daughter (with the sleep probs) was a night-owl from a very young age and it took me a long time to get her on a better routine, but really worth it since it helped her sleep far more soundly.
CDH has a ped wing for sleep studies too, if you are really concerned.
M.
PS- It has absolutely been proven that things that happen to us in real life that we experience (including TV) and food reactions can have impacts on the quality of our sleep. Those things impact the brain, and therefore holistically impact our sleep and our wakefulness. You can research this on your own too, obviously. But I just saw the response below mine and was a little shocked that someone would negate that.
I thought night terrors had no after-effects. I mean, if you were to actually wake her, she would have no recollection of anything happening and wouldn't need to be held or cuddled with in bed. It sounds more like a nightmare that she couldn't explain.
My daughter has experienced similar episodes. She will be four in a few months. I have found that they tend to occur on nights she eats "certain food" for a bed time snack or even a certain food at dinner. Sometimes they are as bad as you described, other times she will just be crying a little in her sleep and I will lie down next to her for a few minutes and she will be fine. I have not found any way to get rid of them, but I do monitor what she eats/watches before bedtime. That has helped some. Good luck
night terrors are tricky. do you watch the shows she watches? cause believe it or not a lot of the 'kids' shows out at this point i dont think are really made for them, they have to cater to a larger age group now. have you or your significant other made sure to be careful what the kids hear or make sure they arent around when your watching something more for our age group? i know a lot of parents do these things, but its still good to double check, has she showed any fears of anything lately? something as simple as a dog or a doll or another object in the house? and i dont know how open minded you are, but kids seem to be more intuitive on things like spirits, i know my niece has problems with that often, so if you live in an area thats older, or a house thats been remodeled she could be seeing/feeling something your missing, all of these are things too look at and think about, even though some seem far fetched.
good luck though.
