Night Terrors and Teething

[physmom]

Ok, I'm definitely losing it with the constant night terrors. DD always gets them when she's teething (specifically molars and canines are the worse). She's had them one and off for the last two nights and DH are exhausted!!!

I'm just not sure what to do. During the days she's completely normal. Last night we even got DD to bed EARLY she had woke up at 9 am that morning and fell asleep at 9pm at night, which is really an accomplishment for her (we did a lot of physical activity with her yesterday). Yet we had the worst night terror to date. If felt like it lasted forever, she kept asking for myself and DH (even though we were right there) and she was signing more and please. Eventually she woke herself up enough to nurse back to sleep but it felt like an eternity! Not too long afterwards she had a second one, they just tear me apart because she seems so scared and I can't do anything to help her. We also worry because in the past she screams so much that she'll make herself vomit. Thankfully last night she didn't but she was coughing like she normally does before hand.

I'm really up for any suggestions. Although it doesn't seem to me that is is food related since it only happens while teething. Should I try giving her something for her teeth? During the days she's so happy that it never seems necessary... but maybe I should before bed?

[seasiren]

It looks like no one has replied to your post. I am having the same exact problem. DS screams like he's been hurt after about three hours of sleep and nothing seems to calm him. Have you had any reasonable solutions? when does this "normal" phase pass?

[physmom]

I'm really sorry you're dealing with this too! So far nothing has been helping AND to make maters worse DD hasn't been taking naps at daycare this week, which means she's even more apt to have night terrors (and she goes to bed earlier, which means we see even less of her during the day )! They told DH today when he picked her up that it was because they were too busy to push her in the stroller (the only way she falls asleep) but I'm going to talk to them tomorrow because things are just getting worse here.

So yeah, basically DH and I are walking zombies at this point...

[seasiren]

So what are night terrors exactly? Does your LO scream like she fell on her head? Mine is getting naps and even nursing during the day and getting plenty of time with atleast one of us throughout the day. When did it start? How much is she staying up? Mine is 9 mo and I hear taht is when this type of thing starts. especially for the "spirited" ones.

[sapphire_chan]

With night terrors they don't know who you are what's going on, they're awake looking with eyes wide and they'll move around, but the brain basically is still asleep and interpreting things wrong.


We've recently (Friday and Saturday) had two days with only two big differences so we're going to play with those differences to see if we can avert night terrors in the future.

Friday: no night terrors, Saturday: I'm writing this now because her night terror woke me up.

Difference one: dd had a nice long nap on Friday and no nap on Saturday. This one would be really hard to correct, so I'm going to track it to see if there's a correlation after difference two is corrected.

Difference two: dd had eggs, cheese, and some fatty meat on Friday and no cholesterol on Saturday. Since night terrors are related to an underdeveloped nervous system and cholesterol is an important part of the nervous system, 2+2=make sure the toddler gets cholesterol.