Night terrors

[inkedmamajama]

The last couple of weeks my three year old daughter has been having rough nights. She is still nursing, and co-slept with us until her third birthday. Bedtimes are fairly easy affairs, and she does not nap during the day anymore.

The problem started a few weeks ago when I noticed that when she wakes up in the middle of the night it is not regular night waking, but more 'violent' and then she progressed to full on night terrors accompanied by falling off the bed (We got a bed rail) and severe night sweats...to the point when her pillow is literally sopping wet. The last couple of nights she has had numerous wakeups-over five a night.

She is still not napping, not displaying her usual signs that she needs a daytime nap...except for this intense, violent wakeups...I am exhausted and very worried that she is having some distress of some sort that I cannot help her with.

There have been no big changes in our household, nor her diet.

Any ideas/advice?

[Lady Lilya]

Yes, I have some ideas.

My sister had night terrors, and as an adult I researched them. Apparently medical science doesn't have anything to say except that they are not harmful and will be outgrown. But, I found a site that had thousands of posts by parents about their experience.

These parents noticed that keeping the child cooler helped a lot. Keeping their beds empty of extra pillows and stuffed animals. Keeping their feet completely bare and uncovered.

Also, often they found that needing to pee was connected. As if their brain was trying to wake them up so they'd go use the bathroom. A lot of parents found that if they woke their child up a short while after going to bed and suggested to go pee, the night terror could be avoided for that night.

It is believed that night terrors are related to sleepwalking and bedwetting, in that they involve the same mechanism where the child's brain is signalling to wake up but it isn't properly being carried out. Part of the signal is an urgent sort of stress signal, therefore the partial wakeup contains fear feelings.

[sewchris2642]

Angela had night terrors. Hers took the form of sitting up in bed, screaming for me with her eyes wide open. But she wasn't away of her surroundings at all. I'd be holding and talking to her but she couldn't see or hear me. After a few minutes (up to 5-10 minute some times), she'd calm down, close her eyes, and go back to sleep without ever really waking up. The next day, she wouldn't remember the episode at all, unlike a regular bad dream. She outgrew them by the time she was 12. When I researched it (before computers), the prevailing theory was that the were related to low blood sugar at night. What helped Angela was to eat a starch/protein snack before bedtime. Half a pb&j sandwich, yogurt and granola, cheese and crackers. She would still have one once in a while but they weren't every night. Nor did they last as long. IME, bad dreams help children wake up to go to the bath room in the middle of the night but Angela's night terrors had no connection to her needing to go to the bathroom. Just the opposite. If we tried to take her to the bathroom, the night terror lasted longer. The best thing for her was to just hold her while she was in the middle of one. And then tuck her back into bed when it was over.

[Shanny2032]

I just came on to do a search for this topic as I think this is what is happening to my 22 month old. She has been night weaned for about 6-8 weeks and has just started wearinf feety pajamas (has slepy naked her whole life until now) and last night the first night terror heppened as she was peeing in the bed, so I found what Lady Lilya posted to be very interesting. Do you remember where you read this information, I'd be very interested in reading more. Thank you.

[Lady Lilya]

I remember coming across a website where people had submitted their personal experiences with night terrors. It was post after post. I think it took me days to read them all.

[Shanny2032]

I just came here tonight to search for this thread so that I could thank Lady Lilya!  That information you gave me was dead on and so valuable.  I ditched the feety pajamas and haven't had any issues until tonight.  My daughter asked why I was wearing socks and said she wanted to wear some too.  An hour after she feel asleep she "woke up" clearly having a night terror.  It took me several minutes to remember that she was wearing the socks.  Obviously this is not a coincidence and for us really causes/solves the problem.  I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to post about what you had read.  i have told many others about the information so I hope that it can help someone else as well! 

[Lady Lilya]

You are so very welcome!  I am so glad the info helped!

[Thing1Thing2]

I came on here intending to start a new post about my 3 year old DS. He has been waking up 3 times a night crying "no, I dont want to (go home/go night night)". He starts to get up out of bed as he is crying. If I try to hold him, he gets more intense.

This has been happening for 3 months and since I am so sleep deprived - Im starting to lose it mentally. I yelled at him last night. I never yell.

I wonder if this could be classified as night terrors?

[Thing1Thing2]

Anyone? I'm still going through this and extremely sleep deprived. Please help?!

[raqi]

My DD's had a few night terrors and I did some research to try to figure out what to do.  Some of the approaches I came accross were:  waking the child up fully before the usual night terror times if they're predictable (I guess they usually happen 1.5 - 2 hours after going to bed), then putting them back to sleep; keeping daytime nap schedules consistent (this definitely helped us); Rescue Remedy; and preventing overheating (as mentioned above).  Seems like different things work for different people.  There's a lot of information online if you have some time to search and wade through everything.  Good luck! 

[Thing1Thing2]

Thanks!