2 yr old and night terrors -- can we do anything?

[Comtessa]

My 23 mo DD has recently started having night terrors, and they have me and DH both pretty upset.  I'm fairly certain that this is developmentally appropriate, but it's still awful to live through at night! 

It's always the same: once or twice a week, she'll start screaming from her bed in the middle of the night.  When I go in to her, she's still asleep, but screaming and crying hysterically.  Last week when I went in, she was shouting "No, Grandma, no no no!"  And last night, she was sobbing "Daddy, Daddy," and signing "hurt" over and over.  When she's in the middle of it, I can't wake her without a lot of difficulty, and I often can't comfort her.  Sometimes if I nurse her she'll calm down, but she's nightweaned at this point and I really don't want to backslide on that one (we have a new baby coming any day and I really don't want to be nursing two at night). 

I have two worries: one, am I handling this ok?  And, if I don't nurse her, how else do I calm her down?  And two, are we doing something that is contributing to the problem?  I.e., is she being exposed to something that is too scary for her?  We really limit movies and books with scary concepts, etc., but I'm sure it's possible that she's seeing or hearing things that are too much for her. 

Anyone else having this experience and have any advice?

[anjsmama]

I am right there with you :( My 32 month DS just started with these about a month ago, and at first they were every night! Now they come about 2 or 3 times a week. I also am puzzled about what would make him feel so scared... I like to think he isn't exposed to "scary" things. I have been going to extraordinary lengths lately to make sure DS  knows he is safe, secure, and loved, loved, loved. But he is nonresponsive when I go into soothe him, though he is screaming, he isn't actually awake and has no idea I'm there. I've tried to hold him but it actually seems to terrify him when I do. I just wait in the room and restart his night music, and he calms down and falls back to a true sleep pretty quickly. It's tough because the screaming also wakes my 11 week DD... so DH takes care of her while I go to DS, or he goes and I nurse DD back to sleep. He is still VERY happy and wonderful during the day, and doesn't even remember waking?

My  DS isn't nursing anymore so I'm not sure about that, but my GUESS (total guess) is that nursing to calm her down shouldn't interfere with nightweaning since she's not actually conscious to what she's doing (or at least, I know my DS isn't). Hang in there! And I hope someone has some ideas...

[physmom]

The thing about kids is things that we think are scary to them are not what they think are scary.  For instance, DD is currently scared of X-rays.  She has never seen one in real life but she's been told about them and seen a youtube video about what they do and now she's very scared of them and screams "no go to doctor, no take an x-ray!" whenever she gets the slightest hurt.  It would've never occurred to me ahead of time to not let her watch that video.  This is the same kid who would happily sit through The Land Before Time without blinking. 

Speaking of dinosaurs.  At the moment she gets cared of one of her books where T-Rex comes out and plays with the little girl in it but at the same time she loves seeing videos of T-rex hunting dinosaurs?? She gets scared of being tickled but will go up and talk to every stranger on the face of the planet.  She's scared of showers but will happily lay her head back in water and tries to swim on her own all the time. 

I say this all to let you know that the world is a very scary place for toddlers with milllions of unknowns.  Many times they don't look at danger the same way you and I do so we might unintentionally expose them to things/stories that they might be afraid of.  The best thing you can do as a parent is try to talk to them about their fear (if they will let you) and explain what happens with XYZ.  Also provide comfort at night.

You didn't mention this in your post but is your DD teething?  Have her sleep habits changed at all?  Did she get hurt at all at grandma's house awhile back?  DD went through a BAD time with night-terrors where her daycare was unable to get her to take naps during the day.  Once she started napping again they stopped. 

[sunnygir1]

My dd had a few night terrors recently when we were on vacation and right after we got back.  She is 4, so a little older.  In her case, I think some of it may have had to do with watching tv before bed, but I also think it was heavily related to stress, missing sleep, and being off her normal schedule.

I recommend you limit screen time, get your lo on a really steady schedule for naps and bedtime, and take other stress-reducing measures as appropriate.

Best of luck!  It is totally scary and strange, but they do seem to come out of it okay.

[sapphire_chan]

For us, the keys were a long enough nap during the day (for us it was a minimum of an hour) and getting dd cholesterol. The cholesterol was more of a factor.

Then, the best way to get through the night terror when they happened, was to lay near (but not touching) dd in a darkened room (turned on the hall light with the door open) and every time she paused in the screaming ask if she wanted nursing. The two times we tried that, the screaming stopped in 10 minutes (typical night terror sessions last 5 to 30 minutes), she snuggled over to nurse, and was peacefully asleep in 3 minutes for the rest of the night. (Total sleep time that got disturbed: <15minutes)

Things that made it worse: touching her, bright light, complete darkness, trying to figure out what she wanted, anything like that. When we tried to "get her out of it" she gave what seemed like rational responses, but were actually just negative echos of what we were asking her "do you want X?" "NO X!" etc. And after about an HOUR of that (longer than 30 minutes anyway) she finally woke up completely--and couldn't get back to sleep for 2 or 3 hours. (Total sleep time disturbed: >3 hours * 3 people)

Oh, and she's now almost 32 months and the last night terror was more than 6 months ago. The second one we handled by just gently giving her verbal reminders that we were there and she could nurse was the last one. Typical right? You figure it out, it stops?

[sapphire_chan]

Oh, and there was no correlation to nap timing, screen time duration or timing, or eating particular foods, only having little or no nap or not eating cholesterol.

Since you aren't nursing at night any more, you could either figure out some other comfort thing that you could say to her during the lulls in screaming, or you could treat the night terror bedtime as a false start and nurse at the end of the terror as the "true" bedtime. Especially with a new baby coming, being able to get the screaming quieted ASAP would probably be good. Because they aren't actually awake during a night terror at all and have no control over it whatsoever, nursing right after it probably won't be perceived by her as starting to allow night nursing again. If you get her fully awake first though, there might be confusion unless you really play up the idea of it being a bedtime nursing (and then you'd risk her waking again and again "bedtime again! bedtime nursing!")

Also, you should be aware that night terrors typically occur 1.5 to 2 hours after the child goes to sleep. So you can use that to get a feel for when you're "clear" as it were.

[mami2f3]

My ds has had night terrors for years now. He's 8. I am NOT an expert. I googled it long ago and I think you should too. What I remember is that it is not so dissimilar from sleepwalking in a way. (Which he started doing later BTW) And when I say his name, it seems to be worse. So with either night terrors or sleepwalking, I tell him, "you are okay. go to bed now." in a happy sweet simple direct voice. I fully understand not wanting to go back to nursing, and I really wouldn't. I think having them stop yelling or crying helps us more than them. They are unaware and usually unaware the next day too. I also get the problem of waking others, but my kids sleep through it surprisingly well. 

I don't see any relationship to what he watches. i have been very protective and then at times, at friends houses he has seen stuff (scooby doo) that scares him. He will have nightmares, sometimes, but the night terrors don't seem to coincide. They do coincide with changes in his routine. The more I keep life routine, the better, especially bed time. 

Also, there's a homeopathic Calms Forte by Hyland's that he likes and does seem to work, though not every time. I did it routinely for a while when it was happening a lot and that helped break the cycle.

So for my guy, trying to wake him up generally makes it worse. I only would if he were about to seriously injure himself, but you know even then, it's more efficient to just physically protect him. 

It is very startling. And I've had to warn parents when he goes for a sleepover because it can be scary for them. 

[goldenwillow]

DS (22 months) had similar experiences. 

I found a thread here on MDC (I am having trouble finding now) that suggested a few helpful ideas that worked for DS.  DH and DS were watching a few movies on Netflix every now and again and I feel that those were a contributor, no doubt.  They watched "Invincible me" I think it was called.  It made me all hyper watching the screen as I was cruising by cleaning the house.  I asked DH to stop the movie.  TV/DVD time is maybe an hour a week now.  Only watches 30 mins at a time. 

The tips we tried too at bed time were...

No socks

Light blankets

Cooler room

We did these 3 things and he has not had an issue since. 

I will go look for that thread again and be back!

[goldenwillow]

Ta da!

Lady Lydia has some good advice as her family member experienced them.

http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1262328/night-terrors

I hope this helps.  I felt so helpless when DS had this going on. 

[dawncayden]

The only thing that works for us is to wake him up, so we usually get him up and turn the light on or leave the room to get him awake. Once he's awake and he can respond to us, we give him a drink of water then he goes back to sleep.

It used to take 10 to 20 minutes of us calmly trying to help. It was awful. Now we have to go in full, and try to wake him up. Lights on, blankets off, him sitting up. Us loudly saying his name until he responds. Now its more like 1 to 2 minutes. It rarely happens anymore, but when it does it's nice that he calms down so quickly.

[mizznicole]

Do you think your baby is sleeping enough?  I know that mine has episodes when he is overtired.  We try to fix that with earlier bedtime, which is easier said than done.

[Comtessa]

Wow, thanks for all the good advice!  These are things that would never have occurred to me to try!  Especially keeping her feet bare; she's been sleeping in footie pajamas all winter, but now that the weather's getting warmer perhaps it's just too warm for her.  I can't bear to have anything on my feet at night; maybe that's triggering some kind of sensitivity for her. 

I AM concerned that she's not getting enough sleep -- her bedtime has always been late but lately it's been ticking closer and closer to 11 pm.  It's almost impossible to get her down before that.  We probably just need to try some new routines, since it seems quite likely that this is a good deal of the problem. 

The TV stuff is also a definite possibility; I suspected as much, and since others have said so, too, I'm more sure of it.  We've already started to notice that when she has screen time close to bedtime, she's harder to get to sleep and more restless throughout the night, so it looks like any kind of family movie watching is going to have to wait until after she's in bed.  DH loves watching movies with her, but I think her little brain just can't handle all the images.  Even a film that looks harmless to us can trigger images that are scary for her - we're starting to notice that more as her vocabulary has grown to be able to explain this.  It seems to me that she's having both standard nightmares and mild forms of real night terrors -- which could be the same causes, or different, but the fact that she's experiencing both makes me very concerned.  Even if the movie stuff doesn't trigger the night terrors, it's very likely connected to the nightmares (scary movies give ME nightmares all the time), so I think it makes sense to get rid of it as much as we can.

ETA: phys_mom, yes, she IS teething, and that could be part of the issue too.  I hadn't made the connection.  Maybe some homeopathic teething drops at bedtime could calm that?  Also, there IS some extra stress/tension in the house because she has a new sibling coming any day.  That could certainly be a contributor.  Also, sapphire_chan, the cholesterol suggestion is VERY interesting, because I think it's quite likely DD's cholesterol consumption has dropped quite a bit lately.  We're vegetarian, and I'm on a really limited-fat diet right now because of gallbladder complications with this pregnancy, which means we have more low or no-fat foods around, and we're not consuming anywhere near our usual levels of full-fat dairy, especially things like butter and yogurt.  We try to remember to give her extra to compensate, but it's possible it's not enough.  I will totally try to "up" this for her. 

Thanks so much for all the advice!  We're going to make a few changes around here and see how it goes!!!