ds has bad nightmares

[poppywise]

hi-
my son is 4.5 years old and for the past 6-8 months he has had bad nightmares off and on. it happens maybe once a month, if i were to guess.
the scenario is this: on a normal day, he goes to bed around 9pm and sleeps like a rock until 7am. when he does have a nightmare, he has usually been sleeping soundly for a few hours. i hear him talking in his sleep, but not really making sense. he sounds distressed and like he is crying. the part that baffles me/scares me a little is that it takes a while to get him to wake up out of it. his eyes will be open, he'll be crying and talking [not making sense] and then he shakes uncontrollably. his shaking is not violent like convulsions, but it does seem like he can't help it or stop.

anyone else experience this? i just give him lots of hugs and *try* to hold him as best i can [sometimes he won't let me] until he finally calms down, appears to be snapped out of it and then he goes right back to sleep.

i feel so bad for him
thanks in advance for any advice, thoughts...

[stafl]

I have experienced that myself, but not in my kids.
Is there anything stressing him out? a big change in his life? are you stressed, and he might be picking up on it?
when I start having nightmares like you're describing, I tend to start being afraid to go to sleep, and end up with terrible insomnia unless I can get rid of whatever it is that is stressing me out. It might help to keep a journal to see if there's any pattern or relationship between the bad dreams and something else going on.

[poppywise]

thanks - the journal is a great idea! i cannot think of anything that would be stressing him out, or us out [dh and i] ...but once i keep a journal and actually note how often, etc maybe something will come to light.
i just hate how awful it is!

[stafl]

Hey, you know what? My DD did go through a stage where she was having nightmares like that. I forgot. We never did figure out what the problem was, but it went away on its own.

[FreeRangeMama]

My ds has been having nightmares since he was very young (he is 4 now). He has anxiety issues and weird sleep issues run in both sides of the family, so I am not really surprised. Some of the things that have helped him was having a special bear (that was mine when I was young) that I used to hug when I was scared at night (he loves to hear stories about when dh and I had bad dreams and night fears when we were little). He also loves his flashlight, he knows to only turn it on when he is scared at night (family bedroom) and then he can see what is around him.

The biggest help has been our dreamcatcher. It was made for us by my Aunt as a gift and it hangs next to our bedroom window. I have told him all about how it catches our bad dreams and only lets the good ones through. He loves to hear about it over and over!

Just knowing that he has some power over his dreams and that bad dreams are only that-DREAMS-really helps him. Our issues might be different from yours, but these are the things that we have had the most success with. Good luck

[poppywise]

Wow - thanks! It' s funny because a friend of ours made a dream catcher and we hung it in his window and I just now realized I never explained it to him
We have a bear that he sleeps with and loves. When the dreams happen, we can't get him to do much, like hug the bear or us, but maybe I need to remind him tha that the bear is there for him in the middle of the night if he needs a hug.

Thanks mamas!