I almost "spanked" my 2 yr old ANGRY! HELP!!!!

987 Views 12 Replies 11 Participants Last post by Kim, Apr 1, 2006

gentlemama

Discussion Starter · Mar 31, 2006

Ok, It sounds horrible typing it, but I almost spanked my 2 year old out of anger. I really need help b/c i do not know what else to do! She wakes up EVERY NIGHT screaming to the top of her lungs. She starts throwing her arms back adn jsut pitching a full blown fit. You can not talk to her becuase she is screaming so loudly that she does not hear a word she is saying. She is not in pain that I can tell. She cosleeps with us, slong with her little sister. She just wakes up and starts screaming. After about 20-30 minutes of this, and trying to calm her I try time out, then it resorts to threats to spank, then I just try ANYTHING like "I'll give you a cookie" "You want to watch Dora" It is 2:30 AM here and her daddy and I have been outside (yes OUTSIDE) with her in the swing trying to get her to stop. She finally cried her self down after about an hour of this. I would think it is mightmares or something but she also does this right before she falls asleep at night. She basically, anytime she is in a semi-awake and sei-asleep mode she screams bloody murder and we go through this whole ordeal. I almost even took her to the emergency room the other night, I did not think she was hurting but I did not know waht else to do with her. I am really starting to lose it here! I mean, she is such a sweetheart, very loving, we play alot, and she loves on us and her sister, she it outgoing and loves to sing ang dance but when she gets sleepy it is "he** on earth!". We need help here. What can I do for my little angel? BTW she is 2.5 years old.

Save

1 - 13 of 13 Posts

Strong Mama

· #2 · Mar 31, 2006

Hi, poor baby. Could this be night terrors? Sounds like it. If so, she cant help it, I bet she is overtired when she goes to bed. Does she nap? What time does she go to bed? What is her *wind down* routine like?

Save

gentlemama

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 31, 2006

she usually takes a nap in her car seat when we go on afternoon errands. When she knows it is getting close to bedtime she starts trying to get real active b/c she does not want to go to sleep. sometimes it is 10:00 or 11:00 before we can get her down

Save

lilyka

· #4 · Mar 31, 2006

She sounds very overstimulated. I would work on better bed time routiens, earlier bedtimes, better naps etc. She sounds very tired. I don't think even she knows what she wants.

Save

Strong Mama

· #5 · Mar 31, 2006

Hi she is having night terrors. They usually occur from 10mins to 3 hours of falling asleep. The child is screaming with eyes opened but does not respond to cuddling,etc. The WORST thing you can do is hold them when they are in a night terror, it actually prolongs the terror and the screaming can then last for a loooooooong time. If the child is left alone during the terror with you watching over them, the terror can last from one minute to ten. Then they fall in a deep sleep. Your little one is over tired. If you implemented a bedtime wind down routine, and an earlier bedtime of say 8pm, I bet she will stop this screaming. Good luck with things!!

Save

The4OfUs

· #6 · Mar 31, 2006

Yep, night terrors was the first thing I thought of, too - DH dated a girl that had them ocassionally in her 20s, and he said it was horrible - worse for him than her - because he felt so helpless and she seemed so scared, but all he could to is sit there and wait until she fell asleep.

I don't have much advice, but wanted to chime in in agreement and suggest you maybe do a little online research, I'm sure some other mamas will have advice for you, like FEDUP did...you might want to start a new thread though with that in the title line so mamas with experience will see it, or even cross post on nighttime parenting...

Big hugs to all of you!

Save

mahogny

· #7 · Mar 31, 2006

You definitely sound at the end of your rope! I bet you're exhausted! I concur with the others who said night terrors. My DS is prone to them, too. Those bloodcurdling screams can be so scary! They usually occur when he's been asleep not very long, and nothing can shake him out of them.

What works for him is a definite bedtime routine, and when he was your DD's age, a daily nap did wonders. Carseat naps aren't as deep nor as restful as "real" naps, so if at all possible, I'd limit the errand time in the afternoon and just institute a naptime at home. If my DS had trouble winding down for a nap, I'd turn on some calming music and cuddle with him on the couch until he fell asleep. Although, I didnt' have another little one at the time, so that was plausible for me. You might have a difficult time with that.

For bedtime, just make the house very unstimulating. Turn down all the lights in the house, turn of the TV, and lay quietly with her. With my son, we had "snuggle time" on the couch every evening. It really helped him to wind down.

Good luck!

See less See more

Save

sbbmom

· #8 · Mar 31, 2006

I'm so sorry to hear your situation. You must be so tired!

I'd have to fall into the camp of thinking that she's probably WAY overtired. I know that when my son doesn't get a full 2 hours during the day and 11-12 at night he gets like that - way overstimulated and unable to control himself, unsure of what he wants, etc. We've also found that the more overtired he is, the harder it is for him to sleep. It's a dangerous cycle.

Good luck.

Save

TortelliniMama

· #9 · Mar 31, 2006

I agree, night terrors. When ds was having them, we had a lot of success with going in and waking him up, just enough for him to open his eyes a little, before we went to sleep ourselves. (He had been asleep for a couple of hours at that point.) The usual advice is to wake them 15 minutes before the usual time they have them, but his were unpredictable, and also tended to be in the wee hours of the morning, so we figured we'd try it this way first, and then move on to setting an alarm for 2 am or something if we had to. (We knew that it would be a lot less disturbing to wake up to an alarm than him screaming, poor kid.) We didn't have to, because this worked like a charm. We would rouse him just a bit, like I said, so that his eyes would open blearily, and then we'd let him go back to sleep, which he did immediately because he hadn't fully awakened. It seems weird that it works, but it was really amazing. We did it for 4-5 nights. (I think a week was recommended, but we decided to test and see if we could stop.)

Before we found this method to prevent them, the only thing that helped at all was singing to him really, *really* loudly. It would still take him a while to calm down completely and go back to a restful sleep, but at least he wasn't really screaming during it.

See less See more

Save

LeftField

· #10 · Mar 31, 2006

Yeah, night terrors involve screaming, esp if the child is non-responsive. It's like they're asleep and in a nightmare but their bodies are awake. My younger son has had them a few times. He sits up, eyes open, and gets hysterical. He looks awake but he is not. I never knew what was happening so I tried to interact with him and was baffled as to why he wouldn't make eye contact or answer me. Meanwhile, he's saying, "Mama!!!" in an upset voice and crawling around the bed, but he seemed completely oblivious to my presence; it was like I was invisible to him. One time, I cried because I was trying to help him, he was calling out for me, but he had no idea I was touching him or talking to him.

I've read that being overtired can be a trigger for them. Can you move your daughter's bedtime to 30 minutes earlier to see if it makes a difference? Do you have a consistent bedtime and a bedtime routine? Does she watch TV right before bed or do you wind the evening down with quiet games?

Meanwhile, HUGE HUGE hugs to you. You sound so stressed out and from what you describe, I cannot imagine dealing with that. Having only seen a handful of night terrors with my son, I cannot imagine dealing with them regularly. {{{{hugs}}}} to all of you.

See less See more

Save

peilover010202

· #11 · Mar 31, 2006

I also agree with night terrors. My ds has done this a couple of times (he's 2.5 yo also) and it's scary because nothing helps. When ds wakes up screaming like that, the best thing I can do is be near him to be sure he's safe and let him stop on his own. For us, it's usually been somewhere between 10-15 minutes at most, but typically more like 5.

We found that being more set on his bedtime helped (his naps were always great), so we put him to bed earlier (7:30-8pm) and we haven't had any recurrences in 6+ months.

GL! mama

Save

~member~

· #12 · Mar 31, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by FEDUP
Hi she is having night terrors. They usually occur from 10mins to 3 hours of falling asleep. The child is screaming with eyes opened but does not respond to cuddling,etc. The WORST thing you can do is hold them when they are in a night terror, it actually prolongs the terror and the screaming can then last for a loooooooong time. If the child is left alone during the terror with you watching over them, the terror can last from one minute to ten. Then they fall in a deep sleep. Your little one is over tired. If you implemented a bedtime wind down routine, and an earlier bedtime of say 8pm, I bet she will stop this screaming. Good luck with things!!

: My ds has night terrors. We have found that he needs to be in bed by 7:30 pm, and he can only participate in one afterschool activity a day, and some days none at all. He gets overstimulated and does the same thing as the OP, gets all revved up before bedtime.
Also, we cut out all sugar and breads. Just those two have made a huge difference in our sleep. (All of us talk in our sleep and three of my children walk in their sleep).

I think it is scarier for us parents because we feel so helpless at the moment, just like when our children are puking and there is just nothing we can do, kwim? You just have to be patient and work on preventative measures.

See less See more

Save

Kim

· #13 · Apr 1, 2006

Quote:

I would think it is nightmares or something but she also does this right before she falls asleep at night. She basically, anytime she is in a semi-awake and semi-asleep mode she screams bloody murder and we go through this whole ordeal.

This statement really stood out to me. My dd was the same way -- from about 6 mos. to almost 3 years old. These were *not* night terrors...she wasn't yet asleep when the screaming started. The screaming/wailing was always my cue that she was nearing falling asleep.

She simply fought sleep!

My dd napped until she was 2 yrs. old. I can count on one hand the number of times she *didn't* wake up screaming or crying for us to come get her. We co-slept, too, so it wasn't like she was abandoned in a crib or something.

I've talked to my ped about it. She had a son with the same issue -- said he finally grew out of it at age 4. My dd is 4 now and still wakes up crying nightly from bad dreams and crawls into bed with us. But, luckily is old enough to drop off to sleep without battle.

Mama, keep doing what you are doing. I know how tiring it is...I've been there! It was awful and I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. Luckily for me, she was my firstborn and my only responsibility at the time.

My take is that we have some special kids who happen to be very sensitive to change. Or, at least mine is...extremely sensitive, empathetic, and feels everything very deeply.

Sorry for the long post -- if your intuition is telling you that there is nothing physically wrong (which was the case in my situation), then I feel it's something that will have to be outgrown. Definitely nail down a consistent bedtime routine. Maybe look for other disruptions (sugar, TV, too many scheduled activities...)

Best of luck!

See less See more

Save

1 - 13 of 13 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month