Friday, September 7, 2012

Night terrors

For all of you out there who don't know much about night terrors, it is an uncommon problem for most kids that starts when they are 2-3 and can last as long as until they are 5.

They are characterized by your child seeming to be awake and having them walk around the house, screaming, crying, calling out, hitting, punching, slapping, spiting, scratching, etc. They can't hear you. You can't wake them up.  They seem like they are awake, but they aren't.  My daughter has absolutely no recollection of them when she wakes up in the morning, even if we have been up all night with her... Her eyes are wide open.  She follows the light.  She seems awake, but she really isn't.  It is real hard to calm her down.  She doesn't hear what we say.  Usually, it takes about 20-90 minutes to get her back to sleep.  On bad nights, she will have them back to back all night.  Last night was a killer.

The doctors say that having an irregular bedtime routine contributes to them (being overtired).  What I have found is that if our daughter is going through a period of change (new teacher at school, mommy traveling,  new people in/out of house, missing cat, slightly different routine), she feels the change more profoundly than most kids and she reacts by having night terrors.  The other thing that used to make a difference, but doesn't seem to now based on last night, is that when she slept in our room, she didn't have them.  For the first time, she had them in our room which totally blew my mind.  Our room has been our safe place, and I don't know what the impetus was for her to feel uncomfortable.

Sure, some nights she is restless and "fighting" all night.  I didn't really characterize them as night terrors because she wasn't running around the house.

I am not giving up hope that she will work these things out.

1 comment:

  1. 90 minutes???? Ugh, that is a really long time, how frustrating and scary that sounds.

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