Author Topic: Night terror or nightmare?  (Read 1169 times)

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Offline sszskristy

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Night terror or nightmare?
« on: October 18, 2016, 02:10:35 am »
My girl is 22mth old and an independent sleeper. She has been crying during night on and off for 1 month and I have ruled out everything but night terror and nightmare. I have read some articles about this and still not very pretty sure what is going on.  This is definitely different from the NW during the SR. She didn't wake up, she didn't open her eyes, I just pat her and shh for a few seconds and then she would stop crying and screaming. But it could happen 1-3 times during the night, not everyday though.

So anybody have any ideas about this? 

Offline becj86

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Re: Night terror or nightmare?
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2016, 09:00:26 am »
Sounds like a bad dream if you can settle her that easily. With a night terror, shush/pat would typically upset LO more.

Offline sszskristy

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Re: Night terror or nightmare?
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2016, 12:02:05 pm »
Sounds like a bad dream if you can settle her that easily. With a night terror, shush/pat would typically upset LO more.
Yes, I think so. But the problem is that it really happens a lot...she can only sleep through like 2 days in a week now. It is easy to settle but still makes us exhausted...
So I really wonder if it is a phase that would pass in a few weeks like SR...I know nightmare is normal for kids but who has bad dream everyday?..I didn't make her overtired or stimulated too much during the day.


Offline becj86

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Re: Night terror or nightmare?
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2016, 20:01:05 pm »
Bad dreams seem pretty common amongst kids. When DS was little, it helped for me to cuddle him and talk through his day with him (daycare wrote out what he did there, so I would just talk through getting up, all the thing he'd done at home, then travel to daycare, etc.) and that helped 'cap' the day. He would correct me and got more involved as his vocabulary grew. Its great practise for LO to get used to talking through their day (you are setting up a way to get info about what happens at school...) for later when you've less of an idea about what's happening too. I cannot say that stopped the dreams but reduced them for sure.

FWIW, the dream can be as simple as processing that moment that you walked out of the room for a moment or that time you said 'no' to something. Everything in the world is so new, she's not able to justify those experiences like we can. That doesn't mean you spend your entire time stopping her from ever having a perceived negative experience, just that you help her feel safe and loved in those moments and this too shall pass, just probably not in a few weeks, sadly.

Offline sszskristy

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Re: Night terror or nightmare?
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2016, 09:53:45 am »
Bad dreams seem pretty common amongst kids. When DS was little, it helped for me to cuddle him and talk through his day with him (daycare wrote out what he did there, so I would just talk through getting up, all the thing he'd done at home, then travel to daycare, etc.) and that helped 'cap' the day. He would correct me and got more involved as his vocabulary grew. Its great practise for LO to get used to talking through their day (you are setting up a way to get info about what happens at school...) for later when you've less of an idea about what's happening too. I cannot say that stopped the dreams but reduced them for sure.

FWIW, the dream can be as simple as processing that moment that you walked out of the room for a moment or that time you said 'no' to something. Everything in the world is so new, she's not able to justify those experiences like we can. That doesn't mean you spend your entire time stopping her from ever having a perceived negative experience, just that you help her feel safe and loved in those moments and this too shall pass, just probably not in a few weeks, sadly.
Thank you for sharing your story. I have never thought this before because so far DD's vocabularies are not as many as other 2 years old. But I'll try, it sounds good.