3 year old having night terrors??

[busymomof2]

i call them night terrors and i have basically self diagnosed it but i'm pretty sure i'm 100 percent right..my son who just turned 3 had been waking within 1-2 hours of falling asleep just sobbing, crying out very loudly, still with his eyes closed and unable to communicate when i'm asking questions (what's wrong, where does it hour, are you sick, what can i do?) he will often just sob "i don't know"....this usually goes on for 10 -15 minutes then lately i have been just leaving him until i hear the sobbing slow then stop then i'll go in and he'll say "good night mommy, i love you" as if i'd just put him to bed..i have brought him to bed with me and when they do start again in the middle of the night i seem to be able to slow or stop them by just being right beside him (shorten them at least) but in the morning he will ask why he's in our bed??  he almost seems dilousional (spelling?) but has never had a fever.....so anyway, has anyone else had experience with these? a few things i have read indicate that stress can trigger them (dad works alot and sometimes is not seem for longer periods, baby sister born 6 months ago and has never shown any jealosy but perhaps this is starting to come out now??)..it also says that going in and waking them an hour after they fall asleep may help or giving them benydril before bed, but i don't quite understand that, are we sedating them??

[15milner]

sounds like what I would call a night terror.

when dealing with Matthew's sleep disturbances a while ago, we fast came to the conclusion that actully intervening by touching him made things worse, he would end up flailing around, he'd ask for milk - we'd get milk for him and he flung it across the room and then ask for milk again.  It really is as if he doesn't know what he wants and whatever he asks for actually isn't 'it'. Our way of helping him, is to simply go in, and reassure him that mummy / daddy are here... you're safe... we love you... night night.  The more we try and help and comfort him the longer it takes for him and the worse it gets.  After one particularly rough one, I ended up having to completely 'reset' bedtime.  He was happy being held - looking out the window etc.  So we said night night to the road and the neighbours houses, read a story, tucked him back in and he went straight to sleep.

Matthew terrors always happen between 10-11pm on a Thursday - one of the days he goes to nursery and therefore doesn't get as much daytime sleep as normal. 

the waking about and hour before is a similar idea to the wake-to-sleep method.  The reason why the terrors hit seems, to me, to be linked to the change in sleep cycle between different phases and get stuck between 2 (can't remember which ones though), so rousing him or at least getting him to roll over etc helps to nudge him to the next sleep phase.

i've also read that it could also be linked to bladder control.

Hope this has helped.

Alex

[Florencia]

One of my aunts did some research on this as she experienced the same with her then 4 yo dd when younger bro hit the 7 old month mark. Sleep doctor (i don't know his specialty but he was ona SLeep Center) told my aunt that dd had realized her bro was a real person cause he was now able to sit, babble and be more " a person", in his previous baby phases he was just laying around and being a baby therefore not presenting much "competence" for her. Now that he was a real person, he was stealing mommy's attention in the fun/playing part and dd was experiencing some stress due to it. Dr recommended play time together or letting her choose what would they all play (ie blocks or something) making her "the big sister" (you're gonna teach your lil bro how to play, how to have fun, what books are your favourite etc). Definetly related to stress. Dr also advice aunt to put on a night lamp on her bedroom and explain her that was the dream fairy that was taking care of her while she slept. The fairy would sleep in mornings (off lamp) while she played and went to school and would be up all night in case she had a bad dream, the fairy would delete it with her stick. This was super thrilling for her and she was able to defeat the confussion when she woke up screaming cause she'd see the fairy and would recall all and went back to sleep. My aunt also used some aromatherapy (we'll never know if this helped but it doesn't hurt to try) during her dd's bath, with soap and lotions anti stress and would lit an antistress candle for the first 2 hours of her sleep (she'd wake screaming 1-1.5 hrs after falling asleep). Sleep dr. also said that too much physical contact during the episodes can be confusing for them, since they're still on a sleep phase. Reassuring and very quiet words were adviced.

The benadryl is a sedative that produces relaxation of the cyrculatory system (hence the drying on the cartilagues) and that helps to achieve deep sleep. IT is a medicine that is used under prescription, so you might want to try "natural" methods first, although it is an option too.

I hope your lo gets back on track soon. PM or post if you need further info, id be happy to share it.