Night Terrors

suzukibabe

Took DS1 to the gp's today over these noises that wake him up in the night, explained everything to her and she said it sounds as though he is suffering night terrors.

Tonight is the first night in 3 nights that he has gone to sleep in his bed, i sat with him until he went to sleep and am just waiting for him to start shouting and screaming, it's awful to watch.

Anyway, what i wanted to ask is has anyone else had any experience of this?
How long did it last, whats the best way to calm them down and would doing anything different before bed make a difference?

jinky67

My DS used to suffer from night terrors.
He would wake up screaming and nothing we said or did made any difference...he wasn't aware we were there.
In the morning he wouldnt remember a thing about it.
It didnt happen every night...sometimes once or twice a week...never was a common denominator.
Lasted for around 4 months...then they just stopped.
Sorry this probably isnt much help:o
Just try not to let it upset YOU

izoomzoom

You know, DS1 suffered from this just a few nights ago.

He had been ill that day, and I put it down to that.

However, the last time he did it, (a couple of weeks ago) he woke up in a panic about 'getting a bull' . Now we knew exactly what he was on about - we had been playing darts at a friend that evening, and he had been trying to 'hit the bull' - so in that case it was related to something that had occurred during the day.

Any suggestions ???

feclmum

we found that playing childrens meditation cds as they are going to sleep has helped with our childrens nightmares,dont know if it would help with night terrors you could give it a try,my ds who is 5 and youngest ds who is 3 wont go to sleep without it now as it gives them nice dreams!! my older ds and dd sometimes still listen too

pboae

I had them for years when I was a child. I used to have a lot of nightmares as well. There never seemed to be any particular reason for it. The nightmares used to upset me a lot more, and I always remembered them. The night terrors upset my parents a lot more, and all I remembered was being woken up and then being told to go back to sleep. Eventually they just stopped, I assume I grew out of them.

suzukibabe

Iv'e not noticed him shouting about anything that's happened during the day, he just wakes up in an absolute panic screaming but when we go into him you can see that he's not 'awake'.
I'm begining to feel a bit bad as a week without proper sleep is making me feel a bit nowty(well, more than usual ) and i'm snapping at stupid little things that wouldn't normally bother me.

The only one getting a full nights sleep is DS2, who's 4 months old and can sleep through anything.

jinky67

suzukibabe wrote: »

Iv'e not noticed him shouting about anything that's happened during the day, he just wakes up in an absolute panic screaming but when we go into him you can see that he's not 'awake'.

That is exactly what DS was like...its so frustrating:cool:

Spendless

My son had them till he was about 6. Whilst I was unable to stop them, I found there were not as likely to occur if he went to bed calmly and not upset. Difficult task since he doesn't like bedtime and sleeping.:rolleyes:

shykins

i had these as a child, so much so that i was taken to the Drs... to this day i can still remember the terror but still cant really explain what i was scared of

gernerally speaking they arent really related to something its just u are terrified. my parents used to talk to me to try and calm me but nothing really worked.. in the end they just sat with me til they passed and i stopped screaming.... apparently the dr said its the sign of an intelligent child with a good imagination so look on the bright side (not sure he was right about me tho lol)

sorry i realise none of the above is particularly helpful but i have also just spent majority of last night awake with my son having terrors so know how u feel.. lets hope we get more sleep tonight

spender

My eldest son suffered from night terrors from about aged 7 until 12. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to help whilst they are in the throes of a terror. They won't wake up and they won't respond to you. However take heart because he never remembered them in the morning!! I think I suffered far more than him. However they are distressing to watch because you do feel helpless but don't think you are doing anything wrong when you get no response.

cocoluvsmummy

This brings to mind when DD2 had these, they happened at varying times over a 2 year period ending when she was about 10.
one night she got up, went into DS's room, climbed up onto his cabin bed and started running up and down it (with him asleep/ awake underneath her charging feet) whist screaming "get them off me, i dont like them". I couldnt reach her to get her down and he was no help stopping her as he had been woken up suddenly by her running over him. Eventually she gave up and dropped down ontop of him sound asleep again and relaxed and we were bale to get her moved. Luckily DS saw the funny side and took great joy in telling her how mad she had been the next morning

Still makes me giggle now, it was a real comedy moment. In fact most of the terrors she had made me laugh once i came to realise that she was so unaware of her surroundings when it was happening and that she never remembered them the next day as she had a tendecy to run around the house when she had them shouting weird things at everyone