VERY scared, VERY clueless (night terrors?), 100% desperate

[exhaustDAD]

Hi all. I am a dad of twin toddlers, I work hard, doing early shifts so I can get home to my kids, and after bedtime, I work on personal projects to boost our income. This all means very little sleep. But this is not about me - just trying to show how desperate I am.

My toddler boys are 4-year-old. And one of them developed this terrible night terror situation. We are guessing it's night terror, but I am just so confused. He wakes up around midnight, or 2 am, or 3, screaming and shouting, runs to our room, keeps shouting and crying for about an hour. There's not much we can do, other then making sure he's safe, or doesn't hurt himself. He doesn't tell us what's wrong, generally, but sometimes he blurts out things we can help. Like "I want Frankie" - his favourite teddy bear. But it's rare. Now, here comes why I am so confused, sad and desperate:

I was lead to believe night terrors involve shouting, crying, thrashing around, sleepwalking, but generally not aware of himself. But my son clearly is aware, he can dodge me opening my arms in case he wants comfort with 100% accuracy, can tell my wife and me apart, he never wants, actively shouts he doesn't want me or doesn't like me. If I go near him, or is forced to touch him (stop him from falling down the stairs) - he starts shouting louder, screeching, and trying to hit me, grab my hair, clearly to hurt me. He always just wants mummy, but is confused when he gets to her, every once in a while tries hitting her too. I am finding it very hard to deal with these in a good way, I grab his hand when he tries hitting his mother, I can't tolerate it. I try telling him to stop it, it's not nice, and we're here to help. Obviously, to no effect. I don't know what to do. My wife keeps telling me that she knows it hurts me, how adamantly he tries to express that he hates me, but she is convinced it's only the night terrors. Then why? He is looking at me, he is aware of his surroundings... I don't know what to do, I am so desperate and heartbroken...I hesitated to put this in "health", hoping there are some parenting tips we could use, but I'm scared it's some kind of condition we can't do anything about... We cant live like this. I sleep 3-4 hours as is, we work hard, he doesn't just wake us up but his brother too... I am begging you, if you have anything I can use - anything similar you experienced.. .Please..PLEASE SHARE. Especially the hitting part... :( I just don't know what to make of it...
Thank you, I appreciate it in advance.

I used to have night terrors as a kid. Not as frequent as you describe though. However, I was aware during my night terrors, and I could see my mum and dad, but they'd often transform to become part of the night terror. Basically it was just this sense of complete dread and fear, combined with what I can only describe as hallucinations. I did grow out of them.

That just sounds so bad...the very people trying to comfort you becoming part of something that terrifies you... I am sorry you had to suffer through these things...

My DD had these too, but younger. We used to stand in front of an open window (to cool her down), hold on tight and talk about the pretty lights. She'd suddenly (after 5 / 15 / 45 minutes, it varied) calm and then look at me like what I am doing here??

We went through a few bouts of this, usually just as she was also going through a developmental stage.

Oh, and I still remember having them myself at about 5. I used to think I was in a busy market place and people were shouting. Couldn't snap out of it. Used to run to my Dad and just hang on to him.

Like others, my DS4 has night terrors, which seem to be more likely if he's overtired, hot in bed or anxious about impending change. We deal with them by moving him into the middle of our king-sized bed where he's safer if he thrashes, cooling him down as fast as possible (open windows, stripping him off if he'll let us, wiping his hands with a cool facecloth if he'll tolerate that) and putting an episode of Bing on - he rarely watches it in waking hours now but loved it when he was tiny and it still works.

DH read somewhere that if you spot a pattern (ie a night terror tends to happen at 10pm), then rouse them a little about an hour beforehand and that will sometimes work to reset the sleep pattern enough to stop the terrors.

We've mentioned these to two paediatricians when seeing them for other reasons and they haven't really taken any interest; I think they're very common in small children.

I remember wheny DD had it,I would be an exhasted,gibbering slightly bruised wreck and she was completely unaware.It stopped as quickly as it started.
It is scarey though.

Our son had these on and off from the age of 2 but we went through an exhausting phase of it when he was 4.

Noticeable triggers were too much screen time and tiredness. And without doubt if he had an incident that day which upset him - a falling out over a toy for example - he would have a terror that night.
We tried to identify when it was happening in his sleep cycle to try and do the waking him 15 mins before - but he never really followed a pattern so that didn't work for us.
We did have some success with a bedtime massage with magnesium oil. This works on the same principle as epsom salt baths (which we also did sometimes, a couple of drops of lavender on the salts before adding them to the bath also helps)

Does your son have a vivid imagination? Ours does and we eventually saw a Consultant about his sleep who said a vivid imagination in a child can often lead to more lucid terrors.

You have my complete sympathy. My son is 6 now and we haven't had a terror in over a year. But I can still remember those nights and how emotionally draining they were.

Haven't had time to read all replies but my sister had night terrors and one of my daughters had them around 3 or 4.

My mum told me my sister used to rip handfuls of my dad's hair out when he was trying to calm her as my mum couldn't hold her as she was so aggressive. She was oblivious to it all and adored her daddy so please don't think it is anything about you or your relationship.

My daughter used to start at roughly the same time each night and we were advised to wake her 15 mins or so before that time and that really helped break the pattern so might be worth a try.
And finally sticking my nose in where it may not be wanted but you need to take care of your own health and wellbeing also. Burning the candle at both ends is going to burn you out in the long term so please look after yourself as well. Good luck x

Hi my son had night terrors from about 12 months to 4 years. They were awful. They are kind of awake and conscious though. In his terror, you are not dad you are a monster trying to grab him. He cries for mummy but doesn't recognise the figure that comes to him as mum so is still confused and upset. I don't know if this is standard for night terrors but it is how we experienced it. The advice we were give was to not interact at all don't try to comfort him just make sure he's not hurting himself. You have my sympathies it's blummin awful but crucially it's more traumatic for you than it is for him. You'll get through it, he will forget.

I always wondered if it was genetic as DH occasionally has mild night terrors. E.g wakes up in the night and starts searching the house for robbers

Thank you all for your input, it really helps...

UPDATE: since two days ago: I started resetting his sleep cycle, somewhat before midnight I tried waking him. I stopped where he opened his eyes and made a little "hmm" sound. I thought, for starters, I wouldn't want to wake him up "more", if that makes any sense. I was thinking, maybe that level of disturbing his sleep should be enough. Well, for now, for one night, it worked. There were no night terrors... By morning time, both kids were in bed, so they walked to our room and climbed in - but I personally didn't notice. So it was done in silence, no shouting, thrashing, hitting involved. It doesn't mean it's all done now, let's give it a few more days, and if we can manage this for more consecutive days, I will call it a success :) Promising start, though.

@trinitybleu I hear this from a few different parents, that overheating can also contribute to this. I always wondered why he doesn't really like being covered up while he's sleeping..maybe this is why...

@HerculesMulligan Yes, I find it's either people never even heard of this, or know about it and just say "eh, it happens, it's a phase". Doctors don't seem to think it is something we actively have to find a solution for, and it would just stop. That is promising, a bit, isn't it? I mean, it's awful for us, but they have the experience - hopefully.

@Hotterthanahotthing Oh no... Bruised herself? :(

@queenrollo Did you give him a relaxing massage before going to bed so he's more relaxed? Interesting. I am planning to cut down screen time before bed, to take away some of the stimulus.. When you said "falling out over a toy for example" I had to bury my face, because, with out twin boys that is not a rare thing AT ALL. And since we are worried they will be way to spoilt (due to granny's close proximity and her letting them get away with too many things while we are at work), we need to be somewhat strict with them,and they don't always like that of course...I guess we have to make sure bedtime is as relaxed as can be.
In terms of imagination - I'd say say. He likes to pretend he's reading stories (making them up while holding a book), or just walking up to us and giving us life scenarios :)

@flapjackfairy Thank you so much for sharing - it is comforting that there's nothing personal about these things, at all.
Regarding burning candles on both ends - I agree, it's not sustainable, and I am not planning to do it forever, I just have to get a few things set up, it's for the financial security of our family. I will get there, but thank you so much :)

@georgie262 How horrible is that? In that age, mummy and daddy could comfort you, save you from anything, but there's an imaginary wall that makes you see them as monsters. :( It's terrible. I only step in to make sure he doesn't fall down the stairs, there's no way around that. Interesting thought regarding genetics... There's nobody in our family that I know of who have these. I sometimes had the odd experience in my life when there was something new and stressful (new demanding job for example) in my life, and I woke up thinking I am in an unmanageable work situation like that. It happened 1-2 times throughout my life. When I was a student, I was working in a brick factory, physically demanding, exhausting, stressful. And after my first day there I "woke up" in bed holding my t-shirt in my hands thinking it's a brick that is melting. scared the hell out of me :D

Hello OP

My daughter had night terrors around age 5, I was a single parent at the time and these episodes were terrifying at times.

My advice: do all you can to ensure your child goes to bed in a calm state: no late eating/drinking or running around excited, perhaps read a story. Make sure his bedroom is not overheated.

I used to hold my daughter in an attempt to control her violent movements -rather than pinning her down ..... sounds awful but she’d have hurt herself. Keep calm: children feel your nervousness ! I used to talk to her, just repeating the same things again and again very calmly, like: ‘it’s ok mammys here, just relax everything’s ok’. I never let her leave the bed on these occasions as I said I’d just hold her tightly.

The good news is that these episodes do pass - seems with my daughter they started after she was ill, but who knows what starts or stops these ?

Did you ever get this sorted? My son screams like he’s on fire when he has night terrors, they started 18 months ago when I was pregnant but went and now he has them all night for up to 40 mins up to 16 times a night. I can’t go on like this much longer - with a baby too is so hard and their dad works nights. I have gone from sleep deprived to exhausted to broken.
NHS GP says to give him piriton to make him drowsy which doesn’t work and private GP has referred us to paediatrics but I just want to know what happened with you? As I’m worried this is my life until he grows out of it at the age of 12 and he’s not even 4 yet