I am at my wits end so hope someone has some advice, I’ve struggled with this for so long and I think it’s actually causing me deep anxiety. It’s going to be long , apologies .
One of my dcs had has/huge huge issues with sleep from even in the womb! When I was pregnant he never stopped moving , never seemed to sleep , I even went for extra scans etc as I was concerned re movements. When they were born they were extremely unsettled, constant crying etc , I had two other dcs so I knew a bit what to expect but this was totally different. Obviously we just thought colic, reglux etc , I was ebf and they did seem to have very bad reflux, constantly bringing back up milk. As they got older they still woke up loads , it was the way though , just screaming and screaming . Until around 3 they’d wake every hour or 2 screaming and screaming. It was absolutely horrendous, during the day they were obviously tired so cranky but also more extreme behaviour. I definitely worried about sn.
We obviously brought them to drs , had every allergy test, thought maybe celiac , food intolerance, he had physical exams to make sure nothing was bothering him , made sure he didn’t have infections etc . Absolutely nothing came up ,I slept beside him , not beside him , checked temp -absolutely nothing worked . Eventually around 3 years old it just stopped and he slept through , it was completely random . Around 6/7 he started to develop night terrors, I know how common these are and generally all kids grow out of them , my older dc had them for a year or so and then just grew out of them so fine . These started up again with my youngest and then stopped and now at 11 they are back .
I can’t actually put into words how stressful this is, I’ve had huge issues with sleep since his birth , once I’m awake I usually can’t get back to sleep.at.all.
I am constantly looking out for triggers and honestly it’s exhausting as we can’t seem to find any correlation. Definitely worse when overtired , needs to pee, heavy food, too hot , goes into a deep sleep but it can also be absolutely nothing and if you look at my list it’s impossible to control everything and I don’t want to make my son anxious about it so we don’t talk about it or draw attention to it. I’ve obviously been to the dr but they just say he’ll grow out of it but honestly I know what “typical “ night terrors are and this feels much more like a continuation of what happened as a baby/toddler than a phase.
So my main reason for writing this is that how on earth do I not worry about this when he is away etc. He can’t do sleep overs (friends) which isn’t a huge issue . Our families are totally hands off and don’t help anyway and they’ve never been asked you stay over and even with my other (sleepy) dcs they’d never watch/‘mind them so that’s not an issue . My dh is fantastic and we both work very hard so try and give each other a break occasionally.
What happens now is that he “wakes” but is in fact totally unconscious, disoriented, and very agitated and is shouting , screaming and now wanders around the house . He can’t wake up and won’t settle back down , I know the general rule is not to engage and just keep them safe, if I just leave him it always escalates to him becoming more agitated and he now wanders around so could hurt himself. He does not just settle back down, in fact I have to turn on a light and bring him back to.
My dh loves camping and is completely hands on (we are very 50/50 we with no support we have to be) and he has brought them camping loads which they all adore and it gives me time to get a break or sort house stuff ( but this was during a period where the night terrors had stopped).
He’s getting older and there’ll be school trips and other things . I’m genuinely afraid he’ll get out of a tent and wander around . He’s also very outdoorsy anyway. We try absolutely everything to mitigate this happening but it’s so random and like I said we don’t want to make our lovely dcs anxious and I don’t talk about it with him
as dr said it’s important not to.
It’s so stressful and has been going on so long , it’s gotten to the stage where I’ve developed deep anxiety about it and can’t relax if my dh does take them away for the night . Sorry this is so long , I’m praying it’s just puberty but on the other hand maybe that’s going to escalate the whole thing …Anyone have any advice appreciated