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Night Terrors/nightmares in 3 year old

4 replies

freddiemed · 21/09/2009 14:12

My ds who is 3.8 has been having what I think are night terrors for a while. He is usually asleep between 7.45 and 8pm and then at around 10.30/11.30pm will sometimes scream/sob (heartbreakingly so, not like normal crying, this is real heart-wrenching sobbing. Sometimes it's enough to just go in and stroke his face and reassure and then he's fine for the rest of the night. I know if it's a night terror you're not supposed to wake them up. All the stuff I've read about night terrors seems to say that it's just one incident per night. However, some nights it seems to go on throughout the night at intervals. He never seems to remember anything the next day. Then this morning he said that he had been having dreams last night and I asked him if he remembered waking up and he said he did, which is different from the other times. It doesn't happen every night and we had a few weeks recently where he was sleeping really soundly, however this week it's started up again. He is a happy boy and there isn't anything stressful going on at home. It's just horrible when it happens and we feel powerless. Does anyone have any advice?

OP posts:
candyfluff · 21/09/2009 14:17

i dont have much experience of this but my ds when he was 3 had nightmares - he did grow out of them but i saw a programme on this one time that suggested you go in and gently wake themup 10 or so minutes before the night terror would normally start there fore breaking the cyle
its worth a go.

behonest · 21/09/2009 14:21

I hope this doesn't sound like a crazy question but does he watch TV? I've heard TV can contribute to night terrors on a subconscious level as they can't make sense of what they see. Even if they watch age appropriate programs some time the adverts are quite in-appropriate for the programs they are screening around.

Probably no help at all, I'll just be quiet. I have a habit of not making any sense what-so-ever

freddiemed · 21/09/2009 14:47

he sometimes watches cbeebies at bedtime but I don't think there's anything in the "bedtime hour" that would give him nightmares! We've actually abandoned it due to that hideous waybuloo programme (but that's another thread entirely!) He is fond of films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, Madagascar etc but only watches these now and again and not at bedtime.
Candyfluff, thank you for your suggestion, we may give that a go.

OP posts:
candyfluff · 21/09/2009 19:53

your very welcome

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