Children’s nightmares

[Glassesfrompubs]

Hello

my kid is 3 and has always been a truly dreadful sleeper. We thought we’d finally got over it but now we are noticing a lot of nightmares. Proper, screaming terrified nightmares. Some nights it’s worse than others.

any tips? I was wondering maybe something in our diets which might be triggering it? We eat a very varied diet - lots of fish, vegetables, pasta, rice. Not too much sugar or processed crap (although there are still freezer food evenings don’t get me wrong!). Our eldest has never had this issue so it’s all a bit new.

Help! I’m knackered!

If you think it's good I suppose you'd have to keep both a food and a sleep diary and see if there are any patterns?

I had this as a child and co-sleeping with my mum was the solution. I grew out of it when I was maybe 8yo, at least, the really distressed waking but I still get nightmares regularly as an adult. I think it's just how some people's brains work.

It definitely wasn't anything diet or lifestyle related in my case.

Nightmare or night terror? Do they remember it in the morning?

With my daughters, I found that nightmares were often associated with them needing to wee. We would lift out daughter and put her on the loo, often while she slept through it, and then she would be put back to bed and settled straight away.
I'm not sure if it was really was cause and effect (but it does make sense to me) but it worked for us on many levels - daughters weren't scared to go back to bed, because they'd been to the loo so problem solved as far as they were concerned. And the process of going to the loo would wake them enough for the nightmare to pass. So either way, they were fine to go back to a settled sleep.

With me and mine I find nightmares are linked to temperature: if I/ they are too hot that's when nightmares happen. Is the house or his bedding very warm?