Sleep terrors...? WTF? Help/advice please...

[newmomma]

Hi ladies,

Well the subject pretty much sums it up...

My son is 12m last week) and has spent the last three weeks waking up screaming.

And I MEAN screaming! Not just loud crying.

I don't think he's awake... Two nights ago it was like looking at the child from the exorcist - his eyes were open but no-one was home.

Sometimes it takes up to three hours just to calm him down.

I'm 26 weeks pregnant and could really do with a full nights sleep again - he was previously a fantastic sleeper.

Does anyone have any advice?

My HV just said to try and calm him down however I could and to wait it out - it is a phase and he'll grow out of it but it might take months?!?

Thanks!

If it's night terrors then I am sorry I agree with the HV.

I would be concerned about doing aything other than comfort a child who is that upset (obviously unless it was the end of a tantrum that had started gradually and you knew to be behavioural issue).

My 23 month old seems to go through phases of these. When he was 18 months and I was in my first trimester it really got to me.

Deciding just to love him and let him grow out of any problems actually helped me and he has settled weeks. Althought the whole thing has lasted months it's not consistent - it comes and goes.

I wonder if there's a genetic component though cos both his dad and I do all sorts of strange stuff in our sleep. Anyway, it helps us empathise with little 'un at least.

My daughter did this, changing her bedtime to 30 minutes earlier and making sure her nap routine in the day improved, helped to resolve the problem weirdly enough. I often found long trips away, abnormal sleep schedule etc often triggered it.

My mum recommended going in 5 minutes before the usual time of the screaming began and rubbing their back for a while. As that helped her with me and my brothers when young.

Anyway not sure this will necessarily help you, as every baby is different, but thought I'd let you know what worked for me.

Good luck lovely x

Thanks

His daytime nap routine is brilliant -two long sleeps of approx 2 hours each.

I don't want to do anything other than comfort him - I'm certainly not going to let him cry it out at that stage - he's absolutely beside himself. I do just try and give him love and reassurance but nothing works - he doesn't want to be held, he doesn't want to be left, he doesn't want a drink, a cuddle, a toy, to read a book, to crawl, to stand, to lie in our bed...

What I meant was is there something I can do in the day that might help? Something that might be scaring him, or a different bedtime routine perhaps?

Someone else mentioned going in just before it usually happens to soothe them - and I was about to start this but the screaming went from somewhere between 11pm-11.30pm to anything between 9.30pm and approx 2am.

I think it was a change of routine over the Xmas hols (snowed in for three weeks) that has done it - but now we're back to normal routine; out and about, sociable, busy routine but sticking to his nap-times and I thought it might ease... No luck.

I think our little un does it more at times of developmental change - last time he had a bout of it and a couple of days later he started stringing words together all clever like!

My ds has night terrors, I really sympathise with you as they are horrible to deal with.

Ds went through a very bad patch starting around 6 weeks or so before dd was born and continuing for a long time afterwards. She is a year old now and he is back to just having the odd one when ill or very tired.

Night terrors are more common during developmental stages, when over tired, ill or unsettled so with a new baby coming it is pretty common I'm afraid.

We found that to get over them we had to be really anal with routine. Just one missed nap would stuff things up. On a good night he would have 1 terror but on a bad night it could be 5 or so and he would be so tired he would have a terror during his nap and so be even more tired and so on.

As for how to deal with them you really have to try a few things out and find the best way for you. Generally the advice is to wait it out, remove duvet etc and don't touch him as things touching them become part of the terror. Just sit there and talk to him. We often read a book to ds. If he seems to be stuck in a cycle of going back in to a terror each sleep cycle then you may need to try to wake him to break the cycle.

Good luck.

Oh - that's really interesting about it being mainly while a developmental stage is happening.

DS1 started walking about two/three weeks ago and is going from strength to strength every day. I hadn't put 2 and 2 together as its probably about the same time that the terrors started...

I have been picking him up from the cot because his screaming is so bad you just want to hold him. Perhaps tonight I will try leaving him in the cot with the light on low and just trying to talk to him. He doesn't actually want to be held anyway when they're happening...

SUGAR!!!!! SUGAR!!!!!! SUGAR!!!!!!!!

Its sugar!!!

I stopped giving him 'adult' cakes/sweet treats with sugar in and went back to buying baby stuff with NO sugar and the sleep terrors have stopped!!!

Just thought I'd put this on here so that anyone else suffering the same problem could try the same.

I have dd2 4.6 yr old who has terrors, nightmares, and if not then just a restless night's sleep. I think dd2 was predisposed to getting terrors (like ex-dp), lots of sleepwalkers in family etc. There was an incident that happened the night of the first terror which may/may not have triggered it off (involving my mother & and a bat - but that's another story...)
Have to say dd2's terrors put the fear of god into me - it's scary watching your beloved dc doing handstands while screaming. It is too wierd for words!
Dd2 has far less terrors these days - she now co-sleeps with me. Apparently rousing them before terror-time (for dd2 that's up to 2 hrs into her sleep) works well. As a sleeptalking, leg thrashing, restless sleeper myself, i suspect that I do that job quite well!

My DD used to have night terrors whenever she was worked up - so before holidays, birthday, Christmas, etc. She is 7y now and this was the first Christmas she didn't suffer from them.

We found that all we could do was to be there until she came out of it. Was very disconcerting as she would have her eyes open and look right through you, not seeing us at all or not knowing who we were.

But apparently you shouldn't try and wake them up or anything, and the good thing is is that they don@t appear to know much about it afterwards so are not scared, etc. after.

DD's wasn't related to sugar or anything she ate though.