Anyone dealing with or dealt with night terrors?

Our daughter has been struggling with sleep issues since she was born (I have posted before) and it has gotten progressively worse. She has an appt with a peds neurologist because we don't have a sleep specialist in town. She does have some symptoms of the night terrors but everything I have read says that night terrors start at 3 years old. Does anyone have any experience with this? What were some obvious behaviors of the terrors? Any info would be helpful. Thanks

 

My girls have both had night terrors. Not sure if they have them younger than normal because I have them (still!), but we've been dealing with them forever. Poor DH- a house full of screaming females in the middle of the night!

 

DS has night terrors. There's infrequent (thank God) because I am very strict about protecting his sleep. I find that he usually has them when his routine is altered, his goes down for his nap late, he stays up too late, etc. When he has a NT, he wakes up screaming hysterically and he thrashes/lurches around his crib. He kicks his crib and smashes his face into the bars. If I go to him, he won't make eye contact and he'll fight against me if I try to pick him up. As awful as it seems, I've learned I have to just leave him be. Trying to "help" him just makes it worse.

 

Our confusional arousals ('night terrors') started at about 10-months old. These were always within 2 hours of falling asleep for the night and were usually one-time occurrences. The worst of them lasted for 10 minutes and scared the crap out of us. Most of them were less than a minute or two and we eventually stopped going in unless it exceeded two minutes (which was really pointless, b/c engaging them in any way usually only exacerbated the episode). They were directly correlated with a day (or two in a row) of poor sleep.

They went underground from about 18m until 34m.

They are now back with a vengeance and while they are easily triggered by successive poor sleep, they are now the obvious result of nighttime bladder control development. The return of CA episodes coincided with our potty training. These new episodes are marathon sessions, which can last for 5-10minutes and reoccur every 30-45minutes for several hours (5 hours on the bad nights). It took about a month of issues before I tried taking him to the bathroom (he was not pleased with this). He peed and then fell right back asleep. Urination is now my first defensive move. It usually works and we've not had any marathon sessions since clueing into this association. However sometimes the toilet trip wakes him up enough so that he has a hard time falling back asleep, making about the same impact on parental sleep as the marathon session.

 

what are your children doing during these episodes? Are they at all coherent or interactive with you, because at times my DD is?

 

"Engage" is a relative term. When he was younger (<18m) he would just scream and thrash (like his left foot was being amputated). Holding him only made it worse. As a parent when your 10m old does this out of nowhere it takes several times of trying to comfort them before you realize that holding/cuddling them is to comfort YOURSELF and is in fact making the episode worse.

Now that he's older and talking I can ask him what's wrong, play the guessing game:
Did you have a bad dream?
Are you sick?
Do you need to go to the bathroom?
Do you need a drink?
Do you want something to eat?

He will often give me an answer to these questions. In a desperate attempt to get him to shut up mid-marathon in a hotel room a few months ago I asked him if he was hungry. Yes. When I tried to offer him a Cliff bar (we were in a hotel) he was not having any of it and it made it even worse. After 3 hours I finally just let him lay there on the bed and wail (hoping we wouldn't be asked to exit the premises before morning). He was asleep (for the rest of the night) after about 10 (completely tortuous) minutes. So technically, they may appear to engage you but they aren't really there.

This website does a good job of defining sleep terror (a pop culture misnomer) v. confusional arousal

 

I'm positive we were having CAs by that age and one particularly bad episode that might fall into the night terror category around 36 months. FWIW, I read a lot about sleep walking after Trevor had his first episode and found several sources that stated it starts at age 4-6 (he was barely 3) and ONE said that it can start as soon as they can walk. I think there is a great deal of uncertainty even among "experts" about these sleep quirks.

 

Both Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Child and Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems have good chapters on confusional arousals/night terrors/sleep walking. DS started having his NTs around 12-13 months. I have a hard time with the "engaging" aspect. Sometimes it's obvious he's in a NT and can't be comforted. But sometimes, he'll calm for 5 seconds when I come in the room only to start the NT behavior again. My method for handling nap and night wakings for him is to let him be for at least 10 minutes before going to him. (Well, unless I can tell by his cry that something is obviously not right. I've gotten better at reading his cries and his NT cry is almost more like a scream.) After 10 minutes or so, I'll go in to his room and talk calmly to him. "Aidan, it's ok. Mommy's here. It's time to go to sleep," etc . If he looks at me and reaches for me, I know he's probably just needing cuddles to go back to sleep. If he ignores me or looks and me and keeps thrashing, I leave him but stay in the room to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.

His NT usually happen during naps and they usually last 20-30 minutes. Particularly bad ones have lasted 45 minutes.

 

My daughter just started having night terrors we believe. she will wae=ke out of a sound sleep and just scream and cry. we ask if she is okay, did you have a bad dream, do you have to go potty and she will not respond to any questions. After about 5 minutes or so she will then tell me she had a bad dream. she is 3.5 and never had these before. I don't know what is triggering these now!

 

My son had night terrors, well both of them did and it started around that age. I never took them to a doctor for it though just soothed them back to sleep when they would wake screaming somtimes still asleep. The worst was waking to my 23 month old running and screaming crying in my hallway at 3am. He had a niightmare, got out of his crib and was searching for me...I heard him jiggling doors saying "mommy, mommy" I put crib tents on their cribs that day and honestly, I don't remember having anymore problems with night terrors again. I hope you find a solution, it's very scary!

 

My dd had them starting around 18 months. It was very scary when it first happened. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. I rushed her to the ped but of course by the time I got there, she had snapped out of it. The doctor told me that it wasn't a night terror per se but something called Confusional Arousal. Basically it went like this:

She would start screaming. I ran up to check on her and she appeared to be awake. I picked her up and she seemed like she was looking at me and even hugged me but then all of a sudden she would start crying and thrashing out of my arms. She almost looked like she was having an insane temper tantrum but with no reason for one. She would pull away from me and look at me like I was a demon but she seemed like the one who was possessed. This went on for about 20 minutes. It has happened several times since but has gotten much better at least since we knew how to deal with her when she has one which is to simply leave her in her crib and don't touch her. She will eventually come out of it on her own and go back to sleep but when we try to interfer, it only prolongs it. She doesn't seem to have any recollection of it afterwards. Here is an article that helped me to understand what exactly Confusional Arousal is. Not sure if it's what your child is experiencing but thought I'd share what we were dealing with in case it sounds familiar.

http://www.drgreene.com/21_329.html

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/491438_8

http://www.medhelp.org/forums/childbehavior/archive/122.html

HTH

 

Hi. My daughter, Lily, wakes screaming in the night too. She started this when she was just a few months old - stopped for about a year and has started again recently. (She is now 28 months). Recently, if I go in and put my hand on her chest and talk to her she will calm down after a few seconds - like she realizes I'm there and fall right back to sleep. The problem is that my girls share a room. If we let Lily go for more than a couple seconds Grace will wake up. And although Lily may fall right back to sleep, Grace gets scared from the screaming and completely wakes up. Then we have to deal with getting her back to sleep. We don't have another room to seperate them and are afraid to take Grace in our room because she is a little more "clingy" (I guess I mean I think we'd have bigger problems ever getting her to sleep in her own bed if we started that). Has anyone dealt with the other twin that gets woke up? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

My son, now age 4, has had 2-3 of these Confusional Arousals. They are very unnerving. Started in his 3's and we just had one a couple of weeks ago. I would say they are sleep deprivation related in our case as they have happened when we have kept them up late the night before.

Everything I have read on it says that there is not much you can do - stay near and make sure they don't hurt themselves, but do not try to wake them. Archer wanted his Daddy and even when my DH was holding him he kept saying he wanted Daddy. Very eerie as his eyes were open. And then he said that he wanted to go home. So I said in the calmest voice "Okay - we are taking you home now" And then he fell back into a good sleep. And had no memory of this the next day.

So I would say if your Daughter is not sleeping well - has some sleep deprivation because of that - then that is the reason for her NT. Hopefully the specialist can help you figure it all out! Good luck-

 

Hannah suffered from them between the age of 2-3. We haven't had one in a long time. They were usually the result of sleep deprivation (i.e., missing naps two days in a row, late late nights, etc.). They would occur approx. 2 hours after falling asleep. She never remembered having them the next morning.

We found, at the recommendation of our pedi:

1) Go in about 1.5 hours after bedtime. Wake her up more or less. Ask her if she needs anything, wants a sip of water, etc. It breaks that sleep cycle that they are in which causes the CAs to happen in the first place. (Can't remember the name of it.) You don't have to fully wake her up, just kind of briefly get her to open her eyes.

2) If they do happen, do not hold or comfort her. Stay in there to assure her safety. Do not engage her or talk with her if she is thrashing or crying.

3) Turn on the lights. (There was a reason for this, but I forget.) We noticed they would not last as long.

 

Jessy has had cunfusional arousal since she was was little over a year. She has them more when she is sick. Hers are more in the middle of the night than shortly after sleep. She also talks in her sleep and snores. I believe she may sleep walk when she is older. Her's have gotten better here lately. We only have one about every three months.

Jazz on the othr hand already sleep walks X_x

 

I want to thank each of you ladies for educating me. I have been worried sick about one of my grandsons and his awakening in the night screaming and being unable to be comforted. He has now started this at naptime as well. He's not quite two and has been having them for several months now and his last upwards sometimes of 15 minutes and it was as harrowing for me the first time I was with him as it was for me. It's as if he can't even see me and the more I attempt to comfort him, he recoils and screams harder and gets more upset. Now my big question - is there really anything that can be done and do they outgrow it? Thanks.

 

QUOTE(SCK1 @ Feb 24 2009, 03:23 PM) [snapback]1203506[/snapback]
I want to thank each of you ladies for educating me. I have been worried sick about one of my grandsons and his awakening in the night screaming and being unable to be comforted. He has now started this at naptime as well. He's not quite two and has been having them for several months now and his last upwards sometimes of 15 minutes and it was as harrowing for me the first time I was with him as it was for me. It's as if he can't even see me and the more I attempt to comfort him, he recoils and screams harder and gets more upset. Now my big question - is there really anything that can be done and do they outgrow it? Thanks.


Nothing you can really do except try to keep them as much as possible on a consistent sleep schedule and make sure they are getting enough sleep as I was told that they can sometimes ocurr when they are not getting enough sleep. That of course is easier said than done sometimes. Other than that I was told by our pediatrician that they will eventually outgrow it. The only thing you can really do when it is actually happening is to just make sure he or he is in a safe environment when he is having it. If he is still in a crib, just leave him there and let him go through it. I have found that if I don't intervene that it will go away faster than if I try to help my dd through it.