night terrors

My 3yr old daughter has been waking 2-3 nights per week hysterical and unconsolable. She usually wakes about 1-2hr after she goes to bed and is screaming mommy & daddy. Last night she got a nose bleed not long before she went to sleep and she woke screaming my DD2's name. She's the one that caused my DD3 to get hurt. But, she's hysterical and usually runs all over the house. She will be screaming my name and I'll call out her name and ask her to look at me. She does and responds to me but then is hysterical a minute later. It lasts anywhere from 5-15mins. She usually calms down and goes back to sleep. Does this sound like night terrors or just nightmares? I'm not sure what I should do. I doubt the doctor can do much. She doesn't go in for a check up until Sept. Anyone have experience with this?

 

I think that if it's a short time after falling asleep, and they are unable to completely come out of what is making them scream/panic, it's a night terror. Alice gets them occasionally, one that sticks out in my mind is when she got out of my arms, and started crawling head first into the entertainment center. She just bonked and bonked and bonked her head, like the old wind up doll that has crawled into the wall. And honestly, there's not much you can do aside from letting her get more sleep overall.

 

If she looks at you when she's awake and is responsive, it's very likely nightmares. With night terrors, they are still asleep. It's the same as walking in your sleep or even sleep eating. You are completely unaware of what your body is doing. When talking to a person who is sleep walking, they may respond, but their answers don't often make sense to what you are either saying or what's going on around them in reality. It's actually a bad idea to wake someone out of a night terror as scary as it is to hear, because it can really freak them out. They literally have no idea what's going on and it can scare them more. With night terrors, they generally have no recollection of the thought that caused the terror. They simply don't remember when they do wake up.

Your girl sounds like she's having some terrible nightmares. This can give you a good opportunity to find out what is bothering her. Could it be a new experience she's going through? Something changing in the family? Fights with her sister? Something at school or the thought of going to school? Any of these types of things can be a huge problem for a child. It really could be something you see as insignificant.

Also, this is the time some kids experience lucid dreams. That means, when they wake up, their dream gets confused in reality. They may see figures in her room and see it moving around in some way that confuses her. You look at it and it's just a lamp (lamp as an example of a benign object in a room). To someone in a lucid dream, it could be a creepy skinny one-eye man with a tall hat, a single tooth in his mouth, and a tail like a snake. OK, that was a bit over the top, but I'm trying to prove my point. What they see looks real to them, but they don't know that a waking dream just occurred and they are just carrying over the last image in their dream into their real-time world. These lucid dreams do go away as they come to and wake up. That can be very scary for a child. I had them. My mother never completely understood what I was saying when I tried to explain what I saw. I could never get her to believe me that my ceiling was melting down on me as I heard thumping from above. In reality, the boys that lived above me int eh apartment were just noisy, but it carried over in to my dream and I woke up seeing what my dreams were trying to picture. Scary stuff! The only thing you can do at that point is comfort her and tell her she's safe and it was just a scary dream. Don't tell her she didn't see what she saw. Just listen to her and accept that what she saw scared her. It's the best thing you can do even after a simple nightmare.

 

She does respond to be by saying yes or no sometimes. I now realize the kids did just get new bedroom furniture in their room. She may have had one before but that is probably the cause of the episodes. She shares with her brother & sister and they have a bunk. A couple times she's acted like she's going to vomit as well but never has. She does a dry heave sort of face then stops.

ETA: Thank you for the explanation. That helps a lot. I have a pretty vivid imagination so it wouldn't doubt she does too.

 

I don't know...still sounds like possible night terrors. At times, my DD could respond to me through her hysterics. For us, we noticed them more often due to lack of sleep. They heightened around 4 years old, where we were no longer napping in the afternoon. Our doc told us to turn on the lights, and sit with her and keep her safe. That worked most of the time. She outgrew it by 6.

Ironically, last night she was sleep walking (she is 7). I am assuming there is a link because she has some funky sleep issues. But it gave us a good giggle. While laughing at her, she was totally smiling, but totally asleep. Hopefully it gets better for you soon, because it is very disturbing to go through on a regular basis.

 

DS(6) sleepwalks and he tends to pee on things. Last I remember was around Christmas and he peed on our tiny tree in the kid's room.

Last night DD woke hysterical and thus time DH held her in our bed. It was the shortest episode yet. I'm going to try turning on the lights and holding her. If it's nightmares instead turning on the light and rocking her would help too.

 

One of my sons had those type of dream / episodes for a few years. It has just stopped happening now that he is 11. It was my experience that he was in a deep sleep not aware of reality. He would jump out of bed sceaming and continue this hysterical episode for 10 minutes or so. At first it freaked me out and I tried to wake him and break him out of it. After I realized that made him more upset, I would talk to him and ask him about what he was seeing. Some of the things he was seeing were gibberish and other things were real fears. ( wind blowing against window and noise being worked into someone coming after him).

Once I talked with him and had him work through it... He would come to a point to settle himself and climb back to bed. Mind you... I was wide awake at that moment and never able to go back to sleep.

The only thing I wish I did is video tape it once for him to see. He asks about those times and it is funny now to recall him. Example: He would get on all fours and jump like a frog crying on his bed. Or run from one end of the room to the other ranting about the people after him. He wishes he could "see it" in action. At one point his twin saw it and thought it was amazing. That someone could be asleep but still have that much "going on" in his head.

On a side note, he was also the one who i had trouble with bed wetting. It was explained to be that he would go into such a deep sleep that nothing would wake him up. The bed wetting occurred from early toddler days up until a last year. We did all the tests to make sure all his plumbing was working, tried some medicine ( which I would not recommend) and then finally... Just like my pedi told me- he grew out of it! So I definitely have a feeling that the type of sleeper kids are determines those dreams.

Good luck!