Night Terrors

Our Noah the past few weeks has been waking up about a hour or so into the night SCREAMING but, he is still asleep. It is blood curdling. We go and get him out of bed and try to console him but it takes sometimes an hour to get him calm. Our pedi said today that he thinks it could be night terrors. Has anyone ever heard of this or experienced it?

We looked it up that it can be due to over tired....he is hard to get down for naps/bedtime and he does not recognize us because he is still in a sleep state. Just curious.

 

Yup, my ds did this. There really isn't much you can do about it. Yes, they are still sleeping and you can't wake them up. Eventually they will stop and go back to a calm sleep. If I tried to hold him and talk to him it would make it worse. They have to grow out of it. Ds had most of his between 2 and 3, but occasionally at 4. I don't remember him doing this at 10 mos, but maybe he did and I just didn't recognize it? Of course he is 5, so I don't remember much from when he was 10 mos! Good Luck!

 

Melony, have you tried just letting him be? Since he isn't awake, maybe going in there really isn't doing any good? Poor punkin.

 

We do not let him be because it is not like a CIO situation. He scares his brother into hysterics if we do not get him out. Hopefully, it will ease up. We just got him down tonight because they had a later nap in the car coming home from the pedi that energized them. This is way to late for him to go down but, hopefully (fingers crossed) he will sleep a little easier tonight.

He did take lovely 1 1/2 hr nap this morning and he has not done that in a week or so.

 

DS has horrible night terrors. It started around 9 months.
9 months is a common age for them to start. Also any doctor I've talked to or any research I've done on night terrors says one of the worst things you can do is to touch them. It makes them worse and makes it hard to get your little one calmed down. He won't remember them, DS never does. He isn't really awake and when you said looks like he doesn't recognize you it's because he's not really seeing you. He's kind of looking through you KWIM?
:hug99: It's hard, I know. I go through it a lot. Just hang in there, hopefully he will grow out of it.

 

Mel,

Take a look at this page http://www.theparentreport.com/resources/a.../sleep/121.html

The first part of it is mostly to do with preschoolers, but if you scroll down, there is a visitors comment section that has a lot of questions regarding babies and night terrors. I didn't read through it all, but maybe there is something in there that will help you and Noah. :hug99:

ETA..I did read one thing that was interesting. It linked night terrors with developmental milestones...hmmm.

 

QUOTE(RondaJo @ Jun 4 2007, 09:45 PM) [snapback]279621[/snapback]
Also any doctor I've talked to or any research I've done on night terrors says one of the worst things you can do is to touch them. It makes them worse and makes it hard to get your little one calmed down.


This is also what I've heard on the matter. TLC has a new show called surviving motherhood and they did a show on night terrors and all the doctors said the same thing. I'm sorry your going through this I can only imagin how horrible it would be. :hug99:

 

Every child, like every adult, has frightening dreams that cause him/her to wake up scared. When a nightmare wakes up a child/infant, the frightened youngster needs physical contact, comfort and reassurance. Plan on staying with the child a few minutes until he/she is calm. Another common sleep disorder that occurs in children is night terrors, known medically as "pavor nocturnus." In contrast to nightmares, night terrors develop earlier in the night and usually begin one to four hours after falling asleep. Night terrors are more common in children between the ages of 3 and 8 years of age and the condition is often inherited. The episodes are not harmful and disappear as the child grows older. Night terrors seem to get worse when the child is over tired or is on an irregular schedule.