Nightmares

[Nes]

I was woken at 5:20 am this morning by a screaming crying toddler. After the 3 seconds it took my brain to kick in I ran full tilt into his room to find him... half-asleep curled up in bed .

He's had nightmares like this before, where he'll just wake up SCREAMING all it takes is a little re-assurance and a tuck back in and he's back to sleep.

I wanted to know though: what is the best way for dealing with nightmares so he doesn't have to come running to mommy & daddy when he's older? Or should I wait until he is older to do anything about them?

I'm just thinking, when we first taught him to sleep on his own it was about letting him cry it out for an hour or so before he'd drift off. Should I take nightmares that same way and just let him deal with it on his own? He's already a good sleeper - this is only a problem once every few months.

Of course if he screams like that again in the middle of the night I'm coming no matter what!!

[IADad]

well, whatever you do don't go running frantically into his room...LOL

I dunno, I think they go through phases that coincide with physical development and probably relate to what's happened in their day. I'd suggest just being sure to try to send them off to sleep in as happy and stress free environment as you can, give the re-assurances especially regarding their safety so they can at some point rationalize these things (not like they will when young, but I think learning to cope with waking up for a scary dream is the saem as learning to cope with a scarry bug or falling and scraping your knee.

I've also had discussions (esp with my older one) then next day, to kind of work through if there was a root cause to the dream, did he rememebr the dream and is there anything to talk about. Not sure if that really helps with the dreams, but I think it's a good "Check-in" opportunity. You can never let them know how much you care too much (did that sentence make sense?)

[Trina]

Was it a nightmare or night terror? We've chatted about this here before. Try a search.

[Trina]

What are night terrors?

Night terrors are sleep disturbances in which a child may suddenly bolt upright in bed, cry, scream, moan, mumble, and thrash about with his eyes wide open, but without being truly awake. Because he's caught in a sort of a twilight zone between being asleep and being awake, he's unaware of your presence and isn't likely to respond to anything you say or do. In fact, researchers think of night terrors as mysterious glitches in the usually smooth transitions we make each night between sleep stages. As many as 15 percent of children have night terrors, typically beginning in the toddler and preschool years but sometimes starting later and continuing up to adolescence. An episode can last anywhere from two to 40 minutes, and when it's over your child falls back to sleep abruptly with no memory of the incident.
How are night terrors different from nightmares?

Unlike a night terror, a nightmare leaves your child truly awake — he can remember his dream and sometimes talk about it, and he'll seek out and feel comforted by your presence. Also, kids have nightmares during dream (REM) sleep, often in the early morning hours between 2 and 6 a.m. They commonly have night terrors, on the other hand, in the first few hours of the night, during deep non-dream (non-REM) sleep.

The easiest way to tell the difference between a night terror and a nightmare, according to BabyCenter sleep expert Jodi A. Mindell, author of Sleeping Through the Night, is to ask yourself who's more upset about it the next morning. "If your child is more agitated, he had a nightmare. If you're the one who's disturbed, he probably had a night terror." Rest assured, the "terror" of a night terror lingers far longer in the parent who watched it than in the child who lived it.

What should I do if my child has a night terror?

Don't try to wake him. And expect that your efforts to comfort him will be rebuffed — a child having a night terror really can't be calmed down, and if you try to hold him it may make him wilder. Unless he's in danger of hurting himself, don't attempt to physically comfort him. Just speak calmly, put yourself between him and anything dangerous (the headboard of his bed, for instance), and wait for the storm to pass. Before you go to bed, take the same precautions you would for a sleepwalker, since children in the grip of a night terror often stumble out of bed: Pick up any toys or objects on the floor that he could trip on, fasten a gate at the top of the stairs, and make sure windows and outside doors are locked.

What causes night terrors, and can they be prevented?

There's no definitive way to prevent night terrors because no one knows exactly what causes them. What is known is that night terrors, on their own, do not mean a child has a psychological problem or is even upset about something. Night terrors can result from an erratic or insufficient sleep schedule or any type of sleep deprivation. Solving any other sleep problems your child has (such as getting up in the middle of the night) and making sure he has a regular bedtime with a calming routine and gets enough hours of sleep can help ward off night terrors. In certain cases, night terrors can be triggered by sleep apnea, a serious but correctable disorder in which enlarged tonsils and adenoids (normal tissue in the throat) block airway passages during sleep, making it difficult to breathe and prompting a child to partially awaken.

[Xero]

The best way to deal with a nightmare would be to comfort the child and reassure them, and talk it out.

And personally, I look forward to Eli always running to our bed should he wake up scared from a nightmare at night. He will NEVER be a bother to me when he needs me the most. And I would never encourage him to think so. Heck, I still climbed in bed with my mom once or twice when I had a nightmare just before I moved out!!!! LOL now I have BF.

[zeitgeist]

Originally Posted by Trina

Was it a nightmare or night terror? We've chatted about this here before. Try a search.

From the description, that was the first thing I thought of too. Especially in light of:

He's had nightmares like this before, where he'll just wake up SCREAMING all it takes is a little re-assurance and a tuck back in and he's back to sleep.

Disclosure: I probably would have come to wonder about that anyway. Night terrors and people having them freak me out. Totally irrational fear, and I know it... but I don't want to be anywhere near someone having one. Don't even like hearing about someone having had one.

Nothing to fear but fear itself, I suppose...

I hope they're just nightmares and that they stop soon.

[Xero]

I wouldn't say its a night terror. A child that is having a night terror is inconsolable. She said as soon as she gets in there and comforts him, that he is fine and goes back to sleep. Eli has had night terrors before and bad dreams. I comfort him for bad dreams, where I just stay by his side and wait for him to scream it out for a night terror, because there is nothing you can do to make a person having a night terror snap out of it.

[Nes]

The night-terror is an interesting suggestion, but he's never cried/screamed for more then about 30-60 seconds (not the two minute minimum) and he's done this pretty much since he was born. I wonder if it is some sort of sleep condition we'll have to deal with when he's older, at least it only happens once every few months.

I love having him sprint into bed with us too (or like last night when we came upstairs for bed & he'd escaped his room and was dancing in the middle of ours...) I just want to make sure I'm not coddling him. I LOVE how good he is about going to bed, especially seeing his cousins who take considerably more time to get to sleep... Lucas just needs a story & he's out like a light most nights .

I really don't want to disturb that.

He does talk to himself in his sleep ALLOT - but so do DH & I (it's quite chatty around here at night...) but DH also sleep-walks and has strange half-awake moments where you can talk to him but he won't make sense or remember what happened - maybe Lucas has inherited that and this is how he's expressing it?

[Xero]

Ah, well call me a coddler.