Night terrors!

[trumansmom]

Does anyone have any advice? DS has never been a particularly good sleeper, but the last three nights he has woken up hysterical. He's screaming in a way I've never heard him scream before. Last night it happened three times. The last time DH tried to take him downstairs to get some water, but by the time they got down there, Truman ran screaming back upstairs for me. We finally got him distracted with some milk and he eventually calmed down, but it was a really rough 10 minutes or so. Has anyone dealt with this successfully? I hate to see him so scared!

Oh, and we're still co-sleeping (not really by choice anymore...) so when he wakes up, we're right there. He's not having to have anytime alone until we get there.

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/29/01 and EDD 4/23/04!

[christic]

I'm not sure if what happened with my daughter one night was a night terror or not, but this section of askdrsears seemed to help anyway--

www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci8.asp

Turning on the lights as he suggests seemed to calm her quite a bit, and it helped to know it was ok not to hold her if she didn't want us to. It didn't happen repeatedly like you're dealing with so I can't say if the prevention tips work or not.

Good luck! it's just plain scary for everyone!

[starrynight]

Alex used to have these, they generally happen to kids when they haven't had enough sleep and are overtired or slept too much and are undertired if that is the right word. With Alex we cut out his morning nap and shortened his afternoon nap and that helped alot and they stopped. When they started up again a few months later we cut out his afternoon nap totally and pushed back bedtime by 2 hours and he hasn't had another one since. He was around 2 when they happened and 2.5 or 3 when he stopped after adjusting his schedule.