Night Terrors

I think my 4 year old may have them too. Were getting fed up with no sleep. What do you do with your child?

Night terrors are extreme bad dreams. In a typical bad dream, your heart might race, your breathing might be faster than normal and you might wake up feeling anxious or scared. Night terrors are 10 times worse. Your heart may feel like it is going to beat out of your chest, your breathing may be very hard and very labored, you might be drenched in sweat, thrashing around in bed and talking or even yelling in your sleep. You usually wake up suddenly, possibly jolting upright, screaming or even falling out of bed. You wake up terrified, sometimes sobbing and very very scared.

I am 26 years old and have always had very vivid dreams my entire life. I have had more than my fair share of nightmares but luckily only a few night terrors. One time I was dreaming and suddenly sat bolt upright in bed and began pounding and clawing the wall next to me trying to get away from whatever I had been dreaming about. Another time while I was in the process of moving I was dreaming about furniture chasing me and I suddenly bolted out of bed and ran down the hall until I tripped over some furniture (broke two toes) and fell down sobbing. The third time I was dreaming a snake was moving across my ceiling towards my fan and again I woke up suddenly, bolted out of bed and huddled in a corner sobbing, fearful that my fan was going to fall on top of me.

From my experience, the best thing to do for someone who is experiencing a night terror is to be there and be super comforting. It is a horribly terrifying experience and the most comforting thing is to have someone there to tell you everything is ok and reassure you it was only a dream, its not real, it didn't really happen. It is sometimes very difficult to go back to sleep after a night terror because you are afraid it will happen again so, especially if it is a child, you may want to stay with him or her at least until they are able to fall back asleep.

My little boy is 7 years old and he wakes up after being asleep for about 1 hour and he looks at me like I am crazy and starts talking about things he sees. But most of the time they are not bad dreams. They are about his baseball game and it is good but he is always crying. And then he gets upset that he can't explain to me what he wants to say. We have had some bad dreams though and he has made me run through the house because he thinks people are chasing us.
He kisses me and then goes back to the same thing. I tried the hugging him and cutting on the light but nothing works. If I wake him up like they say do he starts to do these things. I don't know what to do. He wakes up finally after starting to cough real bad until he vomits and then he goes back to sleep. If you have any idea of what I can do please tell me.
Thanks

My son is now 7 and I think it has been about 2years since his last night terror - or I should say since I have been aware of him having a night terror.

He used to have them maybe once every 2-3 months. He would scream violently - 'No' 'Go away' etc, kick out which he hurt himself several time kicking the walls or bed posts. I would hold him close to stop him hurting himself on things around him, and talk to him, his kicks and punches would hurt/bruise me and eventually after about 30 minutes sometimes even 40 minutes, he would suddenly raise his eye brows and smile 'hello mum, why are you here?'. He could never remeber what happened and just want hugs and would fall asleep again in my arms soon after. He sweated a lot and and his skin was clammy afterwards.

He has now moved into his own bedroom on the top floor - he sleeps quite heavily and head sweats alot - often waking with wet hair. Ive always thought he looks like a little vampire as he sometimes looks as if he has not moved through the night and lies with the quilt tucked under his arms and keeps his arms straight against his body.

My husband and I are both Deaf and dont hear if anything happens on the top floor, our bedroom is on the middle floor. He is still wetting the bed very heavily every night and often often has wet hair when i check on him before I go to bed. Some times he comes down to us waking me to tell me he has had a bad dream - this is maybe once a month, sometimes a few times a week then nothing for a while.

Could he be still having night terrors? - obviously not on the days when he wakes up with his quilt perfectly in place.

I'd hate to think that I wasn't there to comfort him if he was. but then on the other hand...

My brother used to have night terrors and on one occassion he actually remembered what happened when waking up - he said that my mum who was trying to comfort him has a head of snakes and he was trying to fight her off - it makes me wonder if comforting the child is actually not comforting for them?

Ruth