Night Terrors

Well, this is the post you've been waiting for. Okay, so only Deborah has been waiting for it because she knew about it. Anywho...

My son has never been a good sleeper. That's just a fact. But back in July when he started waking up EVERY night for weeks screaming and could not be comforted, I thought it was strange.

Here are the things that tipped me off that something was wrong:

1) He would wake up crying about the same time every night.

2) When we'd pick him up to comfort him, he would thrash, hit us, swat his ears, and just cry.

3) It would normally take us a couple of hours to get him calmed down and back to sleep.

One night it was so bad that I got a total of 4 hours of sleep (and I'd been dealing with lack of sleep already from previous nights). And then I still had to be up with him and parent the rest of the day. Yeah, I think that's the day I bawled my head off and called my sister to tell her that if motherhood was a job, I would quit. It was that bad.

After two weeks of this, I thought, "He has to be sick or something. This is NOT normal, even for him." I was so sure he had an ear infection or something because he got 3 of them last winter and he was swatting his ears when he'd wake up in the night.

I took him to the doctor, hoping for the first time in Kaleb's life that he was sick so they could just give me medicine and make it all go away. After two weeks of little sleep and a very cranky son, I was desperate.

The doctor looked at him and then said, "Well, he looks perfectly healthy to me. The only thing I can think of is that he's having night terrors. And unfortunately, there's nothing you can really do for that except make sure he has a regular bedtime and gets as much sleep as possible. They usually grow out of it. But if he hasn't stopped having them in 3 weeks, give me a call and maybe we'll do some sleep tests on him."

"THREE WEEKS?!?!?! I can't handle this for three more weeks!" Is what I wanted to say. But instead I thanked him and left.

Here's the problem: I had always thought that night terrors were just really bad nightmares. And if you were thinking the same thing, don't feel bad. Unless you've had a child or friend or someone you know go through it, you wouldn't know anything different. It's not as if they give you a handout on "Night Terrors" at the pediatrician's office to go along with the bazillion shot handouts they give you every time.

So when I got home, I did a little research on night terrors and discovered that they are NOT just bad nightmares. Basically, in layman terms, they could be described as sleep-nightmares, relating to sleep-walking or sleep-talking. When a person has a night terror, they are still asleep, even if they're screaming, thrashing, or have their eyes open. Another difference is that nightmares happen in REM sleep, night terrors happen in non-REM sleep. And, children or people who are old enough to tell you, won't remember a thing the next morning.

I found out that the main causes of night terrors is either stress or lack of sleep. With Kaleb, I knew it was a lack of sleep because he'd been staying up later and still waking up at the same time. I realized that it was a vicious cycle with him. He would be tired which would cause him to have a night terror which would make it so we were up with him for hours which would lead to more lack of sleep which would lead to a night terror the next night.

The turning point for me was when I read this from about.com:

"Typical night terrors last about 5 to 30 minutes and afterwards, children usually return to a regular sleep. If you are able to wake your child up during a night terror, he is likely to become scared and agitated, mostly because of your own reaction to the night terror, especially if you were shaking or yelling at him to wake up. Instead of trying to wake up a child having a night terror, it is usually better to just make sure he is safe, comfort him if you can, and help him return to sleep once it is over."

I also read something from a doctor online that basically said, "It can make it worse if you touch them. It's okay to let them cry. It might take even up to 45 minutes, but they will stop and go back to sleep."

That was a relief. Once I felt like I had "permission" to let him cry, it got so much better. When he would wake up crying, I would turn off the monitor, go lay out on the couch where I could hear him, doze on and off while he cried, and he would stop crying within a half hour or so. Ryan and I also made sure we were putting him to bed at a good bedtime every night. Within a week, he stopped having them.

After going through this with Kaleb, I feel that EVERYONE needs to know what night terrors are and how to cope with them. Every kid is different when they have them too. It can vary in symptoms, age, and "cures." But it's important that every mom knows exactly what they are and that they are not just bad nightmares.

It was a very long 3 weeks for my hubby and I, but we made it through and hope to never have to go back to that. And I hope none of you go through it either because it can be terrifying. But if you do or someone you know does, now hopefully you can learn from our experience!