Night Terrors

Looks like Clara might be experiencing night terrors. She's had 2 episodes now that I thought were just nightmares. I went looking up what might be causing them and discovered that they're probably night terrors instead of nightmares.

Night terrors, although they sound awful, aren't as bad as nightmares, for the kids at least. The difference between the two are with nightmares, they wake up and are scared, they want to be comforted and can remember the dream. With night terrors, they aren't really awake when they're screaming or thrashing. Their eyes may be open and they may even talk or yell, sometimes saying mean things they normally wouldn't. They are in a deeper sleep than when you have nightmares, so it's really hard to awaken them and I found out you aren't supposed to try. You just keep an eye out to make sure they don't get hurt or fall out of bed. Once it's over, they roll over and go back to sleep. They aren't scared and don't remember it. That's why I said it's easy on the kids, but it's pretty painful to watch.

They usually happen in the first part of the night, although her first one was around 6:30 am on Saturday. She's been waking up around that time a lot lately, but usually I let her cry for a couple of minutes and she goes back to sleep. Well, Saturday her cries were a little more intense. I went in to her and she was doing the crying where she can't catch her breath, you know the one that usually happens when they've been crying for a long time? Only she had only been crying for a minute or two.

When I picked her up to console her, she didn't seem to calm down, so I brought her to bed. The instant I placed her on the bed, she let out a blood curdling scream and was arching her back. It was pretty scary. I picked her back up but she still wouldn't calm down. I got her calmed a little bit and went to lay down with her on my chest and she did the same thing. She wouldn't let me sit in the rocker with her either, and talking and singing didn't help. She only calmed down after about 10 minutes of walking around with her. I think she probably wasn't awake, but I didn't really notice because she seemed awake. I was able to put her back down and she went to sleep.

I didn't think too much of it until she did it again last night. She had been asleep for an hour or so when the screaming started. Chris went in first and said she was lying there, eyes closed. He picked her up and she got worse. I came in a few minutes later and she was even more frantic. We figured out she wasn't awake, so thinking she was having a nightmare, we tried to wake her. It only seemed to make it worse, and it wasn't working. It was like she was in a trance. We turned on lights, had her sitting up, were talking loudly, turned up the music in her room, brought a dog in. Eventually she seemed more aware and seemed a little confused, but calmed down almost immediately. I then rocked her back to sleep and she went back down just fine.

It was so hard to watch her, I was almost crying myself. And after reading that you should just let them come out of it without consoling or holding, that's not gonna be fun. I read that it just makes it worse, which was definitely the case with Clara.

From my reading, it looks like only about 5% of kids experience them and most have them when they haven't gotten enough sleep. Either missing a nap or getting to bed late. Clara did in fact have a late night last night and was up probably 3 hours past her bedtime, though I don't think that was the case on Friday night.

At any rate, they're no cause for alarm and they're something she'll probably grow out of within a few years. Lets just hope they don't continue at this current rate, for Mommy and Daddy's sake.


--------------


On a more cheerful note, Clara had her first ice cream cone last night.