How to stop night terrors?

Question

My 6 yr old is suffering from night terrors. They are nightmares that she does not remember. When we wake her she isn't really awake. She talk like she is still in her dream. She starts kicking and screaming. It is very scary. Any help? I have already looked at web md etc.. I'm looking for peoples experiences and solution for this.

Answer 1

A night terror is different than a nightmare.  A child experiencing a night terror is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to wake during one.  My youngest daughter had night terrors, but she began having them when she was about 22 months and they continued until she was about 5-6 years old.  They are indeed very frightening, but are not harmful to your child.  It helps immensely not to try to wake your daughter.  It may not work plus if you do manage to change her sleep level she will likely become more agitated and take longer to settle back in.  What we used to do with our daughter when those inevitable 1-2 AM horrendous screams began was we would, of course, run to her room with our hearts pumping.  Once we got there, we would begin to speak soothingly saying such things as, "Its OK, sweetie, Mom and Dad are here with you."  In the first 5-10 minutes of the night terror we would likely not be even able to touch her as it made her flail about something awful.  We would sit on the edge of her bed and croon comforts to her and eventually we would touch her arm or her shoulder and it wouldn't illicit more agitation.  As the night terror progressed she would eventually let us hold her and rock her back and forth.  Sometime about 15-30 minutes after her screams sent us bolt upright she would calm enough to be able to lay down and go into a normal sleep pattern.  If you focus on keeping your daughter safe (some children with night terrors will get out of bed so you have to make sure they don't get hurt) and speaking calmly and reassuringly, she should calm down in about a 1/2 hour or less.  Many night terrors come around the same time, about 2 hours or so after the child goes to sleep.  Some parents have succes waking their child up before the anticipated night terror time.  It is thought to have some connection to a problem with processing through the sleep cycles and if you break the cycle first then the terrors won't happen.  Most parents who do this have children with frequent night terrors.  Our daughter didn't have them nightly or even weekly so we didn't try this technique.  Night terrors generally are grown out of, but it does warrant letting her doctor know that she is having these.  Usually doctors will just have you monitor them and won't interfere unless they are very frequent or very severe.  You can't stop them and there really isn't anything you have to do except to remain calm and keep your daughter from harming herself.

Answer 2

Night terrors: Why they happen and what to do about them

by the ParentCenter Editorial Team

http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/0_nig...

Answer 3

My son had frequent night terrors...screaming, crying, kicking and then that trance-like state after wards where they seemed awake but their body was floppy and their eyes glazed after wards. They call them night terrors for the children but it's terrifying for the moms and dads too. Most of the time the kids will outgrow it in time (my son did) but until then just try and wake her up, hold her and comfort her until she is through it and put her back in bed. If she remembers it (which he never did) just reassure her it was just a bad dream and that everything is okay. Make sure she is getting plenty of rest at night and work to reassure her during the day if there is any stress she is under (such as new school, move, etc.).