Night terrors ,my 7 year old girl is waking up after 1hour screaming and hysterical we are worried anyone help

Question

after about twenty minutes she is back to normal ,its puzzling us ,

Answer 1

it is horrible to watch a child go through these my son as been having them since he was 2 and he is 5 now, just make sure they are safe, don't hold them, i get him to lie back down and stroke his head, as this works for him,  each child is different but  they do grow out of it good luck

Answer 2

I know how you feel, I dont think there is anything to worry about, my daughter is 6 and she does exactly the same thing, I read up on it and found out that if you disturb them it only makes the matter worse at the time, I used to try and wake her out of it but the more I did that the worse she would get it was like she didnt know i was in the room and couldnt hear me talking to her, like she was in her own dream world, so now I just go in and sit on her bed until she goes to sleep, the less you bother them the quicker they go off to sleep. I know its hard because you want to help them stop crying but I think its just a case of letting them come out of their dream and drift off to sleep again, try not to worry about it as children soon grow out of it. my eldest daughter used to be the same at around this age, I think its just something they go through and it has nothing to do with anything thats going on in their life at home or school.

Answer 3

My step-son has them too and he sleep walks while they are happening.  From my understanding he has done this since he was little, he is 15 now.  They have gotten less.  He usually has them when he is extremely tired or when he is running a fever.  His eyes are open, talking and making sense, but you know he is having a night terror.  We have to tell him to wake himself up and go back to bed.  The key is to really make sure he has woken himself up. Make sure your doors are locked.  Ty has ended up at other peoples houses.  All and all thing do slow down and get better.  Good luck

Answer 4

My daughter had night terrors when she was 3 (my fiance had just died, and this was her time for acting out her feelings). Anyway, once we figured out what was going on, I looked up some information on the internet. At one parenting site (sorry, can't remember what it was now) a suggestion was to wake her about 1/2 hour before she would normally wake up screaming. Get her up, go potty, get a drink, whatever... just get her up and awake. This worked!! The reason it did is because it breaks that natural sleep cycle. They don't get to the part where they fall into that deep sleep REM cycle, so it interupts the cycle. We did this for about a week, then it effectively broke the cycle, and she went back to sleeping like normal. It is important to do this BEFORE she starts in... not DURING. During the night terror, she no longer knows that you are there- they are in a kind of trance-like state. I know they are upsetting... my daughter would scream bloody murder, recoil in horror if you touched her or came near her, and it would last nearly an hour and a half each time. Every morning, she remembered nothing. Usually it is brought on by trauma, but not all the time. Once you get her to break the cycle by waking her, and it is all over with- watch this scary movie with your hubby- They (by Wes Craven, of Nightmare on Elm Street fame). It is a twist on children with night terrors (from a horror master mindframe). It will make you feel better about the small terrors you have had to deal with with your child- 'cause at least they don't have the problems like the characters in the movie! (It IS very scary- so if you don't like scary movies- don't watch this one!) It just freaked me out because the experience I had with my daughter seemed like she could be seeing the things in the movie. Wes Craven's real life child had night terrors, so he based this movie on his real life experiences with his own child (with a little movie magic, of course). So, in answer to your question- wake her up about 1/2 hour before she normally wakes in the night, and get her up and moving to break the sleep cycle. Good luck!

Answer 5

ask her whats the matter and if she tells you talk to her about it and support her!!!

Best of Luck!!!

Answer 6

she may be very stressed out or she may have problems in school.  My son was having dream terrors when he naped, until one day he said his arm hurt when I called him and touched his shoulder, he said he got poked with a pencil by this class mate.  When I saw it, I could not belive it, it was not a poke it was a pencil stab.  I went to the school and raised h**l for not telling me.  I found out from my son that this kid was terrorizing him, follwing him, wanting to be with him at all times and he even stated to my son that he wanted to be him.  yes that is absolutly scary.  I spoke with everyone in that school including the office assistants that it was not normal and that my son should be trasferred to a diffrent class, althoug it did not happen becasue it was almost tree weeks for the end of the school year.  The principle gave the other child a warning to stay away from my son and he personally took care of it his parents, Other teachers were also very concern for my son wich made my son feel alot better.  The principle called my son at home to assure him that would never ever happen again.  His nighterros just disapeared.

I used to ask my children bullies all the time, my son said he did not tell me becasue it was a school thing.

Try taking her to a phsyclologist, they may help you understand what your doughter is going throu.

Answer 7

The first post is exactly right. Wake them up about half an hour BEFORE the terrors usually happen. If they happen about the same time every night this should be easy to judge when to wake her. This breaks the sleep cycle. Get them up, give them a drink take them to the toilet, then let them go back to sleep.

Answer 8

maybe she has something on her mind try getting her to talk about it and solve it.

ive known people who have been so worried about not doing some coursework that they do it during the night subconciously all just because they were worried so try and find out if anythings wrong and get her to talk about it

Answer 9

my son went through this just a couple of weeks ago he is also 7.it was so scary, seems to have passed now.anyway seemed to happen before he got quite ill and whilst he was ill.look up on night terrors it eased are minds a lot .quite normal...

Answer 10

Wow. I had exactly the same thing when I was younger. I'm 18 now and I've grown out of it.

My mum and dad used to put me in a warm shower and try and calm me down a bit by singing to me and stroking my hair.

Get this, when i was 11 It happened really bad one night, and it was actually the night the 9/11 attacks happened (time difference in australia) so they took me to the ambulance station 2 doors down from our house and the ambulance guy asked "is she on ecstacy?"..

So they took me to the doctors the next day and the doc said it was a form of epilepsy, not serious at all, and all we could do was wait till I grew out of it.

If you want some more information about how they feel, what happens etc, please feel free to email me on [e-mail]

=]

Answer 11

My little sister and my daughter have this. All you can do is try to speak softly and keep the lights low. Asking "what's wrong?" repeatedly does no good. It used to really freak me out but both of them grew out of it. And neither one ever remember that it happened. Best not to tell her I think.

Answer 12

Is she watching anything a bit nasty before going to bed? when my little girl was like that I used to stay in the bedroom with her and as she was starting to drop off I used to talk softly about the seaside and the sea and all the nice things, seemed to work unless it was a fluke.