Night terrors in your wobbler/toddler

Penny Dreadful

Hi All,

My little girl is almost 18 months old and over the last couple of weeks I've noticed that she has had a few night terrors. She has been a great sleeper forever and has gone the whole night through since she was 8 weeks old so its not that she has an issue with sleeping in her own room (has done that since she was 3 weeks old) or self soothing or any of that stuff at all.

The first night she "woke" with the terror I didn't even realise thats what it was until it was over. She was lashing out around herself in the cot, didn't recognise me or my voice for ages and it took about 45 minutes for it to pass. Her eyes were open but wide wide open as a sleepwalkers rather than in a baby that had woken up.

Its happened about 2 or 3 more times since then, the most recent being last night. She sounds so distressed and so scared with it and yet the advice seems to be not to pick her up or try to cuddle her and calm her down in the ways that seem instinctive to you as her Mum.

Have any of you experienced this with your children?

pwurple

We've had that with both of them (and my husband also does it!). My eldest sleepwalks occasionally, and does have frightening dreams. My youngest sleeps with her eyes open, so it's hard to know sometimes when she is actually asleep, but when they are distressed I do comfort them.

I wonder where is the advice to not comfort them coming from? Sure they'd wake the whole house otherwise.

cyning

I get this with my oldest she's 3.5 and started about the 15 month mark. I pick her up cuddle and soothe her: sometimes we have had to wake her from screaming over and over. They aren't very frequent now, but whenever she is on inhalers or singulair to dry up phlegm etc they get way way worse and she will sleep walk too. She does have nightmares still but not terrors.

Penny Dreadful

pwurple wrote: »

We've had that with both of them (and my husband also does it!). My eldest sleepwalks occasionally, and does have frightening dreams. My youngest sleeps with her eyes open, so it's hard to know sometimes when she is actually asleep, but when they are distressed I do comfort them.

I wonder where is the advice to not comfort them coming from? Sure they'd wake the whole house otherwise.

That advice was on some of the sites I read today. It's contrary to every thung you feel though - your baby is terrified of something and you're told not to go near them? The sound of their mam or dads voice will ultimately sooth them I'd think.
I'm a sleep walker myself and that's why I recognised the eyes wide open thing as not being normal just awake eyes. They're much more like what my parents described my eyes being like when I'd have a sleepwalking episode when I was a kid.

cyning wrote: »

I get this with my oldest she's 3.5 and started about the 15 month mark. I pick her up cuddle and soothe her: sometimes we have had to wake her from screaming over and over. They aren't very frequent now, but whenever she is on inhalers or singulair to dry up phlegm etc they get way way worse and she will sleep walk too. She does have nightmares still but not terrors.

These aren't too frequent and I hope they don't become so. I'm going to keep a note of when they happen and see if there is something that happened that day that might be contributing towards it- not napping well enough, something with one of the other kids at the childminders, etc.