Night Terrors Symptoms: Sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of "bad dreams" or nightmares, may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, animals or people in the room, are unable to fully awake, difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day.
Why am I blogging about this? Because Jackson has been dealing with night terrors ever since I can remember. It use to happen quite frequently. It is so scary to see your child go through this. During the first few times and so unfamiliar as to what was happening, I thought this had to be something demonic. It is terrifying. His eyes would be wide open. He would be looking at me as if I was some kind of monster, his teeth would be chattering and you could feel his heart beating so fast. He would kick and flail his arms, and you couldn't talk to him or wake him out of it. We learned through lots of reading that you are to hold him close until it passes. It always ends with a yawn and then he is out with out any memories of what had occurred. It would usually last about 10 to 15 minutes. As a parent you feel helpless, wanting to make it better but not knowing how. Feeling him struggling to break free from you tight grasp, terror stricken as if something horrific was standing right in front of him.
As years pass, he gets bigger and while it seems these night terrors aren't as frequent as they use to be it gets harder to hold him still and the night terrors get more vivid so it seems. What we have learned that helps is to have him pray while he is going through this. I have him repeat after me a prayer to God to keep him safe and after that prayer it seems to go away. I think more importantly it helps him to focus on something, distracting his mind. But to get him to the point of being able to calm down enough to listen and pray isn't easy. I keep hoping that he will grow out of this. He is eleven years old and still has them every so often. Last night being the last time. What is going to happen when he is a 16? Is he still going to sleep walk to our room, kicking a flailing his arms? It will take two of us to hold him down.
Anyway, here is some information on this. I am writing about this because it is Genetic. A few of the Bartletts had this issue when they were younger and it has passed on to Jackson and who knows what other of the fourteen grand kids have this issue.
Here are some of the things that we have to do or have done in the past to keep him safe and snap him out of it.
1. Because sleep walking is involved, make sure that there is no obstacles in their way, and that any doors leading outside are locked and blocked to prevent them from walking outside.
2. Make sure that your kids are getting enough sleep. We have discovered that these night terrors can be triggered from lack of sleep. Not always is that the case, but in most instances it is.
3. Do not try and wake them while going through this, it will cause them to be even more disoriented and can frighten them even more. Instead hold them tight. For us, we try and calmly talk to him and get him to repeat a prayer with us and that always snaps him out of it.
Fast Facts about Night Terrors
Run in families.
Are not dangerous.*
Can last 10-20 minutes.
Occur in stage 4 of the sleep cycle.
Can happen at any age 1 hour - 100 years old.
http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/sleep/a/night_terrors.htm
*What you do during night terrors can be dangerous i.e. walking into objects or using kitchen appliances
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2 comments:
I'm sorry you're going through this. I remember this happening to me as a kid. Definately was some sleepwalking down flights of stairs and hallucinations involved. I'm sure I really freaked my parents out. And then there was Brian. He used to scare the bezeezus out of me. He probably had it the worst of all of us. The look in his eyes alone was chilling.
Jared had it a bit for a while but we found that when we paid better attention to what he was viewing via TV or movies, especially in the evening, he didn't carry those images to bed with him. I don't think that's all there is to it, but that certainly helped. It's been several years now since his last episode. He's getting so big now, I couldn't imagine trying to restrain him now if it ever happened again. Thankfully we haven't experienced this with any of the other kids.
That is so funny that Brian scared you with it. I'm sure as a kids seeing someone go through it was horrible in itself ! It is scary and yes, now that he is bigger it is getting a bit ridiculous to hold him down. You are so lucky that none of you kids are going through this and Jared isn't anymore. At first we thought it was tv programs but that reasoning wasn't consistent. Lack of sleep sometimes, but I think Jackson stresses about this and that and could be a cause too. *Shrug* who knows, I am just hoping at some point he will totally out grow it!
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