Last night at around 11, Jackson woke up. This isn't unusual, he often wakes for a bottle, so I stumbled in to give him one. But he didn't want it. And his screaming got louder. So I picked him up and tried to comfort him, which is when he started thrashing about, screaming and sobbing. I had to put him down to keep from dropping him. It was frustrating and a bit scary. I just didn't know what to do. Eventually he calmed down and just fell back to sleep, if he had even been awake.
I googled it of course, and nearest I can figure it's night terrors. Which is a similar state to sleep walking, the person appears awake but isn't. My research implies that it can be caused by changes to routine (none), being over tired (possibly) or just because (helpful lol). I think the over tired thing is a possibility because I've started putting him to bed 30 minutes later. We used to go up to bed at 7 and he'd play in his bed until falling asleep at 8. So I figured half an hour extra of being up with me, he's still fall asleep at the same time. Which works. But it could be the problem. Then as well, he doesn't nap at daycare as much as he would at home. She puts all the kids down from 1 to 3, at home he naps from 11 until 1 or 2, usually 2.
The way to handle it when it is happening, is apparently to just be there, but not to try and comfort him or anything, that makes it worse apparently. Which was the case last night, so I guess that's true enough. Sadly. It is really really hard as a mommy to ignore your screaming horribly upset child. Seriously. But hopefully it will lead to a shorter outburst. I really hope it works, and that this passes quickly. I am kind of hoping that it will be due to his 2 year molars coming in, and once they are here it will all get better. I really hope it does.
3 comments:
Been there done that. Except I wasn't smart enough to google it :) So learned from experience. Let them snap out of it and wake themselves up. Then you can sooth them back to sleep. If you put them back to sleep without them having woken up and out of the nightmare / dream state, it'll just happen again in a few minutes.
Just be there to make sure they don't hurt themselves, thats all.
according to my mother, night terrors were the worst thing she experienced with me....it was frightening. Another explanation is that sometimes the brain is trying to mature but is stuck and then goes into a deep deep sleep that they can't wake up from and sometimes these terrors will last for a bit until the brain goes through that hump of development....as you've already found out...just be there for him... :( sorry this is happening.
Thanks, he had another one last night, but it was shorter because I was there but left him alone. Well I tried to give him his bottle because that is what he usually wants when he wakes at night. He calmed down after about 5 minutes and then I got the bottle in his mouth, and he fell back to sleep. Still no fun but hopefully this gets better.
I'm a little worried about going to my parents next weekend for Easter lol, if he does it there he'll wake them up! I'll have to warn them I guess :)
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