any info about night terrors???

Question

my son is 2 and a half and for the past week he's been waking up crying at night, every night, about 2 hours after he goes to sleep, when i go into the room, he's still asleep or at least half asleep, but lying down and squirming. when i finally manage to calm him down and ask him whats wrong, he often manages to explain a situation that happened, eg. he hit his baby brother and i smacked him bum, and he cried, obvioulsy in his words, that situation happened about a two months ago. he mentions various things, different each time, lion king, possums, i dont know what to make of it or how to help. he seems genually distraught, and after i calm him, he may still have a little cry on and off. i hug him, tell him its ok, mummy loves you, explain why i smacked him if thats the reason, and he'll hug and kiss me and say he wants to sleep. i dunno if these are night terrors, but what can i do?

god, thankyou.. i'm having the issue as we speak

Answer 1

The link below has all your information. I read the article just last week and it was great. It answered all my questions.

Here is a a little bit from the article (American Baby.com):

"What is it?

Within 15 minutes of your child's falling asleep, he will probably enter his deepest sleep of the night. This period of slow wave sleep, or deep non-REM sleep, will typically last from 45 to 75 minutes. At this time, most children will transition to a lighter sleep stage or will wake briefly before returning to sleep. Some children, however, become stuck and are unable to completely emerge from slow wave sleep. Caught between stages, these children experience a period of partial arousal.
Partial arousal states are classified in three categories: sleepwalking, confusional arousal, and true sleep terrors. These closely related phenomena are all part of the same spectrum of behavior.

When most people (including the popular press and popular parenting literature) speak of night terrors, they are generally referring to what are called confusional arousals by most pediatric sleep experts.

During these frightening episodes, the child is not dreaming and typically will have no memory of the event afterwards (unlike a nightmare). If any memory persists, it will be a vague feeling of being chased or of being trapped. The event itself seems to be a storm of neural emissions in which the child experiences an intense fight-or-flight sensation. Once it's finally over, the child usually settles back to quiet sleep without difficulty.

These are very different from nightmares.

True sleep terrors are a more intense form of partial arousal. They are considerably less common than confusional arousals and are seldom described in popular parenting literature. True sleep terrors are primarily a phenomenon of adolescence."

Answer 2

i have four children so hopefully i can help a bit

i've found that all children go through that phase. The good news is that it does not last very long.

what I have found worked best with them, was to explain that their brain, during sleep, was "getting bored", that it was "just television in the head", that the brain was "making up stories to keep busy".

The one about television in the head, i.e. something you can see but that is not real, tended to work the best and calm them the most quickly. I also try to come back to this theme during the day. And I tried to avoid any violent film, and if one child said, during a film / comic, "oh I don't like this part", i'd make them leave the room, or I'd stop the television.

of course it still took at least a couple weeks until the night terror phase was over.

hope this helps

a

Answer 3

It doesn't sound like night terrors. Usually with terrors the child is completely unaware of what is going on. They will wake up screaming and crying yet still seem to be in a sleep state. They will be unresponsive to questions and unable to offer an explanation as to what the problem is.

Your son may just be dreaming. If it continues I would definitely talk to the Dr. about it though.
You can read more here.. http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/sleep/a/night_terrors.htm

Good Luck!