my 2 yr old has night terrors?

Question

he wakes up saying monkeys are hitting him and he never wants to sleep in his room..what do I do?

Answer 1

OMG, I am going through something similar. It's not anything in the room, he's just crying and screaming and sweating. It's weird. I'm thinking my son has night terrors too. Here are some websites with some suggestions, I'm going to try some tonight myself! I feel for you honey, it's so disturbing and tiresome. You just don't know what to do to calm them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terror

http://www.nightterrors.org/

http://www.sleepdisordersguide.com/night-terrors.html

Answer 2

It does actually sound like night terrors. However, it could be nightmares also. Even infants have nightmares. The cold could actually be a stressor that triggered the start of this. It is normal and will not hurt the child. The easiest way to tell if it is a night terror or a nightmare is to answer these questions. Does your child acknowledge that you are there? Can you calm him? A nightmare happens when the brain is "awake" but the body is still asleep. A night terror happens when the body is "awake" but the brain is still sleeping.
If it is a nightmare, calm him and let him know you are there and that he is safe. Safety is important. I would say stay with him until he goes back to sleep (or close to it) and then go back to your bed.
If it is a night terror, you are not supposed to wake them, and it is very difficult if you try. You should just watch him and make sure he doesn't hurt himself. This is very hard to do. Your instincts as a mother are to go to your child and hold him to make it all better. This is bad to do if it is a night terror. He won't understand it is you (because his brain is asleep) and will think that that is someone hurting him.
My son is 2 and a half and has been having night terrors. Sometimes really bad, other times not so bad. It is something that they will eventually stop doing. It doesn't hurt them and they won't remember it in the morning. It is kinda like what happens with a sleepwalker. I included a link to a good web page that may explain it better than me. Good luck and have patience!

Answer 3

Since he can remember what his dream is about, I'd say it is more like nightmares than night terrors... now one of the respondents, saying that her child wakes screaming inconsolably, sweating, etc.... that sounds like night terrors. In any case, I'll tell you what we did to eliminate them.
- We started waking her a half hour before she would normally wake screaming to break the sleep cycle. In children with night terrors, they tend to wake after just a few hours of sleep, near the same time each night. They also do not fully wake, which causes them to be in a sort of "twilight" state, where they don't recognize you as mommy, but as an evil entity in their dream. This explains why they usually recoil in horror if you get close or touch them, or try to cuddle, as most parents do when their child is screaming in the middle of the night. At any rate, wake them up to break the sleep cycle. Get him up and moving for even five minutes- go potty, get a drink- anything to rouse him for a few minutes. Breaking the sleep cycle restarts (or reboots) the brain. We did this for about a week, and the night terrors stopped completely. Good luck- I know it is a harrowing experience.

Answer 4

My 3 year old was having them for a while. Every night it was something different, like a whale coming out of the water or someone was coming to get him. We realized they were scenes from movies he'd been watching recently. We cut those movies out of his daily activities and he hasn't had one since. I just hope they don't come back! Also, try a night light, that helped him a lot too. I think he was scared of the dark, but didn't know how to express that to us.

Answer 5

It's a stage many kids go through. When my nephew had that stage my sister would look under the bed and in every closet in his room with him before he went to bed to "look if there were monsters", in your case it's monkeys. Try doing that and prove there are no monkeys. It's a stage and it will pass.

Answer 6

he must be getting the dream from somewhere, like a movie, so try to figure out what gave him theses ideas first. Then jsut tell him to talk to you about it but do not let him get to carried away or he might keep using it for attention. just tell him its okay and make sure you take his feelings seriously

Answer 7

get him a toy monkey and ask him to hit it all through the day until the fear is gone .

Answer 8

nicely, attempt doing happy issues formerly the youngster is going to mattress. examine a reliable tale, sing songs he/she loves, provide him/her some milk and cookies or a well-known snacks, actual depart them to sleep with happy ideas. many times whilst i flow to mattress, I finally end up dreaming approximately something that incredibly meant something to me. different precautions could be to have a nightlight, depart the door open, depart some reliable track on like a CD to sleep to, and so forth.

Answer 9

reassure him & let him know that you're there w/ him and he's o.k. when my son started having bad dreams, we got him a stuffed animal we called his "shoo baby". Any time he was afraid of things he could use it to tell whatever to shoo away.

Answer 10

try a night light.