About 3 weeks ago my little girl (2 1/2 years old) started having really bad night terrors out of the blue, we went to doctor and he said all we can do is either try and disrupt her sleep cycle so they don't start or leave her to grow out of them. The disrupt sleep cycle thing just kicks her terror off early and waiting to see if she grows out of it might bring on a divorce cos no ones getting any sleep and everyones really argumentative. Does anyone have any experience and advice of how to deal with this?
Bad times mate, really bad times! I suffered (still do occassionally) from night terrors for around 7 years throughout my teenage years. We tried the disrupting of cycles and that didn't work very well for me. I'd set an alarm for every 2 hours but the problem was I was never FULL awake when I turned the alarm back off so never felt the benefit of it. The fact that your daughter is much younger than I was and that you will have to wake her and basically live with the cycle aswell may benefit her and it may work BUT it will takes it toll on you and the wife! I still have patches everynow and again but they are very different from when I was younger. I can force myself to wake up now which I didn't have the pleasure of before but it still doesn't stop me waking up in a pool of sweat! I know I am not really offering much advise but the situations were quite different. Stress made my terrors worse as did an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise (I was a lazy teen for a little while) but that's not likely to be the same for a 2yo. Have you been in for monitoring yet to find out at which phase of the sleep cycle the terrors are happening?
They won't do monitoring because she's so young they think it will go away by itself. The fact that it's every night about a hour after she falls asleep tells me it's going no where though.
I have had this off and on for years,for the the most I gotten used to it where if I wake up and I know Im having it I can shake myself enough to wake up. From my experience it only happens when Im sleep deprived,but since your kid is very young it might be something different than a adult. I found this site that might me useful. http://night-terrors-children.com/
Night Terror? Do you mean Nightmares? If so, I had them as a kid as well. I'm still a nightly dreamer. I have a dream EVERY night and I honestly do remember them. I remember them so well I can even place what caused the dream. Most are related to what I had seen or heard during the day or that week. Does your daughter watch anything she shouldn't on TV? How is the atmosphere in the home? Things like this could be a cause. Yakumo EDIT - Ah, just read up on Night Terrors. They are different from nightmares. The causes sound similar to what I said though.
That is a horrible thing to happen as it is scary for the child and it seems it is affecting you too. One of my friends kids had this and the following did seem to make it better. If possible for a little while let your daughter sleep in your room as sometimes the feeling of being with parents can make her feel better. Try to rearrange or move her bedroom as sometimes the position and lighting can add to the problem. As mentioned before diet is important, lots of 2 year olds do hate eating fruit and vegetables and love sweets, so make sure her sugar intake is low and she is eating well. The important thing is making sure she is getting enough sleep, she should be getting around 10 to 12 hours sleep. Being stressed and being overtired can make night terrors worse. Make sure she does go to bed early around 8am and give her a routine, especially with things like a story or a lullaby before bed as well as giving her naps or quiet time in the afternoon.
She doesn't watch anything she shouldn't although "in the night garden" really freaks me out...she's always in bed by 7pm and wakes up at around 6-7am,the only "harmful" thing I can see is that she loves sweets so maybe we need to cut them down.
well I was hoping you'd crack a smile.. I used to have those when I was little but it went away by itself eventually.
Maybe a missguided attempt to make me feel better about a bad situation? I appreciate the thought but the execution was terrible.
Yeah, my daughter suffered from this too. The best advice we had was from a friend who is a paediatric clinical psycologist - keep a sleep diary. Note if there is a regular time (after sleep) that the night terrors occur and wake them just prior to this. In our case, the pattern was pretty regular so it was very easy to do this. If you've just been advised to wake her at some random time then I would strongly suggest you try 'timing' the event and following this advice
