Night Terrors

[2littleboys]

My 8 year old son has recently started having night terrors.

It doesn’t seem to be effecting him as he has no recollection the next day but it is very scary for us us to watch.

He seems wide awake when we go to him but he screams and when we try to talk to him he seems even more scared and doesn’t know it’s us.

Does anyone have any experience with night terrors with their kids?

[jojos]

My youngest son used to have them, really horrible to watch, however we found there was a link with his terrors and needing a wee! So we used to wake him before we went to bed and put him on the toilet and hey presto no terrors. Obviously this may not be the case for you but worth a try!

[jndt]

My oldest had night terrors for months when he was about 6/7. He appeared wide awake and would talk to us while crying but never remembered it. It stopped as abruptly as it started and we never knew why.

[daffodil92]

My son also had this. It was around a similar time of night each time and if he was overtired we knew he was going to have one as that was definitely a trigger. Eventually I started going to him just before I was going to bed and gently talked to him, saying all the goodnight routine things, tucking him in again. It seemed to work, I think it roused him to a lighter level of conciousness without actually waking him xxx

[Jan]

Our DD has them when she was young. I found the best thing to do for her was to pick her up and take her out of her bedroom where she would wake up. She was OK then.

[NewtoOrlando]

My youngest is now 11 and he got them up until he was about 9, it was horrible to watch. He would come to my room hysterical but still asleep (he was a sleepwalker too) I work within paediatrics and spoke to the neurology consultant about it and showed him a video, he was shocked with what he saw! He mainly said that to not talk to him, or engage with him and don’t wake him up because the shock of being woken up can scare them, but gently soothe him & walk him back to bed. To make sure the house was safe in that the doors to outside were locked because of the sleepwalking.

[lovestoplan]

Our 7 year old daughter went through a bit of a phase in the summer and I think it was the heat. It seemed to always happen about an hour after she went to bed. Would wake up sweating, talking jibberish and not really knowing what was happening or where she was. When it happened I would lead her to lie on our bed for a cuddle and she would sort of come round. After that I started going up to her about 45 mins after she had gone up to bed and sort of talk to her, fix covers, disturb her enough to get a nod or smile but not really awake awake and that seemed to break the cycle.

[CrispyA]

My daughter went through a phase of having these when she was about 8 or 9. It was a freaky thing to witness but she went back to sleep with some soothing and had no memory of it in the morning. It seemed to happen if she had a temperature or was very tired but she soon grew out of it.

[Disneyfreaks]

Our DS had these aged 7/8 too, they were scary for us to witness as he’d look absolutely terrified, shaking, wide eyed & then laughing hysterically...thankfully he grew out of them just as quickly as they came - thank god.

Sleepovers were the worst when he got invited to his friends as we had to inform the mum - just in case one happened, thankfully it never did, hang in there, they will soon pass 🙏

[kayald]

Really feel for you, both my sons suffered these when they were about the same age (many years ago). My youngest was particularly bad and I did so much research online to try and help as it got very scary at times. In the end we found his were related to heat so about an hour after he fell asleep I would pull his quilt down a little and uncover his feet - as others have said I think this also roused him slightly. It didn’t always work but did help cut them down a lot. Both sons did grow out of them.