Less than 3% of children experience true night terrors. Why must Emily continue to demonstrate how exceptional she is?
Perform a search for “child night terror” and, after reading the entirety of the first 10 search results, you will come to believe that a night terror is a sleep disorder, usually occurring in children aged 3 to 12 years, characterized by periods of extreme agitation with manifestations of intense fear, crying, and screaming in the middle of the night. Though still asleep, the child will sit up bolt upright in bed, with their eyes wide open, and scream. These episodes may last anywhere from 1 to 40 minutes and the child rarely remember any of the events of the episode after it has passed.
Now allow me to describe for you how our personal experience has differed from the clinical descriptions that we’ve read.
On almost any given night for the past couple of months, sometime between 11pm and 3am, Emily will wake up shouting bloody nonsense from her bed. If we’re lucky, she’ll settle down and fall back asleep in a minute or two. Just as likely, though, she’ll get out of bed and roam the house looking for something/someone to shout at. If this happens, we’re doomed. She’ll come into our room, disoriented and screaming, and we’ll try to escort her out so as not to wake up Sebastian. This just makes her even more upset and then the fireworks really kick off. If we try to speak to her to calm her down, she screams over us and tries to hit us. If we try to touch her or hold her, she runs away and hides in a remote corner of the room like a feral child. Then she tries to hit us again. Then she spits and hisses at us. All the while, shouting at the top of her little lungs, which all of a sudden don’t seem so little. The poor thing has no idea what’s going on. It’s a violent and scary episode which can last upwards of an hour! It’s hard not to try to interact with her but the experts assure us that there’s nothing we can do except make sure that she doesn’t hurt herself.
But the most incredible part of this intense and traumatic experience (for us) is when, after the terror has apparently run its course, she simply snaps out of it (wakes up), looks at me, and says something like, “would you like to play with the blocks and build a tower with me, daddy?” in the sweetest little voice imaginable. She does not remember very much, if anything, from the terror.
So I’m thinking my kid is seriously messed up, emotionally scarred, or, at best, possessed. But before flipping through the Yellow Pages in search of an exorcist, we thought we’d ask around to see if any other parents had been through anything similar. I was so relieved to find out that most of people we asked had experienced similar episodes – of varying degrees. Emily appears to have much more intense terrors than most but they seem to have settled down (a bit) over the past two weeks. I hope this is just a phase and that it comes to an end sooner than later – for her, for Sebastian, for us, and for our poor poor neighbors.
Is it because of starting school (i.e. a major change in her life)? Not that it’s a negative change by any means, but subconsciously it is a big step for a little one. Just a thought… Daniel goes crazy when he takes Dalsy, we think it is the colorant in it (one of those nasty e-numbers). That could be another factor, does she eat or drink anything garishly orange? (a serious question, although it may sound strange)
It absolutely may have something to do with starting school. It appears that these episodes can be brought about by either stress (like from starting school) or being overtired (like from starting school). No garishly orange food or beverages, though. Hmm…
Aaah poor you… I do feel for you all, it’s a horrible feeling when they are panicking and you feel helpless (not to mention the stress from missed sleep…) Sam went through a phase of nightmares though not night terrors, and that was bad enough. It did happen though around the time we were moving house and definitely seemed to be linked to changes, upheaval, a sense of being unsettled.
Have you thought about leaving some very peaceful music on in her room while she’s asleep? Certain types of classical music for example can have a very soothing effect and might help by drifting quietly into her sleep and soothing her. Just a thought, though no idea if it would actually help. Tell Emily her friend Pancho says hello 😉 and a big hug to both you and Jan and a little kiss to Sebastian xxx
Thanks, Chris! Music might be a very nice idea. I’ll do some research to see if it should actually help and to make sure that the music I choose is a “relaxing” one and not one of the ones that freak you out subconsciously.
Yeah, stay away from Berlioz. Pretty sounding music, but he was insane and obsessively stalking his ex-lover, and writing the music to represent her. There might be something subconscious in there…
Kat sometimes still comes and stands by our bed with half shut eyes (creepy!) and then when the moment is at it’s creepiest stands screaming before then falling asleep on my floor muttering to herself. Thriller melts into comedy. That thin line blurs alot in our house. xxx Hang in there!
Hey Josh –
Sorry to hear this is happening. My buddy suffered from night terrors through most of his toddler life. Mostly caused by stress or fear. Try to eliminate or lessen the fear or stress in Emily’s life. Playing soothing music is supposed to help. So might Chamomile tea. Good luck!
xo
steve
That sounds awful. So sorry that all of you are having to go through that. We haven’t had that experience with Xavier. However, I strongly recommend some acupressure/acupuncture. Denise says to rub and massage her legs gently in downward motions. Then massage a point, Kidney 1. http://www.compassionatedragon.com/images/acupuncture/ac_points/ac_k1.png
Try and make it a nightly ritual. Hope it helps.
my ex boyfriend and a friend of mine both suffer from night terrors. as far as i know this had nothing to do with them both knowing me. interestingly enough it is supposedly where the ledgend of the sucubus came from. i assure you nothing is scarier then be woken up by the person next to your screaming and clawing at their chest. freaky stuff. im sorry to hear emily (and you) suffer from these! xx
Ouch! We never even considered the fact that this might last into adulthood! Thanks for the wake-up call. It’s gotta be terrible having a full-grown adult freaking out like that. At least we can overpower our three year old if need be.
Hi
Just wondered how Emily was doing now.
I have a daughter, also called Emily, who was doing exactly the same every night. She’s 11. She ended up in hospital several times because they got worse and worse to the point that 3 adults couldn’t prevent her from hurting herself. Only when they saw it for themselves did the Drs realise this had gone beyond the clinical norm description of night terrors. It would go on from 10pm until 5.30pm.
Thankfully, having ruled out anything psychiatric or neurological, a local paediatrician who had experience of this from his own daughter prescribed melatonin. Emily had 6mg an hour before bed for two weeks. She was off school because it made her drowsy. Then she dropped to 3mg for two weeks and just went to school a bit late ( by arrangement). Then one Friday night the paediatrician said to try her without. Bingo, the cycle had been broken. No episodes for months. He has now given us an emergency back up prescription just in case but says it is unlikely to happen again. Melatonin is a natural hormone. It is unlicensed and has to be prescribed by a hospital in the UK but in some countries you can buy it over the counter in pharmacies.
Just wanted to share how we got this sorted as I know how terrifying this can be.
Thank you so much for sharing. It is truly frightening. I’m happy to hear that you were able to get your Emily’s night terrors under control. Our Emily is doing better, but after not having a single episode for about a year, she recently started having them again. Not as often as before (now maybe once every two weeks) and not as intense, but it’s still there, lurking. It seems to happen most when she is stressed during the day or after not getting enough sleep the night before. But it is definitely manageable and has not escalated from where it once was. Thank goodness! Now Emily’s little brother, Sebastian (four years old), has had a couple of small night terrors, but nothing at all like what Emily experienced when she was the same age. Fingers crossed.
Hi again, just thought I’d give you an update and ask how your Emily is now?
Having taken our Emily off melatonin for a while she started again. Melatonin stopped it. We took her off it again. Fine for several months then it started again. There are times when we could perhaps link to stress ( school exams etc) but others when there is no apparent link. Generally, she remains a happy, outgoing and balanced kid who is doing well at school.
She now has a diagnosis of REM sleep disorder ( common in older men but quite rare in children apparently). Basically, whereas the rest if us experience paralysis when asleep to stop us acting out our dreams, she doesn’t. If her movements, things she bumps into, or us touching her to try and stop her hurting herself don’t fit with what she’s dreaming, she becomes more and more panicked and aggressive. Still can’t be woken and has no memory of any dreams or how she has ended up in another room etc.
Let me know how things are going for Emily and her little brother :0)
I’m so glad to hear that your Emily continues to consistently do well during her waking hours, and that you’ve found a way to battle the night terrors. Remember how hard it was when you didn’t know how to deal with them and they were happening all the time? Now if the good days would just stick…
Our Emily continues to experience the occasional night terror about once every two or three weeks, but they’re not nearly as bad as they used to be. Or at least that’s how it feels. Maybe we’re just getting used to it and not so freaked out anymore?
The REM sleep disorder you describe sounds very familiar. That’s basically what we;re dealing with here. Very interesting.
One thing we have found that helps us is getting her to sit on the toilet. She often resists, but she’s still small enough that I can pick her up and carry her to the bathroom and sit her down. Once on the toilet she almost always urinates right away and we find that she tends to “wake up” soon after this. I had read somewhere in my searching that someone else had linked night terrors to a full bladder (missing reference, sorry) and our experiences appear to back this up. Nothing scientific, but it sometimes helps. My new plan of action whenever she has an episode is to calmly talk to her to see if she’s really awake or not, agree with whatever she is apparently angry about, tell her that I’ll fix everything, and I pick her up out of bed and bring her to the bathroom. This is usually the beginning of the end of the terror. She can and has spent upwards of 10 minutes on the toilet, still in the episode, but it’s usually over within a couple of minutes after urinating.
Thankfully, Emily’s little brother hasn’t experienced the same as his older sister. He’s four and a half now and he’s maybe only had a handful of night terrors in his life. Still with the fingers crossed for all of us.