Parenting Advice: Night Terrors in Childhood

Q. "My 7-year old son wakes up periodically in the middle of the night. We find him sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead, and screaming at the top of his lungs. He sounds like he's being viciously attacked. This goes on for a while, during which we try to console him. He goes back to sleep without knowing we were even there. If we decide to awaken him, he appears confused, and doesn't remember his dreams".

A. He can't remember his dream because it wasn't a dream. He was having a night terror.

Sleep is a process of different stages. Stage one is when we first drift off. For about ninety minutes we go through stages, two and three, and then enter our deepest sleep, stage four. Experts have learned this from studying brain wave activity (EEG).

It is interesting to note that we don't dream during any of these stages. If you awaken someone during this time, they probably won't remember anything. The only thing they may say is that they were "thinking".

After stage four we then suddenly shift into a completely different mode of sleep called "rapid eye movement" (REM) sleep. This is when all the dreaming occurs. If you watch someone in this stage, you will see their eyes darting from side to side. We dream for about 45 minutes, and then we go back into non-REM sleep for another hour or so. This pattern continues through the night, with the non-REM stages becoming increasingly lighter. Hence the saying "an hour before midnight is worth two after".

It is when we dream that we can have nightmares. These are usually Hollywood style productions in full colour that seem very real at the time.

Night terrors, on the other hand, occur in stage four sleep. This is also the stage in which sleepwalking and talking occur. The reason they occur is unknown, and most children grow out of them. They may be worse at times of stress.

Of course they are very disturbing to the parents and siblings, but they really don't harm the child. It's actually best if you can stand to, to just leave him alone. You even said yourself that he goes back to sleep in a short while. As for sleepwalking, the same advice applies. You do, however, want to make sure he's safe from falling down the stairs or out of a window.

Night terrors are common in children aged 3 to 6, and may continue even beyond then. They do not indicate that there is anything seriously wrong with your child. Hard though it may be at the time, the best tactic really is to ignore them, and to try to get some sleep yourself.

Do your kids play you up? Then you should really take a look at Dr. Noel Swanson's free newsletter on children's behavior managementthat is packed with advice. More of his articles can be found here: free articles on parenting
You can get a unique content version of this article.

Article Source: http://www.sleepdisorderarticles.com

Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Articles on Sleep Terrors Via RSS!