night terrors

[louise23]

hi all was just wondering if anyone else has a child who suffers night terrors and if u did what did u do about it?
my 3 year old daughter had done this before but it was a few months ago and i didnt think anything of it but it has started again every night for the past week she has beed screaming and shouting on me but when i go into her she cant see me even tho her eyes are openand jus keeps shouting on me i try to calm her but it doesnt work i jus need to wait till it passes.
dont know wether to just let her grow out of it or speak to gp, so any of ur experiences would help

thanks

[louise23]

any help at all???? :-(

[annie0000]

I know when mine were little and they had nightmares or were scared in bed, we appointed one of their soft toys as a guardian to look after them while we were downstairs and that seemed to comfort them. But I believe that night terrors are something else and that you can't necessarily reason with them in the same way. I am sorry that I don't have a solution for you, but maybe if you google night terrors, it might give you some sites to try.

It must be really tough trying to deal with that - hopefully she will just grow out of it. Is there any pattern to when she has them?

[alfiesgirl]

My daughter also had these screaming fits in the middle of the night and so we watched ....we couldn't believe it when a mouse jumped on her from what seemed out of nowhere..im not implying that you must have mice but you could lay a couple of traps and see..you never know..i hope your littl'un settles soon..x

[metaldeviant]

hi, has your daughter got any better? when you put her to bed does she go down easy or does she cry/tantrum really bad? :)

[Sachs]

Hi louise,
my daughter use to get these when she was small. It's quite frightening isn't it! Seems so real! Is overheating the problem?

[Tups]

Just seen your post. My son suffered from night terrors for about 18 months. We eventually consulted a so-called specialist at Great Ormond St. Hospital, who gave him medication. After one dose, I threw them away because it made him scream with pains in his head! I suffered sleepless nights - literally sleepless - all that time and ended up in hospital myself with suspected MS! Eventually, the terrors ceased as quickly as they started and I started to have good nights too! My so-called MS symptoms stopped!

Years later, I asked my son if he could remember the terrors (we'd never mentioned them to him before) and, to my surprise, he said he could. He explained that he always imagined a brick wall in front of him, which he had to run at quickly in order to smash it down and run through. (That exactly explained his behaviour.) I was amazed that a) he remembered it and b) he recounted it so matter-of-factly.

My advice is stay away from specialists, who want to treat children with drugs. It you can ride the storm, it will pass. I still look back, 24 years later, on a nightmarish time. I think that had I thought more about the way I managed the situation in order to save myself, I might have been spared the illness it caused. Many people will throw their hands up in horror at this but, when my daughter was born, 3 years after my son, I was determined it wasn't going to happen again and she slept in our bed whenever she was upset. Bliss! We all had good nights and everyone was happy. Let's face it, it's only western culture that separates young children from their parents at night!