Night Terrors

[teachertam]

My 5 month old infant had a terrible night terror last night. He has had a few before but was easily calmed. Last night I could not calm or console him. He kept screaming. I was rocking him and talking to him, but nothing worked. He continued to scream and cry for 15 - 20 minutes. He finally calmed a little and I was able to nurse him. After 25 minutes of nursing, I put him back to bed. Has anyone experienced night terrors with an infant? If so, what did you do?

Tammy

[EYCI]

Tammy,

We are currently experiencing the same thing with Hendricks. Once or twice a week he wakes up just screaming and picking him up, rocking, consoling, doesn't help. I think the problem is that he is still half asleep and doesn't realize that he is safe and with mommy or daddy. We have found that turning on one of his light-up musical toys distracts him and sort of snaps him out of it. It wakes him up enough that he calms down. Then we can rock him back to sleep or give him a small bottle. Hope you don't have to try this out, but if so, I hope it helps.

--Julie

[kholtan]

One of the babies I tended to as a nanny had horrid night terrors. We tried everything and in the end the only thing that worked was laying him back down and leaving him to cry back to sleep. It was a disturbing experience and very hard to listen to him scream but when we tried to wake him up all the way it just made the episode last longer.

I believe the Ferber "How to solve your child's sleeping problems" book had a chapter on this if you find nothing is working. Good luck to you. I wasn't the parent and it was heart wrenching!

Let us know what worked if you find something.
Take care~
Kimberly

[DolceVita]

Hi Tammy

Im so sorry little Andrew is going through this...one of my boys is actually experiencing this 2-3x a week. I took him to the dr because i was so worried and like you said i couldnt comfort him, the only thing that worked was a toy that had lights and music and ofcourse at the end a bottle would settle him down, but it kept him awake afterwards. So to make a long story short the dr said to pick him up for a brief second if he calms down then great but if he doesnt after a few minutes you shouldnt try waking him up because thats only going to trigger him to cry more and not want to go back to sleep. He suggested putting him back to bed and allowing him to cry himself back...he said its going to be the only thing that gets him to stop. I hope it ends soon, its so sad it puts me to tears because i cant help him. Oh also he mentioned that the night terrors were like adult (sleepwalking) as they say you shouldnt wake a sleepwalker up. So he was really stern about not waking him up.

Goodluck to you and sweet dreams to little Andrew.

[teachertam]

Julie, Kimberly and Vita,

Thanks so much for your advice. I will try my best next time not to wake up the little guy. I will also try the toy with lights and music. When it happened, I finally got him to take his pacifier and then nursed him back to sleep. He nursed for 25 minutes. Poor little guy. It kills me to see my boy screaming!!!!!!!!!

Regards,
Tammy

[ogr1]

hi. we have our grandaughter and she has horrid night terrors.
it does break your heart.

she was haveing them 2 times a night.
the doctor said to wake her up before the night terrors started.

this has worked for the one around midnight. we didnt wake her up all the way. we just gently moved her or rubbed her little faces until she would move our hands away.
but we havent been able to get the one at 3 am to stop.
i to was told by the doctor that if you wake them up it is alot worse.