My usually happy and content 17 month old has begun waking up several times a night, crying and yelling. Takes a while for her to wake up and calm down, inevitably an hour later the same thing happens. Are these night terrors? Any advice on getting her to sleep throughout, also she usually gets a cup of milk when she wakes up which helps her go back to sleep but, I wonder if it reinforces the behavior. Help from a sleepy mom and dad.
Night Terrors.
It crops up at about this age.
It is developmental based.
Nothing to be afraid of.
Research it online to learn about it.
All kids do that.
Don't punish/scold/withhold things for it.
Because, It is INVOLUNTARY... they cannot help it.
Sometimes, being over-tired can exacerbate it.
all the best,
Susan
Stop the milk - provide water or water mixed with a favorite pure fruits juice! You may consider running an IgE and IgG blood test to see if your child is allergic to casein, the protein found in dairy (including goat and sheep milk). My child had this same problem and ended up being allergic to casein - as soon as we stopped the casein in his diet he stopped the terrors. This happens because casein, when circulating in the blood, is seen by the brain as an opiate. No kidding.
I am a food educator and write a blog, allergenfreecooking.com, that has many recipes that are free of dairy, wheat, etc.
This may not be the issue, but in many cases it has been - I have seen too many kids with this same problem resolved once the allergy was discovered.
BLESSINGS TO YOU AND YOURS!
Here's a nice side-by-side comparison of night terrors and nightmares from HealthChildren.org
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/presch...
Our daughter has gone through night terrors since she was a few months old. It's so much harder on us as parents than them as they have absolutely no recollection of the episode.
I'm not sure what's happening in your case, but it might be worth mentioning to the pediatrician to see what they think (especially since you're having to provide milk to help resolve it).
Good luck!
My son did this. Night terrors are tough -as they don't calm down from them and you shouldn't wake them. I assumed my son was having nightmares. I would try not to give her milk (might start a habit). For my son, we go in and just are able to sing and rub his back and reassure him and he usually goes back to bed. Sometimes I do pick him up - when he wont' calm down w/o it. It's hopefully just a stage.... good luck.
I absolutely agree with the previous poster. Also, my daughter did this and our doctor suggested night terrors. BUT......we found after some testing that she had acid reflux (after MONTHS of her previous bout being resolved). Just another option to check into!
Good luck! I hope you get some sleep soon!
my daughter went through the same thing! I can't remember exactly when but it was not very long lived. Often a quick trip out of doors or any other extreme change in temp or environment helped a lot. It passes don't worry :)
night terrors are when the kid is still asleep and freaking out - you can tell that they don't know where they are and are functioning in their bad dream - they will act startled and confused once you wake them up and may look around like they need to get their bearings.
She's probably having bad dreams for the firs time in her short life. Does she sleep with a comfort item like a blankie or teddy bear?
We performed a "magic" ceremony on our son's favorite stuffed doggy that gave Doggy the power to scare away bad guys and monsters and we filled her up with Mommy & Daddy's love so when our son hugs her he is hugging us too. Helped alot - sounds goofy but he's almost 6 and still loves that poor raggedy looking dog. We never have to check the closet or under the bed for monsters Doggy does it for us while he's in his bath. ;)
As a mom who has experienced true Night Terrors, I can confidently tell you that it doesn't sound like Night Terrors are the problem. I would look into this being something else disturbing you & your daughter's sleep.
I know this response isn't much help, but I thought if you "eliminated" the possibility of it being Night Terrors then you can move onto something else.
I hope you find out what is bothering her :o(
~N. :o)
My son also did this for about 3 weeks around 17 months. I would go to his room and he would be sitting up in bed crying (often with tears streaming down his face), was very resistant to being touched/soothed for a good 5-10 minutes, and then it would take over ~45 minutes to get him back to sleep....and then only to wake up a few hours later and do the same thing again.
I read up on nightmares, night terrors, etc and started keeping notes about big things that had happened each day (since it wasn't consistently happening every night) to figure out if there was a trigger.
The only thing we came up with as a theory was:
As I was 8+ months pregnant when it started, we had just started watching 15-30 minutes of a movie late in the day/pre-dinner when dad wasn't home yet and I was too pooped to chase him around a lot and just needed a breather....stuff like Cars and Ratatouille. But after looking at the notes, I decided that it might be too violent/scary and/or otherwise hard to distinguish from reality for him....so we stopped and the teary nighttime waking also stopped.
Very possibly just been a coincidence or just a random development milestone phase (have a good friend who says "Any crazy/annoying/exhausting behavior that your kid starts doing will generally change/go away out of the blue if you can just survive it for 3 weeks without you doing anything but continuing to be consistent with your regular routines.") that he was struggling with and not the tv/movie watching at all -- but it did stop.
So hang in there!
our daughter went through this at about the same age. i don't know if it was terrors, but it eventually stopped. i would go in and hug her and tuck her in. i wasn't sure what else to do. good luck!
Doesn't sound like night terrors. They happen during non REM sleep during the first third of the night. If they happen regularly, they will occur at about the same time. Could it be her ears or teething?
My 13 month old is doing the same thing right now. My mom suggested night terrors, but I'm not sure about that. I'll let you know if I find something that works. Right now my husband tries to calm him first, but if that doesn't work I nurse him (trying to avoid reinforcing the behavior). That said, we've also tried seeing if he'll go back down himself, and he just gets more upset, so right now that doesn't seem to be an option.
We are going to try putting a sippy cup with water in his crib and see if that helps. Maybe he's just thirsty?
