Advice on Helping My Child with Night Terrors and Bed Wetting.

Well have you talked to her teachers and seen if their is anythign going on in school? Ask'd her what she is afarid of? Or ask'd her if shes getting bullied? Also has she seen any movies or tv shows that are not meant for little ones? If so this can cause this too.

You have to find the root of the problem before you pull the weed out right?

Get huggies big kid night pants from the store until you find out why for her accidents they are like boxers but have a built in diaper in case.

Also read these they have more information - http://www.essortment.com/all/nightterrorssl_rmge.htm

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/children/par...

http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/sleep/a/night_terrors.htm

Good luck and I hope she gets a good night sleep. Its got to be hard for her.

When I went thru this I just bought a big water proof pad and put a training toliet in their room next to the bed they were not as affraid because it was right there for them??? Good Luck

Hi M.,
my daughter had the same problem. What I did was give her a good multi vitamin. It helped her tremendously. Here is the website of the multi I used. They have NO artificial colors or sweeteners!!! This is so important!! If kids are lacking in vitamins and minerals so many side effects will happen. http://funtobefit.isagenix.com/us/en/isakids_essentials.d...
I hope this helps.

M.,

I went through this with my oldest son. It terrified me at first to see my son going through this. On a positive note though...he did grow out of it. As he got older they happened less and less. I googled night terrors to find out what was happening, they are common if you have sleeping disorders in your family as well.

You received lots of advice - which is good. Be cautious with advice dismissing NTs as not remembered. Until you've experienced one, there is no way to understand how powerfully they affect your memory. It wasn't until my mid 20s I discovered it had a name. If your child had epilepsy and wet the bed during a seizure, you wouldn't be concerned with the bed wetting. You would "just deal with it". I suggest you have a similar reaction to behaviors during NTs. They are uncontrollable and are all consuming in the moment. While it is true most "grow out of it", some of us do not. I find they are related to too much sensory input in 1 day and exaggerated by lack of sleep. I wonder if a nutrient-enriched diet alleviates it as well. I notice better diet = better sleep. Other than helping those 3 things, all you can do is deal with it. Medical community has no cure or sure fix.

I have a 3 1/2 year old little girl who has never ever been a good sleeper. I found these little pills they are called Calms Forte and put out by Hylands so they are all natural and are not really medicine. They also put out the colic pills and teething pills. They totally helped her with her night tremors and dreams. She would scream out all night long and have tons of dreams. I gave her those for a few weeks and now just every once in a while if she is over tired or having a rough week. She liked them and they just disolve in her mouth. You can find them online or at any Vitamine Shoppe. Hope this helps

Both my boys went through night terrors. I used to walk in my sleep and all 3 of us still talk in our sleep. My BIL apparently went through night terrors as well when he was young. Everything I've read says it's hereditary and most children grow out of it.
First, Dr Sears has a great article on his web site about night terrors here:
http://askdrsears.com/html/7/T071300.asp
The most important thing is to keep them from hurting themselves during the episode. I would go get them from their bed and put them in ours so whenever they'd start thrashing or screaming I could put a calm hand on them and use a soothing voice or sing or something. They would go on and off for a couple hours during the worst nights and be over. When they woke up they remembered nothing at all about it.
Part of it is their natural brain development. We did all the soothing things before bed and all of that but it didn't always work.
As for the bed wetting, I would get a plastic mattress pad for the bed and if you can I would suggest pull-ups until it passes.
The good news is that night terrors don't last forever.

M.,

Hang in there. She will outgrow it. I went through this with my daughter. It is one of the worst experiences a parent can go through, the hardest part is not being able to stop it once it starts. One thing I noticed on the nights my daughter had the night terrors, is that she usually had a stressful day or was overtired. When your daughter has an episode, try to think back about the kind of day she had (ie did she get in a lot of trouble that day, something outside of her control upset her). Once you figure that out you can try to head off these feelings during the day. I would disregard the daycare situation from the other helpful parents it has nothing to do with that. The only thing I would ask the day care if she had a stressful day, like I mentioned above. If you haven't lived through night terrors with your child you have no comprehension about them and do not understand the magnatude of them. While I know those parent are trying to help, It is hard to explain. It is not a regular nightmare, it is worse, your child is awake and looking at you and not even recognizing you and being scared of you and won't come near you.

I am not sure what to do about the bedwetting, just try to keep encouraging her to get up and go. Even if you have to wake up in the middle of night and take her. Limit her drinking before bed and make sure she goes to the bathroom just before she gets into bed. Hope this helps.

I second the use of NMT. I wish that i had found out about it earlier for myself. I used to have them every night when I was a child due to some trauma that occured in my life. Now, at 30 I will have them only occasionally, but because I wasn't treated as a child. It's possible to grow out of them, but it depends on how vivid your child's imagination is.

Two of my children have experienced night terrors when they were just about 3 and 4 years old. They are now 7 and 8. My eight year old occasionaly still has them. They can be very scary because you feel helpless but they are a dream state that your child is in. When my daughter had them I couldn't even hold her to sooth her. She would try to hit me and tell me to stay away. I had to talk softly until she would fall back asleep which sometimes could be a half an hour of crying before that happened. It is a very panicked and helpless feeling for a mother and father to not be able to help or wake your child from this state. I can assure you that these do go away eventually. You can read about night terrors in the book What to Expect in the Toddler Years. That is where I first heard of this and then of course I googled as much info as I could. I do agree that stress could possibly bring these on. My daughters started right after the passing of her grandfather and lasted a short time. Most recently her 8 year old night terrors went hand in hand with a disagreement she had with a girlfriend at school. They are young people and they don't know how to work their stress out yet. It could be possible it comes out in dreams? Nonetheless Night terrors are normal and you are not alone. Hang in there and and hugs and kisses for your daughter to get through this soon.

As far as the night terrors, in Auyervedic medicine ( the kind Deepak Chopra is known for) it is considered related to "heat" - hot, spicy, foods; too hot of temperature, etc. My two year old had problems with night terrors too and i started dressing him less warmly at night and stopped feeding him spicy food. Also, it has been advised to play classical music very softly while the child sleeps. Since i implemented all three of these things, my son has not had a single episode. Hopefully, these suggestions will work as well for you. My son is too young to have the fear stuff going on, so i don't have any advice on that. Wishing you love and blessings. R.

Night terrors are horrible!! It has happened to my oldest son about a dozen times. It started when he was 3 and now he is six. It only happens now if he has a fever. There is a scientific explanation, but I don't buy it. I find that praying really hard makes it go away. Ephesians 6:12-17.

This happened to my daughter when she was five and it turned out that in her first month of kindergarten a bully had pushed her off of some playground equipment and she had been hurt. It was enough to cause her a lot of fear.
You might try talking to her when she is not upset at night to see if something has happened in her day that is traumatizing her.
We put soothing music on a tape at night in her room as well, but eventually had to switch schools to get her to calm down.
C. W.

We have three children and our middle child had night terrors. I didn't know what was wrong until I took her to the doctor, one night when she had the crying I noticed her legs were shaking while she was standing. Fortunately the doctor that we saw had a child with this problem. She advised me to get her to respond to me when she was screaming and crying. What I found worked for me was asking her if she wanted a drink of water and when she answered me I would get her one. It seemed to help having her acknowledge that she could hear me. It helped also knowing that it was night terrors, she was almost 3 when we found out. I tried to calmly talk to her and get her response. I think the doctor said that some people say not to disturb them, but getting her response has helped us. Also we found that she would have them more often if she was over tired or played hard that day. She is now 9 years old and rarely has them. We didn't have the bed wetting, so I can't help with that advise. I hope this helps you and good luck.

i have a five year old boy and a 2 year old girl. my son did the exact same thing at 2 and half years old. i figured out that it started when he would watch his dad playing computer video games, particularly Doom 3. i dont know if youve seen this game played, but it is disgusting. monsters everywhere just running around shooting at each other and when they got shot they exploded with blood and guts everywhere, one monster in particular that my son was really scared of was this green glowing skeleton (he called it a "kelkin"). needless to say i had no idea what the game was like until i passed by and glanced at the screen, i was so pissed. "hello hubby, thats why hes been having night terrors!!"
since my son would sometimes talk in his sleep, i knew for sure it was the video games. as well as screaming at night without waking up, he had said things like, "NO! DONT 'BOOM' MOMMY!" which meant dont 'shoot' mommy. that scared ME. another night he woke up screaming that the "kelkin" scratched him on the neck. so my hubby and i agreed not to let our little boy watch the game or even let the game be played while he was in the house. we also started a "PG or G rated movies and tv ONLY" thing. ever since then he hasnt had anymore night terrors, but has still been afraid of the dark and always tries to come in our bed in the middle of the night.

our daughter didnt have night terrors, but she just started to pee the bed, right after we were done potty training. and she gets scared and wakes up every night at 1am. so if you get some good advice that works for those things, then let me know please!!

My son (almost 2) has night terrors occasionally, and for him it's all related to how tired he is when he goes to bed. If he skips his nap during the day, we can almost certainly be assured that he will have a night terror that night. From what I've read they have very little to do with actual fear and more to do with the brain getting stuck in a feedback loop that won't allow them to cycle through normal sleep and seems to be associated, most of the time, with being overly tired.

The fact that your daughter says she is wetting the bed because she is afraid to get up to go to the bathroom sounds like it could be a separate issue. (Of course I'm no expert) I'd be curious as to what exactly she is afraid of and then help her discover what she needs to do, or what needs to happen, for her to feel safe at night. It could be as simple as keeping a hall light on, or understanding what a particular nighttime sound is.. or maybe it's a bigger emotional issue that is being demonstrated in this way.

M.,
We have a son with the same issue and after taking him to the doctor and researching we have found the most important thing we can do is get him to bed on time and in a peaceful manner or else he wakes up about 90 minutes after he goes to sleep. His mind races with thoughts and worries about everything, which would normally be a good sign of a bright child, but when it comes to sleep, it seems to have the opposite effect on him. Usually his dad lays in bed with him, we say prayers and he listens to a soothing CD as he falls asleep. We have also noticed that it does occur more when there are new or stressful situations (like school starting or getting a new puppy and being worried about the dog getting lost caused them to start again). Otherwise, he is a very bright child but just thinks and ponders and worries about life too much for his age. He is very scared of robbers, etc. at night and is constantly checking and locking the doors even though we don't talk about or watch scary things with him. I can remember my brother doing the same things when we were kids and is still very safety consious to this day. He also wets his pull-up most nights, but we always assumed it was becuase he was in a deep sleep and didn't worry about it too much yet based on our peds advice.
Good luck aznd I hope they stop soon for you I know it is heartbreaking to watch!!

My son used to have night terrors. But if your daughter is "scared" it's probably a nightmare. They don't have any recollection of the terrors. My sons' Dr. said it has to do with sleep. If they are not getting enough sleep, night terrors can happen. This is what finally helped my son. He didn't seem tired during the day, nor did he get cranky.... he would just have these terrors. I began insisting on the naps and an earlier bedtime. It did not take too long before the terrors went away. They started to return at one point but we focused on the sleep again and it worked. Nothing since then. If the extra sleep did not help, we had another plan from the Dr. He had ready a study that had been successful and I was willing to try. You need to see if there is a pattern to her waking. Does it start at the same time each night? If so, set your alarm. Wake her up 5 minutes before the terror would normally start. Get her out of bed, walking around..... wake her up completely. This disrupts the pattern. Do this everynight for a week - 7 days. After that, it should have interupted the terror pattern enough that it will stop. I wish you lots of luck! Hang in there! :) (PS - if she gets violent or tries to hurt herself you need to contact her Dr.)

HI M.,

I have experienced this but two people that I know have. There doctors told them to set your own alarm for 30min. before the terror happens wake the child up and feed them breakfast and then put them back to bed. Sounds crazy but I heard it works.

A.

M., have you talked to your daughters pediatrician? I know some kids go through the night terrors, and then grow out of them. You mentioned your daughter goes to a pre school and daycare, make sure all is well at both places, something may be going on there that may cause the night terrors, also how do you put your daughter down at night, I was always told when my kids were small that the more peacfull that they feek asleep the more peaceful the sleep was, I always sang and read to my kids at age 4, then after that my husband and I would pray with them, tuck them in and give them a kiss, we always had a night light in their rooms and we never closed their doors tight. As far as the bed wetting, give her goals, reward her for staying dry, my son had quit wetting at night at 17 months but at 4 he started wetting, everyone told me it was because i had a baby that was only 2 years younger than him and he was jealous, if you can go 2 nights and stay dry were going to do this, if you stay dry for a week we will go to Toys R Us, give her reachable goals, and then reward when she meets those goals. Hope this helped, J. L

My youngest son gets night terrors also and it seems to be when he needs to use the bathroom, but one thing I have found that works is to take him to a room that has a very bright light in it and have him stand or hold him where the light shines in his face. I also take a cool rag and wipe his face down at the same time. It takes a few minutes but he wakes up and realizes where he is at....though he never remembers in the morning. Then he will use the rest room and go back to bed just fine. One thing I have found with Josh is if for some reason if he is asleep somewhere, like on the couch and I try and move him he goes right into a night terror...so where he falls asleep is where he sleeps...
HTH
M

I've read that they were due to being over tired, and in our experience this is why our two kids have had them. Terrifying and distressing for those around them, but completely not remembered by the children. A night terror is not a nightmare - do not try to wake the child, but be an observer to make sure they do not hurt themselves, and hardest of all - try not to take any of what she says personally. Just make sure she gets lots more rest - naps and quiet time, and lay off the sugar, and help her get a lot more outdoor exercise and playtime. Can you take any time off of work, leave the little one in care and spend some special time with the 4 year old? Just one day? Then you might feel better. These are things that helped our family.

My son gets night terrors and i read that the best way to bring them out of it back to the "real world" (lol) is to ask them to do something and then do it. We usually will ask my son if he wants something to drink. Then we will go downstairs and get something to drink. I will tell him. "Lets get a glass of water, we are walking down the stairs to get some water, here is your water drink some sweetie" usually that will wake him up out of it. Or sometimes when he is really throwing himself around i will just say..."lets change your shirt" and then change it. Sometimes i have to take on and off his shirt a few times and then he wakes up! And will usually go back to sleep shortly after that.
I will usually pray for him and then lay with him and sing him songs or just rub his back till he goes back to sleep.
He is 2.5 and has been having them since he was almost 1

I believe this is the same my son went through. In his case he was enuretic, which is a sleep disorder. I did finally find help through a company called Pacific International which involved a bed alarm and many other tools. What happens is they go into such a deep sleep they do not wake up to go to the bathroom, and this also has to do with the Night Terrors. It took me until my son was 8 years old to find the answer. Doctor's said he would outgrow the night terrors and the bed wetting, but did not offer any solutions. I am happy to report that after about 2 months he was declared "dry" and did not have night terrors after that either.That was over 13 years ago! Once he was declared dry, his self esteem soared, and he was able to have sleep overs without worrying about having an accident.

Good luck!

Hi M.,
My daughter went thru this when she was 3yrs - I found it helped if I didn't feed her sweets or juice at night. I also give her "chamille" to help with the restlessness and also found that if I let her sleep for about an hour or so and then took her the restroom to potty that it made a big difference. She is now 5 1/2 and very seldom does she have the night terrors. Let me know who it all works out for you. :)

My oldest started having night terrors at 6mo. Her chiropractor recommended we see another chiropractor that uses NMT treatment. Within two visits the night terrors were gone. I still take her in every few months to keep her healthy. You can go to www.nmt.md for more info.

Grab a copy of Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" from your local library or bookstore - he has a chapter explaining exactly what is going on in night terrors.

In the short term, do nothing except what you need to to protect her from hurting herself. She won't remember the experience, and it's not a nightmare.

My son had them when he was a baby due to a side effect of a medicine he was taking. When he would start to thrash and cry I would sing to him. My voice pulled him out of it. After the medicine i was giving him was done, so were the terrors. thats how i figured it out. chances are your daughter is a very heavy dreamer. My son is and so am i. I have had nightmares that i wake up my husband cause i hit him and im soaked in sweat. I was told not to wake him out of it, its like sleep walking. I don't really know how true that is. good luck!

IT has been a while since my childen were young so feel what parts of this message resonate with you....
Take time to remember the connection you have with your child. Find it and open your heart to their's and connect.
This is the most important connection between the two of you for the rest of your lives.

Children of this age are shifting energy and spirit perceptions. They feel at the spirit level dark and light.
This process is a transition in preparation for the world and their purpose ahead. Which is not already published (Makes sense or where's the wonder.... this is saved for the last chapter of our lives).

Do not attach to these night terrors even though they hold a terrifing place. They shift with the light of the sun or light of the spirit and will not last.

This is a special time to hold on to what is dear between the two of you because this transition is a stepping stone for the closeness and connection you will have in the future. There will be many things beyond your control except the connection you have forged together. You can always connect your hearts....enough said.

Live peace releasing fear to faith and love. Look into the eyes of your chid and let them know you are connected.

You are hard working mama. Bless you!

I had these, too, as a child. They seemed to be brought on by stress for me. My mom didn't try this but later on as an adult I read that if you wake your child up about 10 minutes before the night terrors usually happens, this will interrupt the sleep enough to bypass the terror. It won't hurt anything to try this. Night terrors are very upsetting and confusing. There wasn't ever anything my mom could do to make me feel better except be there for me when they happened.

Some people mentioned that they are not frightening and that if your child is scared that they are probably just nightmares. People have also said that kids don't remember them. From experiencing them first hand I would not totally agree with the statements. My night terrors did have to do with me feeling really hot. They would start out as a normal dream then warp into a stress dream where a problem was impossible to solve. I would sweat, get out of bed, cry hysterically, rock back and forth, and one time I even ran down the hallway and into the sliding glass door. I don't tell you this to scare you but to help you understand how your child may be feeling. Night terrors aren't scary, but an extremely overwhelming sensory overload. Nothing seems logical in these dreams and they are just very frustrating. I only went through 4 night terrors and I only remember the first one really well. Then the others I just remember how I felt and how confused I was when I woke up to find myself in a place other than my bed. My heart goes out to you and your daughter.

I'm not an expert, but I have two teenage daughters. If my girls were having this experience and I had the option of medical care, I would seek a doctor's opinion. Though this could be a phase of some sort, it could also mean problems at daycare (how well do you know what's happening there?) and we working moms can be at a great disadvantage. Doctors will examine the children and make sure nothing physical is wrong or consider if something is psychologically wrong.

The other thing I would do, if it were my child, is to let her sleep near me for comfort until you resolve the cause. If that's not possible for some reason, perhaps you could set an alarm and go in to check her just before the usual time of her nightmares. Maybe waking her up prior to that and taking her to the bathroom would be helpful and perhaps break the cycle that has begun here. My best wishes to you.