Dreaming Outloud!

Well, sleep talking is pretty common in kids (up to 50%) and so is frequent night waking, sleep terrors, nightmares etc.

I would suggest that you talk to his pediatrician about your concerns. Sometimes issued like the ones mentioned about have underlying medical causes that can be treated, such as sleep apnea. This can especially be that case if you feel like your child is not getting enough sleep, is not rested when he wakes up.

If your twins are still sharing a room, you may want to try seperating them. Maybe he is a light sleeper and the presence of his brother disrupts his normal sleep phases.

You doctor can order a sleep lab observation for your child to see if there is any reason for concern.
Most kids outgrow their sleep problems by the time they enter school or adolescence.

Good luck.

my daughter is 3 and has beeen doing that for about a yr and a half so i would love to know if they out grow it. it is so frustrating. it started with screaming and now it is the talking.

This is perfectly normal for toddlers/preschoolers. Young children will talk and laugh in their sleep, sleepwalk and have night terrors (where they seem to be awake and screaming but they are really asleep). As the brain matures, these nighttime activities will stop. There is no need to worry or even get up with your child (unless he wakes up and is frightened). There will be a time when you say, "Remember when our son used to talk in his sleep?!"

Good Morning D., I am sorry to say this, but my 6 yr. old son still does this too! He doesn't talk in his sleep, he yells in his sleep, carries on conversations, bosses his friends and brothers around, etc... I also have 2 yr old boy twins & one of them also seems to wake and yell for me at least once a night too. I am anxious to see if anyone has a solution to this...

My daughter, 4 now, went through night terrors with the screaming, then nightmares and waking, and still talks in her sleep some, but it is much better and she didn't start sleeping more than 4 hours at a time until she was 3. We started her on a low dose of Melatonin (your body makes this anyway, but not always enough) when she was almost 3. She takes a chewable tablet every night, about 20 min. before bed. It cut the wakings down to one per night. Soon after that we also put her on growth hormone after being diagnosed as SGA (small for gestational age) and that took care of the last waking.

We use Nutrition Now brand of chewable Melatonin Peppermint tablets 500 mcg sublingual, 100 chewable tablets. We get these at Fred Meyer. Check for the 500 mcg, it is a low dose and make sure they are chewable.

Her ped. said it would be fine to put her on the low dose of Melatonin and was surprised at how well it helped. He didn't think it would do much.

As to the night terrors (screaming while sleeping), I took her to a naturopath and after a couple of treatments, the terrors were over. They did recur briefly after some incident that threw her for a loop, so they can come and go depending on outside stressors.

Good luck to you and hope you get some much needed rest.
D.