It is 10:15 p.m. They kids went to bed wonderfully around 8:30. Enjoying a wonderful bowl of ice cream and the company of my husband. Then it starts. The scream, then the thud, then the whimpering of my 6 year old running around the house- asleep.
What's wrong? What happened?
-He stares at you with no recognition at all. Continuing to cry and look disoriented.
Well... here's your glass of water, we love you, see you in the morning.
This has been going on for about 2 1/2 years now. Not every night. 3-4 times a week every 2 weeks or so. Usually those nights are consecutive. We have just kind of learned to put him back to bed.
Now the 4 year old has started. Lame. Are all of my children doomed to this?
My brother-in-law used to have awful night terrors. I guess my kids just want to be like him.
Today I have spent a fair amount of time researching night terrors. It was kind of neat to see I wasn't hallucinating that these were terrors not nightmares. They are completely different. Most of what I read pointed me to the triggers being anxiety, stress or sleep deprivation. I am a firm believer in sleep. I highly recommend it and require it from my children. I really don't think that is it. Maybe I am misguided but I really don't think my 6 year old is that stressed out. At least he doesn't act like he is stressed. I think it is more related to diet. However, I can not find much information linking the two. But the more I witness and the more people I talk to there seems to be a "mom knows more than research" understanding that they are related.
One of Victor's triggers seems to be dehydration. If he didn't drink enough water during the day he will probably be up at night. Though that is not a guarantee. My brother-in-laws trigger apparently was artificial food colorings. Particularly Red #40. Victor happened to have a red smoothie the other night- guess who was wondering around in the middle of the night crying.....
Now that is very anecdotal. Maybe the skating party had stressed him out. Maybe he had been kept up too late. Maybe it is all of them together.
The more momming I do the more I see a lot of solve this problem by making the doctor medicate the kid than actually figuring out what is wrong. I firmly believe that most problems have a reason behind them.
I am going to try to figure out what is wrong.
Good for you! You ARE the world's expert on your children. Trust your gut and pray for inspiration--which you are entitled to! Love you all!
ReplyDeleteMy brother Andrew had horrible night terrors. Every night without fail he would wake up around 10pm, in tears, terrified, usually saying something about someone coming to get him. if you didn't stop him and wake him up all the way, he would walk out of the house (we never let him, like, wander away, but as a child kept in charge of stopping him, I would sometimes wait to see what he'd do). He had actually walked right past us in the living room, and left the house once. It never occured to me that it could have had an tangible cause. To be honest, I thought it was the house, because he wouldn't do it anywhere else. My old house was weird, having lived and stayed in several other places now, I realize how uneasy it made me feel. Realizing it was probably just dye or something makes me feel pretty silly for even considering that.
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