Night Terror

Post Reply New Topic

My son, since he was about 8 months old (He's 9 now) about twice per week but only once per night thrashes about in his sleep and hollers. I'll wake him to ask if he was having a nightmare but he always says no. Could this be not necessarily a nightmare but a reaction to annoying stimuli (light, sound, touch) during the day? Because nightmares have a story line. He never has a story to tell from his dreams but he wakes up the whole house because of his distressed thrashings and hollerings. Even when he was 8 months old, I'd hear the little legs kicking and the yelling (not crying) as if he were struggling to get away from something. He couldn't tell me anything then. Any ideas??

My sister, who is NT, had a similar situation. She is sixteen now and has grown out of her night terrors. I can't remember the exact age she continued getting them to, but I would say she at least had them until around the 8/9/10 range. That was not related to stimuli because she is not AS. But who knows, it could have been a different stress during the day, and perhaps stimuli is the main stress to your son. If he gets them twice a week, I would reccomend that you take at least a week to devote to changing his environment (if possible). Make a very intentional effort to lower noise, lights, etc, for a week, perhaps during spring break or something when he is not in school (unless he's homeschooled). Perhaps you could even talk to his teacher to provide him opportunities for escape from stimulus, perhaps you could drive him to school instead of taking the bus (assuming he takes the bus now). If he continues to have night terrors, you have at least narrowed the possibilities. Just some thoughts. Either way, NT kids get them too, and kids often grow out of them.

Our son Z has Night Terrors and they are definitely not theb same thing as nightmares. I have often been awakened from a sound sleep by his screaming in horror. Yes they are accompanied by violent thrashing and flailing of arms and legs. We have found, at least in his case, that it is best to not wake him. We talk to him soothingly and often massage his back and shoulders until he is once again sleeping peacefully. He has never recalled any bad dreams during these episodes. Reasons for them remain a mystery, if there are reasons. He does have true nightmares and will mention them but seldom will discuss them in detail because "they scare me". He has other sleep issues which don't seem to apply here and after several years we finally gave in and resorted to medication. Not our first choice but he needed relief and, frankly so did we. We took him off the meds this summer but both the Terrors and other issues returned so we restored the meds at a lower dosage and he seems to be doing better again.

As I have said before each person is different and may require different solutions to similar problems. Oh, before we tried the meds we found that coffee would actually help calm him down. Go figure!