what to do to brake a habbit of waking up screaming from nightmares

Sarah - posted on 01/27/2009

Quoting Deonne:

Hey there. I think all kids have nightmares, its due to the fact that the more the child is doing in the day (more activities) their cognitive process's are developing more which makes them think more, and then when they go to bed because of the cognitive process's, the memories of the day can infact gives them dreams or nightmares once they are asleep. It definately gets better as they get older, and if your child is still quite young (you haven't said how old she is) then the best thing to do, just as Kelly has said, is to comfort them and rock them for a while, when they are older they are able to tell you what the dream is about and then you can talk through it with them.

That is very true and good advice but if it is a night terror or confusional arousal it is a different thing and as they are happening at the same time each night there is a chance it is as these occur after a specific period of time it is associated to the change between light and deep sleep rem.

Deonne - posted on 01/27/2009

Hey there. I think all kids have nightmares, its due to the fact that the more the child is doing in the day (more activities) their cognitive process's are developing more which makes them think more, and then when they go to bed because of the cognitive process's, the memories of the day can infact gives them dreams or nightmares once they are asleep. It definately gets better as they get older, and if your child is still quite young (you haven't said how old she is) then the best thing to do, just as Kelly has said, is to comfort them and rock them for a while, when they are older they are able to tell you what the dream is about and then you can talk through it with them.

Sarah - posted on 01/27/2009

Hi....How old is your little one?? My Son Beau started to wake screaming uncontrollably at around 8 weeks old and when he did I would go to comfort him but he would act as if I wasn't even there then all of a sudden he'd stop screaming and settle back to sleep. As you can imagine I was very distressed by this and so did some research online and found this:

http://www.drgreene.com/21_619.html

It was very interesting and help me to understand a little more about what was happening with my son it appears he was having something called confusional arousals or Night Terrors which have been shown to be part of a family of sleep disorders that are or can be hereditory....looking into it i discovered that my husbands brothers both sleep walk and I have always known that my husband has night terrors also my family are all talkers! Apparently part of the same family of disorder again! Anyway I'm rambling have a look at this website it really helped me and now I understand a little more what's going on I have managed to almost cut them out completely and when they do happen i don't find them so difficult to deal with!

Hope this helps xx

Brandy - posted on 01/27/2009

It's not a habit, it's night terrors and I'm not sure who your supposed to talk to about them but you could try your doctor or maybe a sleep specialist of some sort. Maybe try to search online for who to contact for night terrors. If you don't confront them, they get worse. I had them and my parents thought I just had bad dreams alot so they did nothing and I don't want any little girl to have to go through them.

Kelly - posted on 01/27/2009

hey how old is your lil girl? my son had this prob wen he was two! he grew out of it in a few weeks but was more upsetting for me than him! lol just a nice cuddle and kiss sent him back off! doin a lot during the day to make them sleep well at night did the trick too! hope this helps xx