What To Do When Your Kid Has Night Terrors

Night terrors are common in children. From toddlers to grade schoolers, children between the ages of two and a half to six years old experience night terrors. Kids will often grow out of night terrors by about the age of twelve. Night terrors are a type of sleep disturbance, a child having a night terror may suddenly bolt upright in bed, cry, scream, moan, mumble, and thrash about with his eyes wide open without being truly awake. Because he is caught in a sort of a twilight zone between being asleep and awake, he is unaware of your presence and isn’t like to respond to anything you say or do. An episode can last anywhere from a few minutes to almost an hour, and when it is over your child may abruptly fall back to sleep with no memory of the incident.

Night Terrors are Not Nightmares

Night terrors are different from nightmares, in that if your child has a night terror, he won’t remember it; on the other hand, a nightmare leaves your child truly awake. Not only can he remember his dream and sometimes talk about it, but he may also seek out and feel comforted by your presence. Children also commonly have night terrors during the first third of the night, during deep non-dream sleep. Children have nightmares during dream sleep, which usually happens during the last third of the night. According to sleep expert Jodi A. Mindell, author of Sleeping through the Night, the easiest way to tell the difference between a night terror and a nightmare is to ask yourself who is more upset about it the next morning. “if your child is more agitated, he had a nightmare. If you are the one who is disturbed, he probably had a night terror,” says Mindell. In other words, the “terror” of a night terror lingers far longer in the parent who watched it than in the child who lived it.

Causes of Night Terrors and Can They be Prevented?

Night terrors are more common in boys than in girls and tend to run in families. The cause is unknown, but they can be triggered by stress, sleep deprivation, and fatigue. Sometimes they are accompanied by a fever. A child may sleepwalk or sleep talk during a night terror. There is no definitive way to prevent night terrors since no one knows exactly what causes them. What is known is that, on their own, night terrors don’t mean a child has a psychological problem or is even upset about something. As stated above, however, some factors make night terrors more likely. If your child has a fever or isn’t getting enough sleep, for example, solving any other sleep problem your child has, such as getting up in the middle of the night, making sure he has a regular bedtime and gets enough hours of sleep may help ward off night terrors

Certain medications or caffeine can also contribute to night terrors. Children are also more likely to have them if someone else in the family has night terrors or another sleep disorder, such as sleepwalking. In such cases, night terrors can be triggered by sleep apnea, a serious but correctable disorder in which enlarged tonsils and adenoids (normal tissue in the throat) block airway passages during sleep, making it difficult to breathe and disrupting a child’s sleep throughout the night. Research suggests that certain conditions that keep your child from getting enough rest, such as restless legs syndrome or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), may also trigger night terrors. Check with your child’s doctor if you think one of these conditions might be contributing to your child’s night terrors.

Environmental Factors

Another theory about what causes night terrors is that they occur when a sleeper is awakened during a deep sleep. This can result from external stimuli like lights and sounds. Make sure that your child’s room isn’t being subjected to excess external lights and that any sound disruption is minimized. Paying attention to what happens immediately preceding each night terror can help determine if these external elements are contributing factors. Look for ways to make things calmer during the day. Look for things that may be affecting your child’s emotional state during the day. It is likely best not to sleep away from home until the night terrors subside.

What to do Before the Night Terrors Occur

A cozy, relaxing bedroom environment is a great way to improve your child’s sleep, but it is important to create a space that’s safe too. Pick up toys on the floor that could be tripped on, and clear objects from the nightstand that might get knocked over. If your child is still a toddler, you might consider installing a railing on the bed so he can’t fall out. If you are concerned about your child sleepwalking during night terrors, fasten a gate at the bedroom door or at the top of the stairs. You may also find it helpful to have a bell or alarm system attached to the bedroom door so you can respond quickly if your child has gotten out of bed.

What to do During a Night Terror

1. Let the night terror run its course

This is difficult, but it is important that you don’t physically interfere. Your interference may increase the length or strength of the night terror rather than alleviate his fears. Once you are sure your child is not in danger of getting hurt, stay with him and wait for the storm to pass. There is usually nothing dangerous about having a night terror unless the child hurts himself while he is walking around. So the best thing parents can do when night terrors happen is to make sure the child is safe: Remove objects from the floor that he may trip over, close the door to his bedroom so he can’t walk out and fall down the stairs, and lock windows so they can’t be open.

2. Don’t try to wake him

Expect that your efforts to comfort him will be rebuffed, a child having a night terror really can’t be calmed down, and if you try to hold him, it might make him wilder. Waking him up doesn’t work and even if he does wake up, it could take him longer to settle down and get back to sleep. It is unsettling to witness a night terror, but unless your child is in danger of hurting himself, don’t attempt to physically comfort him. Just speak calmly, put yourself between him and anything dangerous and wait for the storm to pass. If the night terrors are frequent and continue to cause disruption to your child’s (or your family’s daily life), then you need to speak to your pediatrician.

After a Night Terror

1. Don’t hash it out the next morning

You can set the tone for how your child thinks of night terrors. Children usually don’t remember night terrors the next morning. Asking a lot of questions or acting anxious or uncomfortable might signal something is wrong, and in turn, make your child anxious about bedtime.

2. Review your child’s sleep routine

It may be helpful to take another look at your child’s sleep routine, including wake and bedtimes and pre-bedtime habits. Managing the activities and environment surrounding sleep is one of the most important things you can do to help your child sleep safe and sound. Seeing your child endure night terrors is always trying, but knowing what to do at each stage will help put you back in control.

Scheduled Awakening

This could be a way to help your child avoid night errors. If you notice that your child’s night terrors happen about the same time during the night, you can try something called scheduled awakening. This simply means that you gently and firefly wake your child about fifteen or twenty minutes before he usually has a night terror. Some experts think this technique can change your child’s sleep state enough to prevent a night terror. When done repeatedly, your child may learn to wake up automatically on his own to avoid the night terror. Scheduled awakening hasn’t been well tested in preventing night terrors. There is, however, the possibility that waking your child around the time of a night terror might trigger one, so this is a risk you have to take as a parent if you are going to use scheduled awakening to help prevent your child’s night terrors.

Keep a Log and Consult Your Pediatrician

For persistent night terrors, try to keep a log of the occurrence and consult your pediatrician. If your child has repeated night terrors, keep a log of these episodes. Record when the night terror occurred, what events your child participated in that day and/or what medications he took. These notations will be helpful to you in discovering possible patterns and may also be something you can present to your pediatrician if the night terrors persist.

Remember that your child will grow out of night terrors, you just have to help him navigate through it before then.