It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the baby is sleeping through the night! Whether you were one of those blessed souls who endured years of nighttime feedings or one – whom all the enduring moms hate – whose precious lamb snoozed a full eight hours the first week home from the hospital, this is a day to be celebrated. Suddenly, with a few nights of uninterrupted sleep under your belt, the sun shines brighter, the birds sing more sweetly, and the world spins a little more gently in your well-rested world.
Just when you get to feeling like a real human being again, you start getting used to this “sleeping” thing, you get a little overconfident and take a trip with your tiny offspring. A few hours in the car, sleeping in a strange place, overstimulation from family or activities, and then you find yourself in the danger zone: enter night terrors.
If you are so lucky to have never experienced a child with night terrors, let me first congratulate you, and second I must warn you, because these little episodes have certainly earned the moniker “terror.” Imagine you are in a deep sleep – you know, the ones you never had before baby started sleeping so well – after patting yourself on the back for a great trip with your perfect little angel baby traveler. Suddenly you awake to a scream – nay, a blood-curdling shriek coming from your child’s room. Anticipating a knife-weilding intruder or the cat seeking revenge for eating its food, you run into baby’s room to find her standing in her crib, back pushed against the rail with her eyes wide open in a wild, frightened stare, screaming like the first time she met the Easter Bunny and thought it was Donnie Darko.
My children’s pediatrician once described night terrors as unconscious stimulation of the child’s fight-or-flight section of the brain. That is, the child experiences an acute sense of being chased or trapped. Don’t worry, your kiddo won’t remember a thing, unless you happen to pick her up to console her and wake her by accident, in which case she now associates those trapped feelings with you holding her, so she’ll probably run away and get a tattoo when she’s 13 because “OMGeeeeee Mom, you are, like, totes suffocating me! Zero chill savage on fleek yaaaas (and other teenage phrases that will be like a foreign language to you).”
Apparently when your child has a night terror, the only thing you can do is try not to die or let them die while you wait for it to end. If your kid is still in a crib, good for you! But you still have to sit there and watch your little love, lest he franticly climb out of his crib – remember he is still asleep! – and fall to his demise. (Okay, he’s probably just going to bump his head, but then he’ll be awake and crying, and you’ll have to deal with explaining that black eye to his daycare.) If your terror-ible child is in a bed and can easily get up, get ready, mama, because he just might go for a run! My cousin’s night terrors sent him sprinting all through the house – remember he was still asleep! – and my aunt’s only option was to run slightly ahead of him and move furniture out of his way so he didn’t trip. That is a totally real and not made-up story, people!
No matter how your child’s night terrors present, the one thing of which you can be sure is that you will not sleep, and your desperation combined with sleep-deprived delirium may lead you to take drastic measures. When my oldest was a wee lass, we made the mistake of thinking she could handle a few napless days and late night activities with our youth group, and our penance was multiple terrors every night for two weeks. She eventually transitioned from terrors (which led to several sleep-escape falls from her crib) to nightmares, which meant we still had to get up and go in her room to comfort her. One delirious day at work, my brilliant husband had the idea to made a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself to stuff with pillows, cover with a blanket, and lay on our daughter’s floor at night so that when she awoke, she would think he was still there with her. Desperate times call for desperate measures, my friends. And sure enough, his plan worked! …For about two weeks. The day it stopped working is a story for another time…
The most important thing to do when your child suffers from night terrors is to realize that your child really isn’t suffering at all, because again, they have no memory of them. Only YOU are suffering, and suffer you will, my friend. Especially if there are other children in the home, because terror baby will most assuredly wake them, giving you even more babes to put back to bed and lots more cranky pants in the morning when the whole house is losing precious sleep. Dr. Cliff James, author of A First Time Parent’s Survival Guide: A How-To Manual for the First Two Years and founder of helpmommy.com has this advice:
Night terrors are one of those things definitely harder on the parent than the child; after all, the child isn’t going to remember it even happened. Parent proofing is a must. Take your baby aspirin to prevent a heart attack. Make sure all sharp objects are removed so you can’t stab yourself while trying to find your glasses. Avoid the numerous booby traps set up by your child to hurt, maim, or kill you while rushing to get to them in the dark. Just keep calm and know they will eventually outgrow them, and chances are you should blame whichever parent is still talking in their sleep. If it’s not your spouse then it’s your fault.
And really, it’s totally your fault. What were you thinking, interrupting your child’s sleep pattern? I mean, you spent all that time and energy getting her on a set schedule, then you go and disrupt it with a silly thing like “holidays” or “visiting family.” That was a terrible idea, and you must pay the price. Now, our KMB contributor Crystal actually had this genius idea to ever-so-slightly rouse your child a few hours after they fall asleep, disrupting their sleep pattern and preventing terrors from occurring. I mean, that is actually pretty logical and may or may not be the best idea I’ve ever heard… But I really can’t say for sure. I’m busy working on my cardboard Mommy; I’ll let you know how it goes.
Have you ever dealt with night terrors? How did they wreak havoc on your family? How did you deal?? No seriously, I’m taking suggestions.
Just to inform, night terrors can also stay with the child until adulthood and the whole life. I´m 26 and had one today, so I was looking how to get rid of it. I also remember the terrors since I was around 16, it´s like death looming over you trying to catch you ”feeling”