I’ll never forget my brother’s phone call a few years ago. He was out of breath, and his voice trembled as he spoke to me. He explained that his young son had just gotten out of bed about an hour after being put down. The boy appeared awake, and his eyes were wide with terror. He also screamed in fear of something, and spoke with language that didn’t make sense. “His eyes looked right through me as if I weren’t there,” my brother said. The behavior chilled my brother to the bone. It was as though his son were possessed, or like an invisible being or creature was tormenting his child.
I knew what he was going through. Several years previously, my son Kyle had several episodes of waking in the night. His eyes were wide open, and he would scream at the top of his lungs. It was as if he were in terrible pain, thrashing his arms and legs wildly. The screaming was so horrifying, I felt panic. My heart raced. Should I take my son to the emergency room? Was it a bad dream? Everything I tried seemed to make things worse. He flailed, punched, and screamed like a person being tortured. I later learned that these frightening episodes were called night terrors.
Night Terror or Nightmare?
There is a difference between night terrors and nightmares. Most every child will experience a nightmare, or several, sometime in his or her childhood. Nightmares typically occur during the middle of the night, or early morning hours. The child will usually wake up fearful but coherent, asking his parents for comfort. “Mommy, I’m scared. Can I sleep in your bed?” He’ll also remember, vividly, what the nightmare was about and why he’s afraid. “Daddy, I dreamed a bear was chasing me.”
A night terror, however, is more rare. It typically happens soon after the child has fallen asleep, often within the first hour after bedtime. This is because night terrors are associated with the deepest part of sleep, stage 3 or 4, which occurs about twenty minutes after falling asleep. The transitioning from this deepest part to a lighter phase is somehow disrupted, triggering the night terror.
Unlike a nightmare, where the child wakes up and asks for parental comfort, the child having a night terror may scream and thrash as if unaware of her surroundings. Her eyes may be open, but she is clearly not herself. She may “look through you,” as my brother described, and even react to things that aren’t really there. A child having a night terror will have no memory of the event in the morning.
What causes Night Terrors?
It’s been suggested that a child who is over-stressed or sleep-deprived may be more prone to having night terrors. Children with neurological disorders such as Autism, ADHD, Asbergers, or even children with sleep apnea, who have difficulty with regular sleep patterns, may be more likely to experience them as well. But often, we don’t know why they happen to some children and not others.
What can I do to help my child?
- First, take a deep breath and relax. Although seeing your child in apparent agony is terrifying, take comfort in knowing that night terrors themselves are not harmful. For an isolated incident, observe your child, or hold her if it helps you feel better, until the episode passes.
- If the night terrors are recurring, go in and gently wake your child each night by giving him a hug or kiss before you go to bed. (This is assuming that you go to bed an hour or so later than he does.) Sit him up, get him to say something, then tuck him back into bed. Sometimes this gentle waking can disrupt the sleep pattern and prevent an attack that night.
- Make sure your child is kept confined to a safe area. Use child safety gates to restrict stairs or dangerous parts of the house. Remove glass or fragile items near the child’s bed.
- Keep your child’s feet uncovered at night. Many parents have also found that dipping their child’s feet in cold water during the night terror is an effective way to wake him and end the episode. (Typically it is not recommended that you wake your child during the night terror. But if the episode is severe and the child is a danger to himself, you can try this method.) This “cold feet” trick is a bit of a wives tale, but some people swear by it. To read some personal accounts, click here.
- Don’t discuss the night terrors with your child. She won’t remember them, and hearing about them will only be troubling to her.
- If the above doesn’t work and the night terrors are continuing, see your child’s pediatrician. There are medications that have proven helpful, such as Diazepam, Imipramine, and Amitryptaline. Depending on the severity of your child’s case, the pediatrician may also want to observe him during sleep, or initiate other kinds of tests.
Children who experience night terrors may be at higher risk for bed-wetting and sleep-walking. However, with patience and time, most children will eventually outgrow all of these problems.