Hi IM’s
My son is nearly 8 and for the last 6 weeks he has been waking / getting up about an hour into sleep nearly every night. He’s really agitated and freaking out but not that coherent, like “the thingy, get the thingy away “ He always wants to go outside too . It’s like he’s in a panic. It doesn’t last that long and he normally settles quite easily Sometimes he remembers the next morning but not always. He used to have night terrors when he was 3-4 but never consecutive nights. I’ve been to the dr and she wasn’t concerned and recommended cutting out certain additives, preservatives etc but he’s already limited in that way anyway. And also screen time which is not that much either, I found a good meditation app for kids which seemed to help initially but the last 2 weeks has been every night and he wakes buggered in the morning . It just seemed to start out of the blue! Has anyone been through this ? And did you find a solution or just ride it out ? Tia
Possible night terrors
Possible night terrors
Posted in:
Kids
3 Replies
It sounds like night terrors. I find my son has them when he is over-tired. Sounds like your son is in a cycle of over-tired, waking up buggered, and going to bed again over-tired. Maybe you could get him to nap the days after a night terror or bring bedtime half an hour earlier, that always helps for my boy, but he a bit younger.
You need to disrupt the program. Let him go to sleep normally but then you need to wake him up before the program starts. Usually the program starts when the brain hits that deep sleep mode. You don't have much time though cause he falls asleep so quickly. lucky him! So put him to bed, give it 30? mins and wake him up, make sure he's responsive, tell him you forgot to say goodnight or forgot to give him a hug, (excuses won't work for long cause he's 8) and then let him go back to sleep. Do this for maybe three to five nights and then drop it and see if it worked. If it begins again, then start the controlled waking again but go for longer this time.
OP here, thanks for the suggestions everyone , I will definitely be trying these. He already goes to bed quite early 7/7:30 and sleeps for 11 hours generally albeit broken initially ! He doesn’t have anything to drink but water before bed (someone asked about milo) we also went away for a couple of nights so he had 2 later nights and it didn’t happen!