Nightmares and Night Terrors

I appreciate how valuable sleep is no matter how little you get sometimes and when asleep it is nice to sleep soundly! Sudden alarming screaming in the middle of the night is frightening for parents as well as the child. There are differences in the identification and handling of nightmares and night terrors and they usually occur at different times of the night. Lets explore them.

Night terrors: Night terrors usually occur in the first half of the night a few hours after the child has gone to sleep. Often the child’s eyes are still closed and they appear half asleep as if sleep walking, despite the screaming and distress. It is often difficult to comfort the child and this can be very distressing for the parents. Waking the child may give them a fright and make it harder for them to get back to sleep. Sometimes fevers or overheating can trigger night terrors. If this is the case for your child remove some covers or clothing and offer a drink of water. Parents can assist the child in calming down by gently soothing or cuddling the child (but not attempting to wake them) until they are calm enough to return to sleep and preventing them from hurting themselves. Night terrors are common in toddlers and primary school aged children.

Nightmares: Nightmares also referred to as bad dreams, usually appear in the early morning dream sleep and are often triggered by worries or events in the daytime or thoughts before bedtime. Often the child wakes in distress with their eyes open and may find it difficult to get back to sleep because they are frightened by what they remember. Staying with the child to reassure and soothe them will help them calm again for sleep. If necessary sing a few songs, read a gentle story or put on some relaxing music to help take their mind off the nightmare. If the child wants to discuss the story behind the nightmare this may give parents an idea of what is triggering them. Night mares are common from the toddler age and older when the imagination kicks in and they are being influenced by other children or events.

Tips to help prevent nightmares and night terrors:

Encourage a consistent routine and bedtime each night.
Offer gentle, calming activities before bed.
Choose gentle, happy stories before bed.
Eliminate tv/dvd’s/computer games before bed
Remove tv’s, computers, electronic games from bedroom to prevent unsupervised use.
Revise linen and covers on the bed and choice of pyjamas or sleeping bags.
Encourage a small drink with cleaning of the teeth before bed but not too much fluid.
Take note of the theme of the nightmares that your children share with you.
Enquire with your child’s daycare centre/preschool/school about monitoring any unpleasant experiences either socially or academically which may be contributing to your child’s night mares.
Try a soothing cd on repeat all night to encourage a restful sleep such as “Music for Dreaming” or a meditation cd.

RN, Child and Family Health Nurse. Mother of three.
I want to give you your life back! Would you appreciate being empowered with an understanding of your baby's needs and a gentle strategy that you apply to your baby/toddler's personality? Do you feel like you've read everything and nothing is working?

Visit http://www.sleepandsettle.com.au for my free report “Sleeping Baby Secrets”

Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

There are many reasons for your baby 9 months or older waking early in the morning around 5-6am and not wanting to go back to sleep. If the early waking is not working for your family and you would like to try and extend the morning wake time, we need to identify the possible causes of the early waking and deal with each issue.

Common issues to address are:

Too much light coming in the bedroom in the morning
Household/environmental noises
Baby not dressed warmly enough for the early morning temperatures
The reward of an early breakfast
Waking for a milk feed
Habits and routine already established as a younger baby, of an early start to the day
The timing of the first day sleep
Your baby's bedtime in the evening
Genetics! Your baby is made up of two parents

So once you decide what the possible causes are you can begin to play with some solutions.

Always give each try at least a week to have an effect on your baby's body clock and be patient.

It is easy to adjust the amount of light coming into the bedroom with appropriate window coverings of any sought. Whatever is handy will work, it doesn't have to be professional or expensive to be effective, just block out the light. Think an old quilt cover, dark sheet, large towels, a picnic blanket, coated block out fabric.

Sometimes we can train the family to be quiet around the house early in the morning, but sometimes outside factors affect your baby's waking. Try playing soft sleep time music such as 'Music for Dreaming' on repeat all night to cover some of the noises and wean baby off the music in a few months

Over 9 months Babies are very mobile in the cot and should be dressed for the night assuming they are rolling around in the cot and will not be under the warm covers all night. Think how you would feel, sleeping in what you have dressed your baby in, if you were sleeping on top of your blankets without a partner. Excess blankets become a SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) risk if your baby is mobile and crawling or rolling around the cot.

If your baby over 9 months of age is currently enjoying early morning milk feeds or gets breakfast as soon as they wake, this is a nice reward for waking. If you are happy to offer these feeds, early mornings are a consequence unless you resettle back to sleep after the feed. If you don't think baby needs these feeds for nutrition and they are simply waking for them as a habit, you can drop them if baby is over 9 months and eating solids well during the day. This is a personal decision.

Sometimes mum and dad need baby to get up early for the working schedule during the week but want to encourage a sleep in on the weekends. Unfortunately baby doesn't understand the difference between a workday and a weekend, so I recommend that you treat every day like a Sunday and encourage a sleep in until the last minute and arrange breakfast for baby at the place of babysitting or childcare.

If you reward your baby waking early in the morning with a sleep shortly after breakfast, you are encouraging early waking.

If you put your baby to bed too early in the evening, they will meet their sleep quota earlier in the night and not be able to sleep in to your reasonable wake time in the morning.

The last and obvious reason is that if you or your partner is an early riser, it is possible that the baby takes after the early riser and will always grace you with their presence when they wake! After all the baby is genetically related!

Tip: If your baby's routine is working for your baby and your family, don't change anything! If the routine needs fine tuning, first look for the possible contributing factors, then put a consistent plan in place confidently and monitor your results to see what works.

< Prev		Next >

Amazing Socks

Lifetime Health

Pet Supplies