i'm tired but not ready to sleep so i thought i'd ask the blogging world for advice on night terrors. any foster/adoptive parents out there who have advice, i would LOVE some!
jesus started waking up with night terrors around 3 weeks ago i think -- about when i got back from the wedding. it's about one of the worst/scariest things/cries i've ever heard come out of him! of course one of us (jessi or i) go running as quickly as possible to get him, but there are nights when he's just unconsolable and it goes on for an hour or more. his little heart will just be beating away and there's no calming him. other nights, fortunately like tonight, i hold him for a few minutes, lay him on chest for awhile and he's ready to go back to bed. and yet, other nights, he absolutely refuses to go back to his crib and i end up putting his pack and play in our room for him to sleep and he's content with that.
everything i've been able to read about them online says that it's pretty common to start around 18 months (he's 17 months) and can stem from several different reasons. i think our main reason is lack of a father figure in the house -- apparently this is a huge factor in night terrors for little ones. so obviously with jessi & i in the house and jesus being the only man he's not having that 'father' need met. ugh.
so for any of you moms and dads out there reading this:
- what was your best calming mechanism for your child?
- would you put them in bed with you? i've heard positivs and negatives on this - since i'm single there wouldn't really be an issue of whether my 'other half' was ok with it or not
- when did they start/stop? (i realize this is different with every child, i'm just curious)
- how often would they occur? (jesus is averaging 3 nights/week)
- if your child is now out of this stage, looking back on it, would you change anything that you did do to improve the turn out?
- any other random advice to help keep this Mama going in the middle of the night? :-]
oh Jarrin, wow. I will be praying for you and little jesus. Wish I had some advise but I don't.
ReplyDeleteSarah
Hey Jarrin! (I am Jenna Mueller's sister in law...I don't think I have ever met you, though! Hopefully someday!)
ReplyDeleteanyway, our daughter Halle has had night terrors for the last year or maybe even 2 years. However, it seems like a different case than Jesus. Her night terrors only happen about once a month, or even every other month. However, last summer there was a month that she was having them multiple times per week! I attributed that to being overly tired (I researched it on the internet, too...I read that that could be a cause). We had stopped giving her naps, and I think she might have been overly tired. Also, hers only last 10 minutes or so. So Halle's definitely aren't as bad as Jesus'. Oh, and Halle does have a father in the house, so that wasn't a factor for her.
Forgot to mention, Halle is older, too. She is soon to be 5. So I am thinking they started when she was 3. But she will wake up crying (a very weird, different cry), and she cries "Mama, Mama, Mama..." over and over and over. It is the only word she says. She will get very loud, yelling and crying "Mama!" She will look at us, but kind of "through" us...it is very creepy.
I have found that the biggest key is that when we are holding her through it, we stay CALM. At first, I would try to get her to look me in the eyes, tell her to wake up, etc...but now I just hold her calmly. It also helps if I sing to her, and trying to get her to drink some water helps. Other than that, I don't know. Like I said, Halle's don't last too long--I cannot imagine an hour! And when it is over, she is always fine with going back to her own bed. But I'm sure it is huge difference dealing with an almost 5 year old as opposed to a 1 1/2 year old!
Hope things get better! I will say a prayer for you right now.