by VK Freelance

Created on: June 28, 2009   Last Updated: July 05, 2009

Dealing with night terrors in children

Night terrors are a sleep disorder, very common in childhood, between 3 and 5, but also in adults; it also goes by the names - sleep terrors, sleep terror disorder and Pavor Nocturnis, plus many more besides.

Night terrors are not the same as simple nightmares, they are much worse, and more frightening.

Symptoms of night terrors:

I. Your child awakening suddenly from sleep

II. Child suffers persistent fear or terror at night

III. Screaming, sweating and confusion

IV. Raised heart rate

V. Child unable to tell you what happened

VI. Usually they have no recall of a bad dream

VII. May have a sense of seeing some bad images

VIII. May hallucinate people, animals or insects in the room

IX. May not be able to wake up fully

X. Your child may be difficult to comfort

XI. Child has no memory of awakening the next morning

Nightmares or Night Terrors?

Nightmares usually occur during REM (dream sleep), and the sleeper will awaken with a memory of a terrifying nightmare dream. Night terrors however do not occur during the dream phase, they occur in stage 4 sleep, often within an hour of sleep.

While your child may seem awake, and their eyes open, but they are in fact asleep, and most will not recall the events the next day, but sometimes they can recall some of the night's actions.

Night terrors can be hereditary, which unfortunately means if you have one child suffering from night terrors, your other children may suffer from it too. Luckily they are frightening but not usually dangerous unless the child walks into things in his sleep state.

A night in life of a family with a child suffering night terrors

This is how some nights go for families with children suffering from night terrors: you put your little one to bed, go downstairs and watch some TV. Suddenly you hear your child screaming, you find them sitting up in bed, wide eyed and filled with terror, their heart rate will be incredibly high, about 160 beats a minute, they will be sweating and confused, they may be seeing something that is not there, and be hard to comfort. After around 15 minutes your child will fall back to sleep, when asked about it the next day they remember nothing, or very little.

These events are terrifying for both the child and the parent, seeing your little one so inconsolable and terrified, and not knowing how to deal with it. But there is things to do to help, first to realize it is an actual medical condition, it's nothing to

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