Night Terrors In Kids

It’s midnight and everyone in the house is fast asleep when all of a sudden you hear a howling coming from your child’s room.

You rush in and notice he is laying in the bed, screaming, kicking and tantruming. Is he asleep? Is he awake? Is he hurt? What in the heck in going on? And what do you do?

What you are witnessing is a night terror or a sleep disorder. Night terrors affect around 5% of children and usually occur between the ages of 3 to 7.

However, these terrors can start in children as young as 18 months. Night terrors are often experienced by boys rather than girls and although they can be triggered by a number of things, they are considered part of normal development. They can be very traumatising for parents but the good news is most children do not remember having them.

Night terrors occur during the slow wave sleep when the child is in a deep sleep. Essentially, your child may be having a tantrum, kicking, screaming, punching, hitting, crying, but they are not awake. They differ from nightmares as your child will not remember having them.

Nightmares occur during a light phase of sleep and most children wake up when they are having a nightmare. During a night terror, however, your child may remain still asleep. Night terrors usually occur in the first three hours of sleep and your child will go back to sleep and not remember they ever happened.

What Causes Night Terrors?

1. Genetics

If you or your partner had sleep problems, then there is a higher chance that your child will have them as well. Ask your parents whether you experienced night terrors, sleep walking or other sleep disturbances and you may be surprised to find out you did.

2. Stress

Children that are emotionally stressed can also experience night terrors which are usually linked to a lack of sleep or too much daytime activities.

3. Lack of Sleep and Over stimulation

Night terrors occur due to increased brain activity. The brain is awake while the body is not. This is often caused by overstimulation during the day.

4. Illness

Sometimes, your child will experience night terrors when they are unwell or have a fever.

How to Handle Night Terrors

It can be extremely stressful watching your child act like they are in such distress. The best thing to do is to let them do their thing, do not wake them up or try to interfere with the night terror but rather be there and keep a close eye on them so that they don’t hurt themselves. There is no need to comfort or cuddle your child as this may wake them up.

A night terror will typically last only a few minutes. There is no point in talking about it the next day as they won’t remember it happening. You can try to prevent the night terror from happening by setting an alarm and waking your child up around 15 minutes before the night terrors usually begins.

For example, if your child goes to bed at 7pm and usually has a terror around 9:30pm, then you can try to wake them up at 9:15pm and hopefully, this will prevent that deep cycle and night terror from happening.

While night terrors can be scary to go through, remember that they are just a stage and nothing to worry about.