Two sleep disorders that occur in children are nightmares and night terrors. Most children experience nightmares which are considered part of the normal developmental process. Nightmares can occur as soon as age two. They are most common in children between three and twelve years old. Very few children experience night terrors, as little as 3 percent have them. These sleep disorders can be very frightening to a child and may leave them in tears.
Nightmares
Several hours after you go to sleep you enter the REM stage of sleep, during this stage of sleep is when nightmares occur. During REM there is a general body paralysis and active dreaming. Although most dreams are good dreams there are some dreams that may be so frightening that they wake the child up.
Children most often can remember the dream when they awake in the morning. This nightmare sleep disorder only becomes a problem if the child has a problem going to sleep, is scared to go to sleep or is becoming sleep deprived. Remember to stay calm and be reassuring at all times if your child has a nightmare, if you become worried or frightened your child will react the same way.
Believe it or not there are ways to prevent nightmares. Keep a relaxed bed time routine. Find something comforting to do with your child before putting them to bed, weather its reading to them or telling them a story. Avoid letting your child watch a scary or violent movie hours before they go to bed. These often cause nightmares as well. Your child may have a severe emotional problem that you don’t know about, these nightmares may indicate that.
Night Terrors
During the first few hours of sleep in the deep non- REM sleep is when night terrors usually occur. Most often they occur at the same time every night. If your child wakes up screaming, crying or moaning they may be having a night terror. They may also sit straight up and scream, and although their eyes may be open they are still asleep. Unlike night mares, there will be no memory of this night terror or what happened during the night. Night terrors can last from 10 minutes to over an hour. Their heart rate will increase and they experience rapid breathing.
If your child is having a night terror do not try to wake them or comfort them. The best thing you can do is make sure they are safe and no harm is being done while they are having this night terror. There are several things that can contribute to night terrors including staying up extremely late, being overly tired, eating a heavy meal before bed time and some medications may also contribute to night terrors. Night mares and night terrors may seem very scary to the child and parent but they are not harmful and they are not a sign of any sort of mental illness. Children outgrow these sleeping disorders within a few months or years.
Sleep terror disorder can be a particularly scary experience, both for the person who is experiencing it and those who see it happening. It is even more particularly disturbing because it happens mostly to children. They may suddenly scream and cry in the middle of the night, and as all this happens they remain asleep. If you have a child that constantly suffers from this sleep terror disorder, it is only understandable that you would want an immediate cure to the situation. While there are some medications that claim to help stop night terrors, there is unfortunately no instant solution to this sleeping disorder.
Furthermore, some of these medications may cause adverse side effects in the future, which may lead to even more serious health problems. A better approach for dealing with sleep terrors is to go through counseling or participate in relaxation courses that help relieve the tension that typically causes this condition.
What Goes on During an Episode
If you have never seen someone going through an episode of sleep terror disorder, the first time can be very frightening. The bouts usually happen about a couple of hours after the child has fallen asleep. During this time, the child will commence crying and screaming, and sometimes the spell even comes with some violent thrashing about in bed. Although it would appear that the child is wide awake as this happens, he is actually very much asleep throughout the whole episode. As soon as the terrors subside, he will calm down and fall asleep once again. Most bouts of sleep terror last for just a minute or two but in the more serious cases, they can continue for up to 30 minutes at a time and may happen several times during the night.
The strange thing about sleep terror disorder is that the child who is suffering from it rarely remembers what happened when they wake up in the morning. No matter how loud the crying or how violent the thrashing may have been, they will have absolutely no recollection of the experience. Fortunately, children who experience sleep terrors eventually grow out of them after some time without needing any special medication or treatment. If you have a child who is currently going through a sleep terror disorder, the best thing that you can do as a parent is to show support and always be there to comfort them each night when the nightmares happen.
