Nightmares & Night Terrors

All children have nightmares and night terrors. Nightmares occur during REM or rapid eye movement sleep. Nightmares often waken the child and the reason they have a hard time going back to sleep is that the dream can remain in the mind for many hours after waking up. Night terrors on the other hand, occur during the slow wave sleep. The child does not wake up during night terrors but may appear to be awake by sitting up with their eyes open. In most cases, they will not remember the dream at all.

Symptoms of nightmares include the recurring of scary dreams, feeling helpless by things in the dream, things that happened during the dram are hard to forget, and most often, the dreams occur during the last half of sleeping.

Symptoms of night terrors include recurring arousals from sleep, more often occur in the first half of sleeping, screaming, strong fear, fast breathing, fast heartbeat, sweating, no response, and no memory of the dream.

There is no treatment for nightmares or night terrors, however, there are a few things you can do to help prevent these episodes from occurring. However, nothing is written in granite.

The very first thing you should do is create a bedroom that is calm, relaxing, pleasant, and enhances sleep. This includes creating a dark and quiet room and even the investment in a white noise machine. A white noise machine will absorb all the sounds around the home and outside so your child can sleep peacefully. This means you can enjoy a horror movie while your child is sleeping without disturbing them.

Ask your child if they are having problems at school or with a friend down the street. Stress can be a major cause in sleeping problems in children. Stress can be brought on by a variety of things such as a bully in the neighborhood, worrying about making friends, and parents quarreling where their children can hear. Just closing the door is not enough if you plan to talk loudly.

Other things can help include avoiding watching violent television shows, even ones that you may think are fine. Even small acts of violence can cause children to react differently than you might expect. Just because we think a slap across a face or yelling in a movie is nothing, a small child may feel fear.

Add a night light to your child’s room. The Twilight Turtle is an excellent example. This unique night light creates a starry night for your child to sleep under which is actually creates a calming atmosphere.

Using aromatherapy and light therapy products such as the Lavender Lab or the BioBrite Sunrise Clock Junior for Kids will also aid in helping your child feel safe and secure. Your little one needs to know that you are close by and they are safe.

When your child wakes up after a nightmare, comfort them. Hand them a snuggly toy such as the Sleep Sheep. Other helpful sleep aids for babies and children include the Lavender Lab, which is a plush suffed animal fiiled with lavender aromatherapy packets which produces an aroma that lasts up to five years. One of the most popular baby sleep machines on the market today is the Sound Oasis Sleep Bear . The Sound-Oasis Sleep Bear is a plush baby therapy white noise machine which delivers advanced sound therapy for superior calming of infants and young children.Stay with them until they fall asleep again while giving them love and comfort.