Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Night Terrors

Evan has been sick since Sunday night with a fever. He decided he needed to sleep close to me. So daddy was pushed out of bed for the last two nights. Last night Evan woke up two hours after taking meds for his fever. Let me rephrase this.......Evan woke up two hours after falling asleep in a night terror. He was sitting on his knees in bed screaming and crying out. I attempted to console him but he thrashed me away, ran from the bed all the while screaming. I eased him back to my bed just to have him repeat the behavior again. Still with those blood curdling screams. I tried hard to hold him but he was quite strong and kept pushing me away. When he ran into a corner and kept screaming I decided DH needed to be called at work. DH talked me through easing Evan back to bed. He watched half a movie then fell back into a deep, relaxing sleep. Evan says he does not remember the episode. I sure do. I was a wreck afterwards. I did not like seeing him so upset and screaming.

I googled night terrors this morning. Everything that happened fits right into this category. Evan is a sleepwalker but this was something new for me. I am praying tonight we all can get a good nights sleep with no interruptions.

4 comments:

Monkeys Mommy said...

Ben used to get night terrors a few years ago. He didn't seem to know who we were even and they lasted for 5-10 minutes or until we put him back into bed. He would cry, point at us, and be inconsolable. He had no memory of these episodes the next morning. The best thing we did was just tell him he was ok and try to encourage him to lay down and go back to sleep. Night terrors are scary to watch! I hope you both sleep peacefully tonight. Maybe it was related to Evan's fever and hopefully it wouldn't happen again.

Heather said...

Awww, how scary for him (and you). I hope you have restful sleep from here on out.

Melodie said...

I had a little girl in my Girl Scout troop who had night terrors. I had to make sure she was sleeping in the cot right next to me whenever we would go to camp so that I could be there to take care of her when she would wake up screaming. Luckily, it only happened one time for me, but thankfully, I was prepared for it. I can't imagine how I'd react if I didn't know what to expect or do about it.

Leslie said...

Craig had night terrors for quite a while when he was 5 to 7 years old or so. He would seem to be awake and would scream and talk, but not be aware of us. It sure shook us all though!

He'd also wake like that just screaming when we were on long trips in the car, and we'd have to pull over because he wouldn't stay in his seat belt.

Jacob recently went through a bout of night terrors on and off during a week. I'm hopeful he's over it - it is nerve-wracking to hear those blood-curdling screams out of the blue.

Hope your night terror issues are over!