NIGHT TERRORS

My Baby’s Terror
By: Tanjua S. Waddle

A mother’s work is never done,
While daddy lies there asleep.
She wakes each night with a scream.
That’s when I know she’s had another dream.


She sits up with terror in her open eyes.
The dream is still with her, it terrifies.
I try to wake her. I do my best.
I know each night I’ll lose some rest.


The horrible things she sees in her head,
Follow her when she wakes screaming in her bed.
The terror she sees I can not know.
But I know it is awful, her face says so.


Every night it is the same old thing.
She wakes up crying and screams my name.
She points to the darkness, something is there.
She screams and she points, while her blank eyes stare .
I wish I could see, what it is that scares her so.
Will the terror in the darkness ever let her go?

My 6 year old daughter suffers from night terrors.
Her night terrors are excruciatingly painful for me, because there is nothing I can do. I have tried several different methods to get her to wake up, but nothing works. I just have to hold her and talk to her until it is over. I think the worst part of all is having her eyes open and looking right through me. She doesn't see me at all. She screams for me, and I am right there but she doesn't know. She has suffered from this condition for at least 2 years and the doctors keep telling me she will grow out of it, but even though she does not remember them, I do. I just wish there was more I could do to bring her out of it quicker. They can last anywhere from a couple of minutes to a record 32 minutes...that one was hard. So leave me a comment if you have any info or advice for me. I would love to hear from someone else who deals w/ this.

Night Terror or Nightmare?:

Nightmares occur during the dream phase of sleep known as REM sleep. Most people enter the REM stage of sleep sometime after 90 minutes of sleep. The circumstances of the nightmare will frighten the sleeper, who usually will wake up with a vivid memory of a long movie-like dream. Night terrors, on the other hand, occur during a phase of deep non-REM sleep usually within an hour after the subject goes to bed. This is also known as stage 4. During a night terror, which may last anywhere from five to twenty minutes, the person is still asleep, although the sleepers eyes may be open. When the subject does wake up, they usually have no recollection of the episode other than a sense of fear. This, however, is not always the case. Quite a few people interviewed can remember portions of the night terror, and some remember the whole thing.

Night Terrors Symptoms:

Sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of "bad dreams" or nightmares, may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, animals or people in the room, are unable to fully awake, difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day.