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Our First Nightmare.

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Last night Anthony had his first real, terrifying nightmare. He has had bad dreams before. Usually he cries, Daddy goes and lays down with him and they both go back to sleep. Sometimes it takes a while for him to calm down before sleeping. This was a whole different thing.

At 1am, Anthony woke up screaming. Daddy went in to lay with him, and they went to sleep for a few minutes. Anthony woke up freaking out. Screaming at the top of his lungs, swinging violently and shaking his head back and forth. He was hitting both of us when we tried to comfort him. He was looking around the (dark) room, and reacting as if he was seeing something.

So we took him to the couch, gave him some milk, turned on the light and he calmed down. We asked him what happened and all he said was that he was scared. And when he thought about it, he started doing the shaking and jerking back and forth thing.

We reassured him that nothing could hurt him, that dreams are not real, and we prayed to ask God to help give him good thoughts. We sang songs and counted. He said he wanted to stay on the couch. We took him to our bed. He said he wanted to keep the light on. We did and he had some more freak-outs. We found that counting helped get his mind off of it.

So Anthony and Ian and me slept in the bed, with the light on, until I slept in Ant's bed cause who in the world can sleep with the light on??

Does this sound like he is scared of the dark? Any tips???

Comments

  1. Stephanie KayMarch 28, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    Nope, not scared of the dark. It's called a "night terror." Sometimes they don't even wake up, just scream and fight you until they go back to sleep. A friend of mine has a son that had them really bad. But it sounds like Anthony's was pretty mild.

    You did the right thing taking him into the living room (don't want him to wake up Luke!!) and helping him wake up fully and then praying with him to have good thoughts.

    My suggestions for the future: After praying for good thoughts give him suggestions to think about. He's too little for a scripture verse but you could remind him of something fun you did recently or will do soon or a favorite toy or favorite person.

    Also, don't leave the light on. You want him to learn to go back to sleep after a nightmare and the light won't help that. Just explain that it's sleep time and that mommy and daddy will keep him safe. I usually let my guys stay in our bed for awhile. Then when I wake up enough, I walk them back to their own beds. (We do NOT co-sleep for a ton of reasons that I won't go into.)

    Those are my recommendations but ultimately you have to figure out what works for your family. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. JessMarch 28, 2012 at 6:50 PM

    Thank you so much. All o fthat was really helpful!! Now that I know it is fairly common, I am not as freaked out!

    ReplyDelete

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