Night Terrors!

You never think certain things will happen to your own kids. Well this past week we were on vacation in California and skipping nap times and having later bed times. My 2 1/2 yr. old was exhausted and his body reacted. He started having Night Terrors, I think. At first I thought it was nightmares but after reading about night terrors I have come to the conclusion that he was probably experiencing night terrors. He would have episodes where I would hear him scream and cry for me during naps and at night and I would go in and he would be sitting up. His eyes would open and close and I would think he was awake but when he would look at me it was like he was looking right through me! I would try and console him but it didn't help. One night I finally took him outside and put him in the cold air to wake him up because it scared me. I now come to find out that is not what you do. You are suppose to leave them alone and watch them to make sure they don't hurt themselves. After each episode Jackson was back dead asleep. The episode that made us look up night terrors was during one of his naps. He sat up screaming and I went to console him. His little sister was asleep in the same room so I had to pick him up and take him out of there. He continued to scream and by the time I had him downstairs on the couch he was completely dead asleep again. At that point Brian googled them and told me everything I was doing was wrong. During a night terror they don't recognize you and can sometimes feel like they are being attacked. After reading all this I was so sad to think that my sweet little boy was going through this. The only good thing is that they don't remember the episodes in the morning. It is like it never happened. Jackson's last night terror happened Saturday night. In the middle of the night he sat up and grabbed my head like it was a ball. He repeated "Gimme that, Mine," a few times and then just laid down and was back asleep. At this point I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I stop him or letting him shake my head since I had read that it said to do nothing. I of course moved my head after a few shakes. It was really weird and of course when I told my husband he laughed about it. Now looking back it is kind of funny but in the moment since it was my head and I was dead tired I didn't laugh very much. Well, Jackson hasn't had any since Saturday night and I will now make sure Jackson gets plenty of sleep. I am so glad we are back home and getting back to our normal routine! So I write this post to share our experience with Night Terrors and to shine light on them. I hope Jackson never has any more!