Imagine Barry Gibb's falsetto: "Night terrors, night terrors, we know how to do it." Yeah, these are not as much fun as the BeeGees "Night Fever" song, even if they sound similar.
Last night, about 11:30, an hour or more after Ethan went to bed, we were startled by his crying. Screaming really. We went in, he wasn't awake, I rubbed his back and he seemed to settle down. As soon as I left the room he repeated the screaming and I went back in. The 3rd time I went ahead and picked him up. He was obviously not yet awake and was batting at me and still screaming and crying, stiff as a board. I tried rocking him for a while, and he had moments of calmness, but then would just start up again. Finally I decided I just needed to try and really wake him up. So we went out into the living room with the lights on. His eyes were open, but he wasn't really awake yet. Finally I could see that he was recognizing where he was and who we were, but he was still very disoriented and upset. We snuggled on my bed, but nothing made him happy, he didn't know what he wanted, and certainly, neither did I. Eventually, through much crying, screaming and fitting, we just all laid down together in our bed to go to sleep (after I accomplished the feat of removing my contacts with one hand, while holding a screaming, squirming 3-year-old with the other).
He slept well with us (squished up next to me, leaving me about 8 inches of bed for myself), but I'm hoping we don't have to do this again tonight, I don't want our room to become a habit. I'll keep you posted.
1 comment:
Cris--
Nicholas went through a stage like this, and it was horrible! He would actually not let anyone touch him and he would roll and writhe on the floor, screaming and crying. I would say it lasted for almost a year or so
:( The good news is that now he is a really hard sleeper! Here's to hoping you don't have to go through it as long as we did! The nightmare for us was breaking the habit of him sleeping in our room...that was a HARD habit to break!
Post a Comment