I think Ben is having night terrors. Poor little guy. In the past three nights he's woken up a total of 5 times screaming. It takes at least 10 minutes to calm him down each time. He's so scared and doesn't know what he wants. It's so hard to watch your child so afraid and not able to take away the scary things. We just hug and cuddle him, sing to him, reassure him that everything is ok, rock him, put him in our bed, etc. If you ask him what Jesus does he will tell you "Jesus takes the scary stuff away"
Last night we were up watching TV and I barely heard screaming coming from our bedroom. (our door was slosed so I could just barely hear it.) I dropped my keyboard and mouse and ran into the bedroom. I didn't even say anything to Jim. I just picked him up and held him. Jim came in right after me wondering what the heck was wrong with his wife. We put him in our bed and both sang to him for 10 minutes. He finally calmed down so I went and took a shower while Jim laid with him then we switched places.
I just wish I knew how to help him. I wish I could take the scary stuff away.
ETA - He had two more tonight :(
2 comments:
Wow - I don't know how you do it. With two babies waking up, I always counted on my Anna to sleep all night.
Poor guy. I don't know much about night terrors, but hopefully it is a phase that will pass?
My sister Rachel's oldest and Heidi both had night terrors! It's so awful. I feel so bad for them but it's true, there's not much you can do beyond cuddling them.
We did find that with Heidi, it was helpful if we woke her completely, asked her if she needed anything, and then helped her back to sleep. For Heidi, part of the scariness was that she couldn't control what was going on (in her dream) and she couldn't completely wake up to get away from it. So helping her wake up fully and then talking to her for a minute seemed to really help.
I know it sounds like a hassle because he'd be fully awake and it seems like it'd be harder to get him back to sleep - but with Heidi she was so tired that it didn't seem to matter.
It's definitely a stage though! So take in comfort in knowing it won't last forever! (Just longer than you want it to...LOL...)
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