(*This post differs from my standard life/family updates/musings. I am writing this post because I want to share what has helped us through a pretty tough trial, with the hope that it may be helpful to other parents dealing with the same thing.*)
This is my sweet baby. She’s happy, kind, sweet, and content. She is about 17 months old and the joy of our lives.
Ever since our little one’s very difficult hospital stay at 2 months, she’s been a rough sleeper. That got even worse with her second stay. But, I co-slept and nursed, so that helped to keep sleep disruption minimal. She could easily fall back asleep, though she woke up often in the night.
All of that changed a few months ago, when we decided to wean her and help her transition to a bed on her own. Once we did that, our nights took a really rough turn.
Though I didn’t know it at first, her weaning started in the middle of a bad ear infection. Also, none of my children have been able to be weaned gradually. They just wouldn’t take anything else if they had any possibility of a later nursing. So, it had to be cold turkey. All of this was pretty hard on her, and within a couple of weeks, our nights were horrible.
She would go to sleep, and then sleep for about 90 minutes. She would then wake up screaming uncontrollably. She acted as though she were terrified out of her mind, or in terrible pain. I couldn’t tell which. Nothing I did helped. The tighter I held her, and the more I tried to say her name or anything comforting, the more she fought. But if I put her down, she acted more scared than ever. I couldn’t tell if she was awake or not. Words cannot describe the heartache. Sometimes she would settle down after a half hour to an hour. Sometimes, she screamed for hours. On the nights when she settled down, she would often start up again 20-60 minutes later.
Nights turned into weeks and months of doing this. It was unbelievably difficult. Naps also became nearly non-existent. In the morning, she was exhausted, but her normal happy self again. I couldn’t understand it. And I was absolutely exhausted. I was putting on weight and I was shaky and tired.
At first, I wondered if it was a milk allergy or intolerance. I thought that would explain the seeming pain she was in at night. So I eliminated all dairy from her diet for over a week. No change. (Except that the almond milk caused terrible, raw diaper rash so bad that she couldn’t even wet her diaper without screaming.) Obviously, not the solution I was hoping for.
Eventually, we learned that she was suffering from night terrors (also called sleep terrors). It all made complete sense. Here are some basic bullet points about night terrors:
- Night terrors are NOT nightmares. They do not occur during REM sleep. They are much more serious.
- Night terrors occur during non-REM sleep, which has four stages. Night terrors occur during the transition from stage 3 non-REM sleep to stage 4 non-REM sleep, beginning approximately 90 minutes after a child falls asleep.
- Night terrors do not only occur in children who have had traumatic childhood experiences, although they often do.
- Night terrors can be triggered by the following: stressful life events (check), high fever (check), separation anxiety (check, check, check…weaning was HORRIBLE on her, poor babe).
- Night terrors are made worse by sleep deprivation (which is a cruel irony considering that most children with night terrors do not sleep or nap well, thus making the cycle more vicious).
- It is nearly impossible to wake a child during a night terror. Even if her eyes open, she is most likely asleep.
- A child will not remember a night terror in the morning.
- Night terrors are typically something that children grow out of in adolescence (this one may have made me cry the most…the thought of another decade of doing this every single night was very daunting).
- There is no medical treatment for night terrors.
Okay, that all sounds pretty difficult. Those bullet points are the information I acquired from medical documents. Here are a few other things that I have observed in our own situation. (***Not professional opinion or advice.***)
- Most medical advice states that night terrors are short-lived, happen only once a night, and a few times a month. Ha. I don’t think so. Not in our case.
- Some doctors have said that a child cannot tell if you are there or not. In our case, I feel like she is aware of my presence and is comforted somewhat by me at least being with her. Though she doesn’t want to be held tightly, she is even more afraid when I put her down. I have found that the best position is one where she can feel my touch, or be on my lap but free to thrash around. It doesn’t stop it, but it is more comforting to her than when I withdraw a few feet. Each child will be different, of course.
- An erratic schedule makes it worse. A predictable sleep schedule seems to lessen the severity.
- If you are married: This is NOT either spouse’s fault. Don’t give in to the temptation to be snappy with each other at night when things get rough. Stick together. The one last thing you may have in those wee hours is each other. Don’t turn on each other. Take turns or sit with each other…just figure out a way to make it work together. Don’t abandon each other or become angry at the child or at one another. This is tough on both of you. This is the time to stick together as a family the hardest.
Once we identified what was happening, we had some hope. I at least felt comforted to know what it was. However, words cannot describe the exhaustion, and how difficult family life was for every single one of us with two jittery zombies for parents. This had to get better.
If you’ve found this blog post and this is all sounding familiar, there is hope! The following will describe what we’ve done to help our daughter:
In one article I had read, a doctor suggested disrupting the sleep cycle may help to stop the pattern at night. So we tried it. Since most of her night terrors started at about 90 minutes after she fell asleep, we began to wake her up an hour and 15 minutes after she had gone to sleep. The doctor had been writing about older children and suggested waking them for 5 minutes. However, I’ve found that for our little lady, waking her up enough to look at me at least twice seems to do the trick. This little trick has helped a LOT and has lessened the frequency of her really severe night terrors. She was still having rough nights, but at least they were not as severe and the frequency of the night terrors did lessen somewhat. So that was a HUGE first step!
Next: more predictable sleep schedules. I have had to be much more careful about making sure that we are home for naps, rather than naps in the car. Being the youngest of six children, this is a little hard with her, but we have more success when we make that happen.
Those two things have helped a lot, but we were still having some pretty rough nights. I have had tremendous success with using essential oils in the past for various issues, so we turned to essential oils again. On the internet, my friend and I found a couple of instances where people stated that the Young Living blend Dream Catcher helped with night terrors. However, in all honesty, I had a hard time biting the bullet, because the two reviews I found sounded a little too positive, and I wasn’t entirely sure that they were genuine, only because they were found on distributor’s pages. I hoped they were true, but I was nervous. The cost of this particular blend is pretty high ($88!), and the product description has nothing to do with night terrors. So I was nervous. We tried Peace and Calming first, and though it did help make her more relaxed and made her naps much better, it didn’t help with the night terrors as much as I’d hoped. We finally decided to purchase Dream Catcher and try it.
The first night, I put Peace and Calming on her ears like always (ears because on auricular emotion charts, the bottom of the ear corresponds to fear). I layered Dream Catcher on top of it. I wanted to test it on myself, as well, so I also put it on my ears. I think I was just used to using the ears, because when we had used Peace and Calming in the past, it had been with another daughter of mine, who was trying to overcome a very traumatic hospital stay (we’ve had a lot of those this past year). Applying it to her ears had helped a great deal at that time. So, with Dream Catcher on her ears and mine, we were really hopeful for a good night. As we were going to sleep, my husband also asked to try it. I had looked up Dream Catcher in my oils book by that time, and had seen that it was recommended that it be applied to the temples. So on my husband, I applied it to his temples.
What followed was very interesting. My husband had the best night of sleep he had had in a very long time, with a long, detailed dream…more remarkable because he NEVER dreams, or at least, never remembers his dreams. However, my daughter and I had a terrible night. It was heartbreaking. She was fussy and upset all night long. I had very little sleep because she was up all night, but when I did finally get about an hour and a half of sleep as the sun was coming up the next morning, I also had an intensely vivid dream. However, my dream was disturbing and unpleasant. I was so discouraged. I felt like my last hope had failed. But when I compared my experience with my husband’s, I began to wonder (again, I’m NOT an expert and don’t pretend to be) about the auricular emotion points. I wondered if applying Dream Catcher to the bottom of the ear was carrying negative emotions into our dreams. At this point, I was desperate and willing to consider anything.
On the next night, I applied Peace and Calming to her ears, and Dream Catcher to her temples and big toes (big toe corresponds to the brain on reflexology charts). Hoping beyond hope, I applied it to my temples, as well, and after waking her at the normal time, we went to sleep.
It was an entirely different experience this time around, for both she and I. She slept well, and no night terrors occurred!!! I also slept very well, and in the morning, I felt truly rested for the first time in a very long time.
From my experience with Dream Catcher, my theory (again, NOT an expert) is that this blend lengthens and heightens REM sleep. I always dream, but it is rare that I am able to recall details for more than an hour after I wake. I also seem to have several short dreams each night. But when I have used this blend, I dream long, very detailed dreams, and usually only one long dream. I see extremely vivid details about my surroundings, rather than a vague awareness, and I remember them long after I wake up. It is really a remarkable experience. It hasn’t provided necessarily happy dreams, but in the few times I have tried it on my temples, the dreams are normal and not unpleasant. The high level of detail and the feeling of incredibly restful sleep are the most remarkable things to me about the experience. That’s me.
As for my daughter, I can tell she sleeps much deeper. She sleeps peacefully, rather than the near-constant fitful state she used to be in if she was asleep. She has not had a single night terror since we started using Dream Catcher on her temples and toes. Life is indescribably better.
The one negative that we haven’t yet solved is that she still wakes after about 6-7 hours of sleep and is fussy. Nothing like before, but still fussy. It is very hard for her to go back to sleep. Sometimes we are able to get her to sleep again after about 30-60 minutes. Sometimes not. She still needs to be able to sleep past that time, and we are working on figuring that out. However, I am hopeful, and though this is frustrating, it’s nothing like the difficulty we were having before.
So, here is our routine for now:
- Try to keep a somewhat predictable sleep schedule. This is tough in our busy little family, but we’re trying.
- Wake her after 60-75 minutes of sleeping at night. Some nights, I can just tell she’s moving quicker through the cycles and needs to be woken a little earlier. After a few weeks, I’ve gotten a feel for it. I can’t describe it any better than that. However, there have been two nights this week when I accidentally fell asleep before the time I meant to wake her. She still didn’t have a night terror on those nights. Time will tell, and I will update this post at a later point if we decide we no longer need to wake her. For now, we are keeping with it.
- Apply Peace and Calming to her lower ears and the back of her neck. If there is any leftover in my hands, I rub it on the soles of her feet. I use two drops, diluted with two drops of carrier oil.
- Apply Dream Catcher to her temples, big toes, and if I have any left after rubbing it in really well, I put it on her forehead. I use 2-3 drops, diluted with the same amount of carrier oil.
- Sometimes I put a drop or two of lavender EO on her pillow, if she’s fussy when going to sleep. It gives her a good start to the night.
- Argentine has also been truly helpful. Having a simple, comforting object that she can hold at night has really seemed to help her. Not all children may be alike in this regard.
If you’ve read this far, and you’re going through this with your own child, I wish you luck with all of my heart. I know how difficult it can be, especially the comments you may get. People don’t understand that it’s different from dreams and that it didn’t happen because you showed your child a frightening movie. They’ll suggest crying it out, not understanding that this isn’t just a baby testing her fences (I’m not a fan of that anyway…but that’s another post for another day :) ). I hope that reading what has gotten us through has been somewhat helpful…best of luck!! I will keep this post updated if anything changes.
