Does your (special needs) child have night terrors?

Hi! I'm so sorry your little one is going through this. My daughter had two episodes of night terrors. During one she climbed under the bed to get away from me. Only my hubby could calm her down. Now we know that she really wasn't awake and didn't recognize us trying to comfort her. It's scary, I know. She only had it twice, I can't imagine going through it as much as you and your little one are. When it happens, just remember that your little one isn't "awake" and cognizent of your efforts to calm him or her. Have you tried maybe playing some soothing music when it happens? Your child can still hear and maybe the music would help. I never tried this myself, I just thought of it. Mostly we just stayed back until she calmed down and woke up enough to let us near her. Keep us posted! :-)

My son went through a phase on night terrors when he was 4. He grew out of them, though it took a while. We would just go to him and rub his back or let him get up for a little while to watch tv--which took him mind off his dreams. My NT daughter used to walk in her sleep. She seems to have grown out of this, as well. I hope it's just a stage for your son. I know it's so hard when they are afraid or hurting and we can't make it better :(

oh my gosh you poor thing!.. our children have such a hard time understanding reality sometimes, i couldnt imaging trying to explain a dream!. that must be absolutely terrifying to him..and you too!.. im not familiar with this at all. Andy's never to my knowledge had this problem.. i dontthink hhe sleeps enough to even HAVE dreams! lol.. nah.. but ive always been curious as to what he might dream about.. eh ,. who am i kidding, i thinks its one of my life long goals just to figure out how he perceives reality while awake!.. just cant tackle dreams yet!!. well my heart goes out to you and best of luck with the testing..im sorry i dont have any ideas in this dept.!

We are having my 4 1/2 year old assesed for Autism, she does that. My biggest problem with her is when she wakes up and gets confused and is crying. She tries to come to my bedroom and for some reason has been locking herself in her room. Since we are still having testing done I don't have anything to tell you. Our appointments strat next week. I hope things get better for you and your child.

My sister has Down Syndrome and she used to suffer from them, waking in the night and totally inconsolable. That was over 20 years ago though and there was very little support, my parents just had to work through it. I hope where you are there is a lot of support for you as it is tough having children with special needs, even without going through something like this. I'm afraid I don't really have any great advice as to what you can do, except to keep strong and know you are doing a good job. Not very practical help I know but hope it helps to know that people are thinking of you.

Our oldest son is Autistic and suffered from night terrors when he was younger. It usually happened when my husband went out to sea, he's active duty in the Navy. Zack is non-verbal and we couldn't make him understand why daddy sometimes went away and didn't come back for months. It really upset him. :( Our doctor suggested Melatonin. It's sold over the counter at Wal-Mart in the vitamin section. It was the only thing that helped us. We tried Benadryl and such, but those just made him drowsy and harder to comfort. Melatonin actually helped him calm down and sleep the whole night. It can take a few days to find the right dose, however. Our son is slight in weight, so we had to be careful not to give him too much. We were also told never to try to wake him up. One doctor actually told me to lock him in his room when I told her that he was wanting me for comfort but then became combative when I held him. He didn't know it was me since he wasn't awake. I was furious with this advice and refused to heed it. There was no way I was going to lock my toddler son in his room and listen to his crying. After a couple of days he stopped waking up and started sleeping the whole night again.

Don't know if this will help but here goes. I raise my youngest grandson from 4 moths to age three. From time I got him, he was a good as gold al the time except at night. If lights were on he was fine. Turn lights off and he would cry. As he developed I noticed it was hard to get his attention and figured that something wasn't right. He was slow learning to walk too. I took him to many doctors to find out just what was going on. For me it had been many years since I had to care for such a young child and wasn't sure what the problem was. Also I was divorced so had no one else as support. Being retired I accepted this responsibility because no one else would and had plenty of free time. As time went on I finally found he had a form of aautism (PDD-NOS). I'd never even hear the term much less knew what it was. I put him in several programs and had tests run over next two years. Today he has over come many of these problems but is an ongoing thearpy thing. During that time in the evaluation process and interviews, they finally answered why the crying at night or when lights were low. It seems , way they explained, that his brain processed information much different than normal folks. Input from vision and hearing was different part of brain than ours. All of these can be over come with right thearpy. One of the signs to look for are when they run or walk in circles, watch closely at direction and tilt of body. In his case he would lean in one direction regardlesw of direction. Simular things were for hearing as well. The color of lights had the same type of affects. It was he could not see and hear, it was his brain processed differently. Also his intelligence was very high in some areas as well. Anything with numbers or music he mastered in minutes. HE LEARNED TO PLAY A PINAO IN LESS THAN A DAY. At night I found that low night light that would change colors was comforting some how and there was no crying or night mares. Only thru the help of Early Steps and Child Services was I able to get the help he needed. I would suggest you seek their help s well as any of the autism organizations you can find here on the web. Most are free services and help.

INfact all childs need care beause they are afraid of things, she might be right in suggesting you about night terrors, but you better contact some expert of the field beore judging or deciding anything

i have a way but i think this is a slow process and requires lot of time and energy of parents.one thing is you need to ask ur daughter about her night terrors ,discuss it out with her and make her convince that nothing like those dreams exist. dont allow her to sleep continuously,intially you will have to wake her every one hour atleast for 5 minutes after she sleeps.this will break the continuity of her dreams and one of the parent would have to sleep with her everyday to give her the courage and to prove her that you are there to protect her.after few days her frequency will decrease and you can increase the time span of waking her up.make her mentally strong to fight against nher dreams. and after one or two months her frequency will surely reduce. this is wat i think and i have seen this treatment which hasworked very well on someone

I advice you pray more often before going to bed..

hmmmm..........