Night Terrors and Special Needs Children

For the past week, my daughter has had night terrors. Several times a night she will be screaming, moaning, kicking, and hitting. If I touch her during this time or try to even talk to her, it can get worse. Our doctor told me that unless she is in danger or about to danger herself, do not wake her or try to comfort her. I was told that if she is banging her head or hitting a wall to position something between her and the hard surface like a pillow to make it safer.

Night terrors are different from a nightmare. Nightmare’s happen when you are dreaming in a sleeping stage of REM which is a light sleep. Night terrors happen when you are in a deep sleep unable to dream (non-REM). The sleep is so deep that you do not recognize people or places during this time. You do not even remember what happened the next morning.

Research has shown that a cause of night terrors can be from stress, illness, or lack of sleep which makes perfect sense as to why many special needs children have had night terrors. Many special needs children are exhausted from stressful meltdowns and being restrained. They have difficulty falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and problems waking up from sleep. Their bodies are also exhausted from being over- stimulated all day.

To prevent night terrors, it is important to help the child not get to the point of exhaustion. Here are some tips I was given to help my daughter:

1.      Have the child take a nap

2.      Set and stay on a bedtime routine

3.      Find ways to keep the child asleep through the night. Make sure they are not awakened from being too hot or too cold. Try using weighted blanket, lavender, blue calming lights, heated pad or cold pad, and white noise sound machine to help relax child.

4.      Try to reduce meltdowns  (limit choices, prepare child for new situations, have a sensory diet, establish routines)

5.      Reduce the amount of sugar and caffeine in the child’s diet

After going through a week of night terrors, I can honestly say they freak me out more than her. She doesn’t even know that they happened the night before. She wakes up happy ready to greet a new day. I am hoping that the tips above are going to help reduce the night terrors she is currently having, so we both can have a restful sleep.

 If the night terrors continue to be frequent, a sleep study is recommended.