night terrors and thrashing! HELP

[damarasmom]

We are losing much sleep in this house due to Poor Damara's sleep issues. She seems to be screaming alot mostly "NOOOOO" then her legs go crazy! kicking like nuts and I am now brusing! She spent last night screaming and kicking approx. every 30-45 mins....we really are tired and the poor kid is just exhausted. We have started her on a liquid vitamin in hopes that this would help. she has been taking them for approx. 1 1/2 weeks and it obviously hasn't cured the issue...Any one have any ideas? I have read that this is common in children, but was hoping maybe someone had a remedy that works???
Keeping my fingers crossed and trying to keep my eyes open! Yawn....

[Connie]

This may not be a DS problem but just a "typical" kid problem. My 5 year old started having night terrors at about 3.5-4 and still has them from time to time and she is 5.5.

I feel you pain with th lack of sleep!!!

Connie

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

I can relate to the "thrashing" part of this. Brook does the same thing. All her life as I recall. She will sleep good for about 2-4 hours and then start "thrashing" around for the rest of the night. Spinning in circles, flopping around and making a "nahh nahh nahh" sound. I have to pick her up and lay her on top of me and she will crash back out, instantly. She sleeps w/ me so i'm up the whole time she is "thrashing" and then still when she is on me, can't breathe. I don't have a "cure". Needing some too

[damarasmom]

Thanks!
I feel a little better that we are not alone! Hope this stops soon...makes it very tough to make it through the day when we don't get to enjoy the night!
Thanks ladies, hope your kiddo's start to sleep better too!

[Chris too]

My Katie had night terrors just like this between 2 & 3 years old. It is a fairly common sleep disorder. We were told to give her benedryl to "change her sleep cycles" but by that time they were beginning to slowly disappear on their own. You may try melatonin; I know several people on this board use it for other sleep issues. Just search the site for melatonin to see those posts. It's tough, but it does end ... eventually.

Best wishes & praying for sweet dreams!
Chris too

[victoriasdad]

myself and my brothers suffered from night terrors,sleepwalking ect... some of it is a manifestation of being physically abused as children,
its a sign of delayed stress syndrome,

also i have sleep apnia, and when i was 42 i had my tonsils removed(my airways was about the size of a pencil) in two years since then i have had two slight episodes of night terrors,
i believe that the lack of oxygen was a major cause of my night terrors, thrashing, hallucinations,sleep walking ect. when we first were married i had a night terror i picked my wife up by her face and threw her across the room,,, looked her straight in the eye and told her not to let it happen again!! my three older children never even had a nightmare, but we never let them watch anything scary on tv with my two younger children watching what my older ones watch (scary movies) the sometimes have nightmares but not to the severity that my brothers and i had when we were younger......

[damarasmom]

Well, I am going to speak with the Pharmasist today to get info on the melontonin and dosage. I thought we were heading down a good road with her, we were using Benedryl to help her sleep to change her sleep patterns, but the 1st night without it...back up! GRRRR....so, gonna try something else I guess.