Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Nightmares?

Shelby woke up last night sometime around 11:30. We think she must have had a bad dream because she was crying really hard, and took a while to calm down. I sat on the edge of the bed at one point (I was holding her) and that only got her more upset. She wanted to lie back down, only every time I tried to lie down in bed with her, she would say "No!" and cry harder. She wanted to lie down on the couch, not her bed, and not even in our bed. Finally she calmed down and I was able to get her to lie down in her bed, as long as I was holding her. I was in there with her all night and we did not sleep well at all. Please pray that the dreams don't return.

Posted by Our Family at 10:39 AM

8 comments:

Stacy said...

I hate it when that happens! At least with Jake, there isn't much we can do until he kind of shakes out of it. It's bound to happen again, but I hope these instances are few and far between!

12:56 PM
Corrie said...

Ainsley has night terrors occasionally. She looks like she is awake (eyes open, says things occasionally), but she isn't really. She gets really hysterical and can't be reasoned with at all. Eventually she wakes up for real, and then calmly lays back down to go back to sleep. It seems to happen if her sleep schedule is off--like if she didn't sleep at naptime or has been out really late. Sometimes she has a night terror if she is really tired but needs to go to the bathroom. The doctor said that is a relatively normal thing for her age (I asked about it at her 3 year checkup.)
Hopefully it won't be something that happens often, but thought I would let you know that night terrors are sometimes mistaken for nightmares, and you handle them differently. Night terrors are almost like sleepwalking--there isn't much you can do for them but keep the child safe, and then they usually go right back to sleep. A child with a nightmare will want comforting and may have trouble going back to sleep.

1:38 PM
Brett, April, Caden, Corban & Eden said...

I actually read somewhere that you shouldn't try and wake a child having night terrors b/c it will just make it worse. Caden did this once and when I picked him up he went hysterical on me...it took me awhile to calm him down. It only happened a few nights when we first moved to Africa, but was still scarry...more for me than him, I think. By the way, thanks for the prayers, Caden slept past 6 this morning. I actually woke up before he did.

3:13 PM
Anonymous said...

Hey Channing Family...glad to see most things are going okay there. Hope your little gal sleeps a lot better tonight.

4:30 PM
Rachel said...

Madison had night terrors for awhile as well. I found that she dealt so much better with them would I would just sit beside her and tell her I was there, I love her and that I would hold her whenever she was ready. She too would go even more hysterical if I even touched her. She has grown out of them now and I am praying that Emma nor Joshua gets them.

9:59 PM
laura said...

Sweet Shelby... and poor mommy and daddy! I'm so sorry, I know that the next day was probably just as rough after a long night! Nathan hasn't really had any "nightmares" yet... but he did totally unnerve me on Sunday during church. He fell asleep in my arms during church and woke up screaming. I thought at first that he just didn't recognize where he was and so I reassured him that I was there... that we were at church, etc. But the screaming continued and continued and it was then that I noticed him holding his arm... it had fallen asleep underneath me while he slept and I think the poor thing was scared to death at the new sensation of his arm "waking up". It's amazing to watch them experience new things in this life... for better and for worse :)

8:21 PM
Rachel said...

Thanks for your sweet comment and the prayers! We do know Shiann and Troy. They are good friends of ours. It is exciting to get to work with them.

8:34 PM
Stacy said...

I didn't know about night terrors, but that is defintiely what happens with Jacob occasionally--good to know. Thanks, Corrie!

3:23 PM

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