Night fright: helpful expert tips for your child

What is a night terrors anyway?

When I first heard the word ‘night terrors’, I thought of the effects of a dream catcher.

A small sleep aid that can be set up like a scarecrow in the nursery and relieves your child of the fear of falling asleep. The evil spirits of the night are to be frightened and driven away.

Of course, it’s nothing like it:

As if out of nowhere, your child feels a sense of panic fear at night.

You hear a loud scream from the children’s room and your child is no longer in the sleeping position , but is sitting or standing. Fear or anger can be read in your child’s facial expressions, and fear sweat also occurs.

Usually your child’s eyes are wide open, as if they are under a lot of stress or have been in shock. The pulse beats very quickly and the heart rate, like the breathing rate, is also greatly increased.

• Your child may also start speaking during this phase, but only confused and incoherent sentences come out.
• It seems disoriented and cannot be reassured by you as a caring parent.

And for a ‘good’ reason: your child has not left the sleep phase and is not really awake yet. It may seem very strange at first, as your child is showing many signs of being awake.

Especially in the first third of the night’s sleep, the night terrors appear out of nowhere in your child.

And completely suddenly – there are no real signs or symptoms for it beforehand. As usual, your child fell asleep normally and up to this point you haven’t noticed anything unusual.

So is it serious and do you need to worry about your child?

Don’t worry: a night terrors is usually completely harmless

It may seem very scary at first. As if your child is obsessed and appears to be in a trance.

Memories of bad horror films are brought back to life. Only that this time you are part of it yourself and can watch the whole spectacle live.

Even if it looks like something serious, I can give you the all-clear for this nocturnal incident:

In most cases, the night terrors are harmless to your child.

In the medical sense, it is neither a disease nor a serious condition and is not directly related to a mental disorder.

Rather, it is related to the normal development of your child’s central nervous system.

From a medical point of view, the night terrors are considered harmless as long as they occur only rarely and at irregular intervals. But what exactly does that mean and how common is it rare and irregular?

The frequency of night terrors is very individual and varies greatly from child to child. The intervals between two incidents can be several days and weeks.

They are also possible, however, at even more irregular intervals between months and years.

There is no real rule of thumb to use as a guide. Everything here is based on your personal assessment of whether the incidents can be seen as normal based on the circumstances surrounding your child.

Nobody knows that as well as you do, and with a little tact you will know how to correctly assess the situation.

Night terrors: professional treatment options

In principle, however, the following applies: the more frequently your child experiences night terrors at shorter intervals, the more clearly this is a signal that something in your child’s psychological state is not in the best order.

In this case, you should consult your trusted pediatrician together with your child and explain the situation to him.

Together you can analyze the situation and talk about possible countermeasures.

There are also a few other incidents for which it is advisable to consult a doctor:

• The night terrors persist beyond the age of 7
• The night terrors are registered for the first time in older children
• The night terrors reappear after what was believed to be a long break
• The night terrors reappear after a traumatic experience
• Your child has a doctor-diagnosed mental illness

The night terrors per se cannot be cured by medication, but they can be treated with medication and the risk of occurrence can be minimized. You should be careful with this, especially with children at a young age.

Since the night terrors are a relatively harmless sleep disorder in children, you would rather shoot sparrows with cannons.

A relaxed and responsible approach to this is the first step in therapy from the parents’ side.

After all, your child does not even notice the nocturnal phenomenon that occurs around himself.

However, if the night terrors occur at very frequent short intervals, the use of herbal remedies is most likely.

If psychotropic drugs such as tranquilizers, antidepressants, low-potency neuroleptics or hypnotics are required, they should only be administered by a child psychiatrist.

Does my child really have night terrors? A differentiation from other phenomena

First of all, it should be noted that the night terrors are not an illness, but a sleep disorder.

So that you can correctly assess whether your child is really suffering from night terrors, a comparison with other diseases, sleep disorders and irregularities is useful in order to differentiate the night terrors from them.

Only then can psychotherapy in the form of behavioral therapy be useful for your child.

A detailed examination in the sleep laboratory can identify or rule out other possible illnesses in addition to epileptic seizures.

These further examinations and measures are preceded by a visit to the pediatrician.

They know best about your child’s disease progression. And also how a night terrors can be differentiated from other things and can certainly advise you from professional experience.

So, are you sure your child has already had a night terrors? The following other occurrences and phenomena are similar to the night terrors and can easily be confused:

nightmares

Nightmares are easiest to distinguish from night terrors. Why? Because your child can remember the nightmare early in the morning and it cannot occur in the same sleep phase as the night terrors.

Nightmares are normal and everyone will have bad dreams sooner or later. In contrast to the night terrors and the moments lived during this sleep phenomenon, however, your child cannot remember the next morning.

That means in plain language: If your child suffers a nightmare, you can exclude the night terrors directly.

Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking can occur either in combination with the night terrors or alone. Like the night terrors, it belongs to the subcategory of wake-up disorders. Similar to night terrors, hereditary factors, febrile illnesses and psychological stress are the most common triggers.

Important: If none of the above symptoms precede sleepwalking, then it is not about night terrors, but ‘only’ about sleepwalking. However, you need to take the same, if not stricter, measures to prevent your child from injuring themselves from sleepwalking.

Drowsiness

The drowsiness is also a wake-up disorder and occurs in the same sleep phase as the night terrors. Symptoms are similar to night terrors, but children can usually remember fragments of this condition and wake up from the sleep phase on their own, only to go back to sleep shortly afterwards.

Sleep intoxication occurs much more frequently than the night terrors and accompanies your children into adolescence. In contrast to the night terrors, drowsiness is a quieter phenomenon without sweat and increased breathing and heart rates.

Speak in your sleep

Your child will not know whether it is normal to speak in sleep. Because your child will not even notice the incoherent murmur. Talking in your sleep is completely harmless and not to be confused with other sleep disorders.

In contrast to the night terrors, your child is still physically in the sleep phase while they are sleeping and lies in bed with their eyes closed.

Sleep epilepsy

The symptoms of various epilepsies can also appear during the sleep phases. They can appear most clearly through muscle twitching or tension, or cramps, which are completely unusual for night terrors.

Important : If you observe these behaviors in your child for the first time, you should note them carefully or record a video so that you can describe them in detail to the treating pediatrician or specialist.

Tagangst (Pavor diurnius)

In very lively children, the same phenomena as in night terrors can also be observed during the daytime nap.

In contrast to night anxiety, day anxiety tends to occur in toddlers and the afternoon nap ends with an abrupt awakening.

Who is affected by the night terrors?

Mainly young children and school children between the ages of 2 and 7 are affected by the night terrors. This nocturnal phenomenon occurs most often between the ages of 5 and 7 of your child.

The night terrors affect girls and boys. Overall, boys are more often affected than girls. The age range varies, and the earliest cases were diagnosed in babies as early as 9 months of age.

Through their research, scientists have succeeded in determining some characteristics and identifying those affected by the night terrors in more detail:

• Affects 1 to 6% of all children
• Around 15% of children between the ages of 4 and 6 have experienced night terrors at least once
• The disease occurs in families
• Night terrors are most common between the ages of five and seven

Night terrors are a developmental phenomenon of the central nervous system. Usually there is a family history. Scientific studies have shown an association in first-degree relatives and, in a small percentage, second-degree relatives.

This can be a sign that either you or your partner suffered from night terrors in childhood as well. Perhaps it went undetected in your own childhood or was not clearly perceived as a night terrors back then.

From a statistical point of view, gifted and introverted children are considered to be particularly sensitive to night terrors.

Allergies (on the other hand, mattresses encasings and allergy-free bed linen help ) are suspected of promoting this sleep disorder.

In a few cases, untreated, it can occur in adults and accompany them for a lifetime. If a night terrors occurs in adulthood, it is often caused by previous mental illnesses such as anxiety disorders, depression or schizophrenia.

In this case, therapies and countermeasures are worthwhile. Regardless of the relatively mild course over the years, there are many treatment methods that you should clarify with your doctor.

After all, in the end it is also about healthy and restful sleep – and it is completely independent of age.

What can be the trigger for the night terrors?

The disease rarely occurs after puberty.

In addition to the genetic predispositions, there are a few more factors that favor or more easily cause your child’s night terrors:

• Fatigue or lack of sleep
• Diseases
• exhaustion
• Use of new drugs that the body has to get used to

It has been found in scientific studies that factors promoting night terrors may be febrile illnesses.

Fever puts your children’s organism under stress and malaise and it is not uncommon for the night terrors to occur in phases during greatly increased temperatures.

In addition, some deep psychological causes can also be responsible for the night terrors that parents do not immediately associate with the phenomenon.

For example, this can be sleeping in a strange environment.

Even if your child likes to experience an unfamiliar environment such as a holiday home or staying with relatives or strangers as an adventure:

It may be that the psyche of your child has not yet fully accepted the strange place to sleep and has to get used to it first.

Tip: Take toys, a cuddly pillow or things like your personal children’s alarm clock with you from home in order to create familiarity.

The same goes for psychological stress. A move, a change of kindergarten or school class or the upcoming high school enrollment can leave a lasting impression on your child in the subconscious and trigger the night terrors.

Once your child’s nervous system is fully developed and mature, this sleep disorder disappears.

This usually happens when your child has reached school age. The night terrors disappear completely unspectacularly and unannounced, however it came.

What can I do for my child during the night terrors?

As uncomfortable as it may sound, unfortunately you cannot help your child at all in these moments.

So do not try to comfort your child or fool them. It could thrash wildly and is difficult to wake up in this state.

It is not recommended to wake your child.

He is still in the deep sleep phase and therefore it is difficult to wake up your child anyway. You would only further confuse your child and leave them even more disoriented in bed.

After all, your child would have to go back to sleep after waking up, which can be no easy task.

So it is better not to pull your child out of this deep sleep phase, as uncomfortable as it is and as much as you would like to do something for your child.

• Since the night terrors do not pose an immediate health risk, the best advice is to ‘just let it happen’. As unusual as that may sound.
• The most important thing at this moment is to keep a cool head and not panic. Even if it sounds easier said than done, just keep calm in these moments.

If, during an incident, you want to get through it together with your child and talk to your child in a calming manner, then you can of course do so.

However, your child will not notice any of this.

It is too deeply in the sleep phase and cannot process any information from outside. Despite open eyes and active movements, no information penetrates your child’s consciousness.

Even if he talks during this phase of sleep, you cannot consciously communicate with your child.

You can only wait and survive this unpleasant phase until your child overcomes the night terrors on their own. This usually takes 5 to 20 minutes after the first cry.

Everything seems to be normalizing: pulse, breathing and heart rate are working again in a regular rhythm.

As a rule, your child then quickly manages to calm down on its own and return to the next phase of sleep without waking up in between. Your child will then no longer be able to remember what happened last night the next morning.

The experience of the nocturnal incident is neither consciously perceived by the child, nor is it stored anywhere. In contrast to a nightmare, your child cannot build up any memories of that moment and bring them back the next morning.

For your child, it is as if this incident never happened. So I advise you not to tell your child about it the next day. In any case, it is very difficult to believe what is not consciously experienced.

• And additionally worrying your child and creating a respectful distance or even fear of going to bed is not a good idea.
• It is better to discuss the whole thing with your partner and discuss this topic during your next visit to the pediatrician.

However, you can passively help your child during an incident. Some children with night terrors experience this phase so actively that it can occur in combination with sleepwalking.

By eliminating all sorts of accident and fall hazards around the bed, you ensure that nothing bad can happen in the nursery during such an incident.

Are there any stairs near the children’s room? Does your child sleep in a loft bed?

Secure the loft bed with additional fall protection so that falls and injuries are avoided. The same applies to misshapen corners and edges on the bed edges or posts.

Remove toys and everything that has castors or wheels in the area around the cot. These obstacles could cause your child to slip and fall on the floor.

A special car bed or princess bed , which provides additional security, may also help .

And a little order in the nursery has never hurt!

How does the night terrors arise?

At first it may seem that the night terrors are a very vividly perceived heavy dream of the child. However, this is not the case and is often confused.

If your child suffers from night terrors, it is not fully awakened. Although they are showing the signs of being awake as described above, your child is still in the non-REM sleep phase. This consists of three sub-phases:

1. Phase between waking and sleeping
2. Stable sleep
3. Deep sleep

At the end of the third sub-phase of the non-REM sleep phase, the transition to the REM phase (REM = Rapid Eye Movement) takes place.

The transition from deep to dream sleep does not work in children as it does in adult bodies. Although the child’s consciousness still seems to be in a sleep state, the body is already in the REM waking phase.

• In this deep sleep phase we humans have reduced brain activity and also no typical eye movements during sleep.
• Our children’s brains and nervous systems, like the rest of the body, are still growing and not fully developed and mature.

Since children experience and learn more during the day than we adults do, information must also be processed in sleep. This is a real mammoth task for a small child.

This type of overstimulation is normal because of the abundance of information during the day. The more exciting and eventful the children’s daily program, the more they have to process in their sleep.

In other words, the fewer leisure activities and obligations you burden your child with, the lower the chance of night terrors.

Fewer appointments per week, less stress and slowing down childhood a little can have a positive effect on your child’s nervous and psychological development.

Are there ways to prevent the night terrors?

And!

By identifying and avoiding the triggers listed above at an early stage, the chance of night terrors is also minimized.

This is easier said than done, however. While the parents may still be able to do something in good time and with foresight against overtiredness and exhaustion, some things seem inevitable:

A change of school or the new medication given by the pediatrician cannot be avoided so quickly.

Still, there are a few things you can do for your child to minimize the risks of night terrors.

Fixed sleep times and rituals can prevent the night terrors.

You should avoid digital screens of computers, televisions or handheld consoles before you go to bed. Shortly before falling asleep, they activate the children’s brain and also put it under excitement and stress.

The blue light also disrupts the body’s own sleep hormones (this also applies to adults, by the way – blue light filter glasses can help).

By talking to your child about the day before going to bed and reviewing the experiences together, you calm your child’s subconscious and prepare them for sleep.

This can also be achieved with smaller sleep aids. Whether it is a song sung together, a soothing pillow or a playful night light : by preparing your child for the moment of going to bed and maybe even looking forward to it, stress will be reduced and actively reduced.

In addition, it cannot hurt to practice relaxation or meditation techniques ( autogenic training ) with the child . These are considered to be the most effective method to counteract stress.

Which doesn’t help against night terrors

Some guidebooks on the Internet recommend globules, Schüssler salts and other dubious remedies for night terrors.

Let me tell you that these treatment methods are of a homeopathic nature anyway and apart from a placebo effect, no scientific effectiveness can be proven.

And since a child probably cannot understand the effectiveness of a normal drug through medical vocabulary, a placebo effect will be even more difficult to convey.

The taking of a remedy to sleep better and more problem-free and to exclude the night terrors naturally sounds tempting and too good to be true.

Since the causes of night terrors are often profound, psychological in nature, homeopathic remedies quickly reach their limits and fail to serve any purpose.

What can help, however, are natural sleeping pills to calm you down – but don’t expect miracles here.

What else helps against night terrors

Make your child’s sleeping area feel as comfortable as possible. Your child should be relieved of stress and should feel as comfortable and secure as possible.

The quieter and darker the sleeping environment, the better. Also make sure that the sleeping environment is pleasantly warm .

Sufficient air supply through open windows and choose the right Kinderdecke can have a slightly positive effect on the sleep quality of your child have ( weight ceilings offer many people as additional security).

A matching pillow or cuddly pillow also provides additional relaxation during the night.

If your child has got used to a burning night light as a sleep aid or even a sleep ritual, all the better.

I hope that this article about night terrors has helped you. The most important thing is to keep calm and show calm. In the vast majority of cases, night terrors go away on their own.

While your child’s first incident of the night may seem frightening, I hope for your child (and of course you too) that these phases do not happen too often and too violently.