MUMBAI: If your child also starts blabbering, screaming or trembling in their sleep, it could be night terror or sleep terror. Nocturnal panic usually occurs early in sleep, when the child does not fall into a deep sleep. Due to this, the child stays partially awake at night. A child may scream, cry, or take violent action, such as hitting his or her arms and legs. At such times he is partially awake, but does not respond. They are in a state of panic but will not remember anything after waking up surprisingly. Just as dreams cannot be remembered, so do nightmares.
Some people think night terrors and nightmares are the same but these two are different. Night terror is not limited to nightmares. Usually when children wake up scared or crying after having nightmares, they also fall asleep after a while. Although the terror of the night is more terrible than the nightmare. The child screams violently with violent action due to the night panic. This frequent occurrence indicates poor health of the child, so if your child also struggles with this problem, you should help him with some measures. Let’s first know what is Night Terror and what are its symptoms and remedies.
Here are some common causes of nighttime panic attacks or fear of children falling asleep at night:
- Scary or nightmare
- Thoughts
- Fatigue
- Medicine
These are common causes but the problem can be deep, which prevents the baby’s brain from falling into a deep sleep.
The reasons for this are:
- Fever or high body temperature, which can interfere with the functioning of the brain. In such a situation children cannot sleep, this is often the case even if the child has a high fever.
- A full bladder can disrupt sleep and cause nighttime panic attacks.
- Noise or dim lighting, which prevents the baby from sleeping peacefully, can also cause nighttime panic attacks. So to protect children from night terrors, parents should make it a habit for children to sleep without any sound or light.
With these symptoms, you can detect or test your baby’s nightmares:
- Frightened and strange expression
- Screaming, shouting and crying badly
- Fast breathing and excessive sweating
- Aggressive tremors of body parts
- Ignoring everyone while keeping his eyes open
- Walking in sleep
Tips for preventing night terror
Here are some tips for parents to deal with night terrors:
- In most cases, children fall asleep after experiencing nighttime panic attacks. If not, do not try to wake the baby. Because his mind is still restless and it can complicate the situation. Let the baby wake up on its own.
- After a panic or scream, you know the baby is scared. In that case, you should wake up the child and comfort him. You should hug her and make her feel comfortable, it will make her feel safe. Try to get him to sleep.
- Keep the light in his room low. You can use a night lamp with a dream light to help the baby.
- Keep the baby’s sleeping environment calm.
- Have the baby urinate before bed so that his bladder is not full.
- Do not let the baby sleep on an empty stomach. Feed him something before he goes to bed.
- Try to create a bedtime routine with story-reading to help the baby sleep peacefully.
