I am exhausted today; my little guy, Owen, is 20 months old, and has woken up screaming three or four nights in the last week. Until last night, he has been fairly easily soothed and has gone back to sleep in just a short time. Last night, however, was just terrible. Not only did he wake up screaming, but he was obviously terrified; he was sweaty and shaking and kept pointing at something in the room. I looked all over, but it just looked like the room to me: no new, strange shadows, no tree branches casting shadows on the walls or scraping against the windows, nothing that I could see as being out of place. Regardless of what I saw, he was clearly afraid of something, and it took him a very, very long time to go back to sleep. In fact, I took him to bed with me and even then, snuggled up in my arms, it took him almost a half hour to calm down and stop the shuddering and crying. He finally fell back asleep, but wouldn't leave me side; he had his head on my chest and made me keep my arm around him even when sleeping. This is NOT like him, as at other times he is in bed with me, I have a toe up my nostril or he sleeps sideways and hogs the pillow while kicking the blankets off.
I don't know what to do for him; I don't remember anything like this with my other children, or at least not to this extreme. It breaks my heart to feel his little body shake and to not be able to fix it. Do any of you have any suggestions of have experience with this? I fso, I am open to any and all thoughts. If nothing else, send good thoughts up for the little guy, and his tired mama!
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Comments: 15
She had no memory of it. She harbors no ill will toward me for letting her cry. Take care of yourself, you've got your hands full.
Of course, if he can remember or can sense your soothing, offer that. You know best.
He is afraid of the upstairs when he's alone because he fell asleep (at least we think that's what happened) on the floor one evening and had a nightmare. I came home from a short errand to find him screaming hysterically at the front door. Mark said he had been quiet upstairs for several minutes, then suddenly started shrieking in terror and kicking the floor. As soon as he got up he came running downstairs looking for me, and was inconsolable when Mark told him I wasn't home. He kept talking for days about the "brown lady" on the floor. He described her as being behind the TV, but when we took him upstairs a couple days later to figure out exactly what happened (since he wasn't letting it go), it became apparent that he had seen - or dreamed that he saw - a reflection in the TV that frightened him. There was nothing in the video he had been watching that could have inspired the description he gave us, and seeing a reflection in the TV while watching a video seemed unlikely; which fueled the idea that he had fallen asleep.
There's probably not much you can do until he's old enough to communicate. But I sure hope you get some extra sleep for the next few nights!