[pezcmw03]

My foster son is 6 and has had night terrors off and on since his placement in April 2011. Some nights are great, some ok and some HORRIBLE. Horrible means up several times an hour, SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, crying inconsolably, just bad. I am not one for medicine and would hate to see him be put on something all the time but is there something that could help him on those bad days? Like something he could take just a few days a month and that takes effective shortly after taking it (like after the first or second episode). I just want him to be able to get a good night's sleep and be more in control of the night terrors on those nights. TIA for any help.

[wcurry66]

Bumping this up to the daytime queue

At 6, J had some pretty horrible ptsd-related nightmares.

Therapy helped. In the interim, I'm not proud of this, but antihistamines helped her get through some difficult sleepless periods.

Good luck

[alys1]

Melatonin? If you search for it here, you'll find a few threads about it with good information and stories. One recently, I think started by Nevada Jen. It's natural, so that fits, perhaps.

[ScrapMonkey]

Melatonin is NOT the answer for night terrors because too high a dose can CREATE problems, not eleviate them. There is NO KNOWN "cure" for night terrors. It SUCKS!!! It's hard But remind yourself they don't remember them and a good friend with a Psychology PHD assures me they usually outgrow them by age 5. It's soooooooooo hard!! My 5yo has had them since age 18 months. I am beyond exhausted. But... I am assured he will outgrow them...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz....

[jeffw]

Our new daughter who was just placed with us for adoption came with a long list of medications that apparently were originally started because of similar nighttime issues. They include stuff for sleep and calming stuff for mania. Apparently they helped. The trouble is, after the medications start working, how do you know if they are still needed?

[urban]

they usually outgrow them by age 5.

I agree.

It's common for kids to have night terrors, they do outgrow them. I don't know anything about a 'cure'.

They usually dont even remember them.

[arubagirl]

my son had them for a few years, he would also sleep walk. one thing i found was he always had to go pee right before bed. If by chance he didnot go he would wake up screaming, talking, etc. I would walk him to the bathroom he would go but would be talking, yelling etc. soon as he went his yelling stopped?=. Back to sleep he went . the worse part was when he would be screaming but looking right at us with open eyes... but be asleep.thank goodness he grew out of it around age 8.

[qs mom]

Be sure they are night terrors. In night terrors, the kids don't wake up.

My son had night terrors, as previous poster said - eyes wide open, dead asleep, screaming at the top of his lungs. Night terrors are not adoption related, any kid can have them.

My son now has sleep distubance. He will scream out, argue with people in his sleep. But he still doesn't wake up. He does however have trouble falling asleep. We have had mild and sporadic success with Melatonin, but that won't help you.

Does he respond to rocking? My son responded very well to rocking during a night terror. I would sit in bed with him, hold him close, kind of pinning his head to my shoulder with my head, and rock side to side, and then back and forth. He would calm, stop screaming and I would then rock him back and just lay him down.

[lovingmomhappykids]

Honestly I think you need to talk to a psychologist because what you describe can be anything from normal "night terrors" that any kid can get, that are basicly EXTREME Nightmeres Or they can be PTSD related. And how you deal with them may be very different. I had custody of a nephue who had been in the home when his father had tried to commit suicide. Simply put the poor child would have flashbacks while sleeping and would wake up screaming and I had to rock him back to sleep, sometimes for hours. He was 4 when he came to use. We arranged for him to see a counselor who did play therapy. We really did not want him on meds and this counselor was willing to give it a try without. The longer he lived with me the better they got, until they eventually stopped. I did try melatonin at the lowest dose 1mg, but it did not work for long (a month maybe) and I was unwilling to up the dose, so we gave up on it. I just put a rocker recliner in his room and spent many nights in that recliner.

Because the child is in foster care the chances of him having gone through a tramatic experience are pretty high. So I would seek out some help, it is definatly worth it if just to have someone to give you some hints on how to help him.

[urban]

the child is in foster care the chances of him having gone through a tramatic experience are pretty high. So I would seek out some help,

very good point, better safe then sorry.

[Nevada Jen]

I have had great success with melatonin. I would probably at least try it. My 6 year old takes either .5 or 1 mg (depending on if I can find a knife to cut the pill -- you can all mail me my parenting award). He finally stopped talking about nightmares and he goes right to sleep. I am totally anti drugs unless they are really needed and think too many folks use them to avoid the hard work of therapy and therputic parenting (not anyone on here) but I gotta tell you, giving DS melatonin is GOOD parenting. It relieves his stress about going to sleep and allows him to fall asleep easily. I'd at least give .5 mg's a try. Take it yourself for a few nights if you want to assure yourself its safe. I've been taking it and its way better than ambien. It doesn't really knock me out (my text message ding woke me last night).

All that said, my mother had a kid with night terrors (adopted from an orphange). The classic, not awake doesn't know it happened kind. ANd she swore by Bendryl liquid right before bed.

[pezcmw03]

Thanks for all the input!

Well, I mentioned the night terrors again to his doctor so he is scheduled to have an EEG (related to the night terrors but also to some 'odd' daytime symptoms as well). Not sure if the EEG will help shed some light on the situation or not but.........

A few days after I posted this, FS got sick with a bad cold, runny nose, etc. I was giving him Dimeatap right before bed to help with the symptoms and noticed that he didn't have ONE single night terror the next few days. I wish I could just give that to him every night because the first day off of the Dimeatap, he had a horrible night again. The doctor did suggest melatonin for him when he went but so far I have not been able to find a liquid form somewhere and since he was sick, the Dimeatap was helping so it wasn't a big rush to find it. Now, though that he is better, I do need a plan because he is back to having the bad nights

[Nevada Jen]

I give DS a pill that he just swallows. It doesn't taste horrible if it takes him a couple tries to get it down. He is 6 and has some speech issues related to poor mouth muscles. So I bet your six year could could do the same. If not, here is a liquid you can order on line. It says its 3 mg per full dropper so I would start with less than a third of a dropper and see if that helps. Now® Liquid Melatonin - NOW NUTRITION - GNC

My mom was told that she could give her DD a dose of benedryl every night long term and she did it for at least a few years. Not sure if that would still be the reccomendation. Don't expect much from the EEG. Unless its a 24 hour one in a hospital setting, we have never had one catch anything. And the last one we had DD was having 100 sezures a day. And she went 24 hours without one! I asked if maybe they could just give us some wire and the sticky pads instead of more seizure drugs because EEG's seem to completely control DD's seizres. Nuerologists just really don't have a sense of humor. The doc actually explained to me why that wouldn't possibly work