I have some other things to blog about this morning, but first I need to get this off my mind. Last night around 9:30, we heard Nathan start screaming. He had been asleep for a couple hours, and he rarely wakes up at this time.
I went in to get him, because there was just something to his crying. Usually when he wakes up, he is standing up by the time I get to him. This time, when I walked in his room, he was still laying down, but screaming. I picked him up & his body was just stiff. I tried talking to him, rubbing his face & even blowing on him (this almost always gets him to stop crying.)
I brought out to the living room to enlist Mike's help. Between the two of us, we held him, talked to him, rocked him, everything we could. He was very much asleep, but just sobbing.
This shook me to my core. There was nothing I could do to soothe him. Seeing his face in anguish and not being able to take it away for him. He's done this one before, but nothing near this bad. He finally calmed down after we put some oragel on his gums & put a bottle in his mouth. I can't say that he ever woke up. I cuddled him on me & rubbed his face as he took the bottle. I really didn't want to put him back to bed.
He woke up a couple more times during the night. Nothing like the night terror, but still crying.
I've heard of night terrors before, so I looked it up online this morning. All of the advice says to leave them alone. Don't try to wake or comfort the baby during one.
Uhm... hello? How, as a parent, am I supposed to just leave him alone like that?
I was just left wondering, what could cause this? I'm not done looking into it all. Anyone have experience with this? Read anything that makes some kind of sense?
1 comment:
Shiloh had a few episodes with night terrors. Scared the crap out of me! DH used to get them all the time as a kid. His mom and I both agree...you hold them and do everything possible to get them awake and comfort them. If I was in the middle of a nightmare, I'd want to be woken.
We figured out that Shiloh's seemed to be triggered by images she saw when we took her with us to the movies. I didn't realize how much she was taking in until after seeing "Iron Man"...she had a night terror that evening. We stopped taking her with us on movie dates and have been really careful about what we allow her to see on TV and they've stopped. Not sure if that's what Nathan's are from...just sharing our experience.
Hang in there momma and keep loving your baby!
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