6Mo Has Nightmares?

sorry you're losing sleep! she might be reacting to the new house or she might be learning something new (crawling?). my little one (almost 3? not so little!) is very sensitive to his sleep schedule (time), and any little hiccup throws him off. this could be the culprit too.

I wouldn't worry about the swaddling--if she likes it, keep it up. my son wiggled out of his and still doesn't like covers.

sounds like you know what you're doing with sleep routines and stuff, so you've probably already got a good book or reference about sleep. but here's one I like: The No Cry Sleep Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley.

just know it will soon pass, none of it lasts forever!

I'd come closer to thinking she's beginning to teeth. She's at the right age and may be just in the beginnings. Her gums may be hurting most of the time...or at least hurting more at night. Everything is worse at night....anytime they are ill, teething,etc. Everything is more magnified. The best way to tell is to give her a normal dose of infant advil to help with pain and reduce inflamation if he gums are sore and swelling some. If after about 45 minutes shes goes right off to sleep and sleeps several hours, I'd say she is in pain with her teeth trying to come through.

Usually if they are having trouble with foods, it will be gas or a change in their bowel movements.

I doubt that she's having nightmares, unless it's from pain.

There are lots of methods for teething, some natural techniques and some over the counter medications. The best thing is to not her let suffer with it, day or night.

Of course, she could also be sensing any stress if this move has been difficult; but if that's the case, the advil won't make any difference.

No high fever? No diahrrea or constipation? Teething can cause a very low temperature....between 99 and 100.5 degrees. Any temperature over that amount may be ears, tonsils, or virus. Clear runny nose can be caused by teething, too.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Good luck and God Bless!

http://www.missbrenda.com

Hi P.,
It really does sound like night terrors to me. They are horrid.
The best thing to do is let the child cry through them- once you are sure he is safe, not caught on something etc....
My oldest had them. He had a bought at around 6-9 months then again at 2. He is 9 now and we haven't had as many but he is still my biggest bad dream kiddo. We didn't move or have any big life events at those times- so it must just be a cycle.
Hope this helps!
D.

Have you read up on "night terrors"? I read something about that with kids and waking up at night in a complete fit. They don'tknow exactly what they are doing. I would talk to your pediatrician.

Hey P.,
My son went through the same thing about that time. He is now almost 1, but when he was 3 or 4 months he went through a growth spurt. He was almost always sleeping through the night until this time. He would wake up in the middle of the night looking for food. I'm not sure if it is the same thing, but I thought I would throw it out there! Good luck!

My son did a similar thing around 6 months. It's hard to narrow down what it could be because so many things happen at once with babies. I've read that night terrors can happen as early as 6 mo.
For our boy, adding a bed-time bottle for a while seemed to help (and putting the next size diaper on him to handle the added wetness!). I believe it's normal for a big growth spurt around 6 months. We were able to drop the bed time bottle once he started eating more solids. Maybe beginning solids has decreased her milk/formula intake? Check with your pediatrician, but I am pretty sure ours told us that a 6 mo. old needed 24-30 oz. of formula a day. Since bottles are still the most important part of a baby's diet at that age, we made sure he finished his bottle before feeding any solids.
He also started cutting teeth around that time.
If a bottle doesn't work, maybe tylenol will?

Also, babies naturally have periods of "active" sleep. I noticed that our son (now 13mo) cries out most nights around 11pm and again at 3 or 4am. He's done this since about 6 mo or earlier. It's so regular that I assume these are his lighter sleep phases. It was the wakefulness at 3am that prompted us to turn off the baby monitor. Once we realized that he was fine, we decided to try to get some sleep!
Good luck!

P., All three of my kids, who are 3, 6, and 9 years old, had night terrors when they were younger. Here is an artical that explains it.
Night Terrors
From Vincent Iannelli, M.D.,
Your Guide to Pediatrics.
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Pediatric Basics
Night terrors are a common sleep problem among children. By some estimates, about 15% of younger children have occasional night terrors. Although most common in children between the ages of 2 and 6 years, they can occur at almost any age.
Although usually considered to be normal or benign, they are often very scary and distressing to parents who often overreact, especially during a child's first night terror.

Symptoms
When you hear how most experts describe night terrors, it is easy to see why parents find them distressing. Children who have night terrors are usually described as 'bolting upright' with their eyes wide open, with a look of fear and panic, and letting out a 'blood curdling scream'.

Banishing Night Terrors
Cutting edge book has real solutions to the sleep disorder.
www.nightterrors.info

These kids will usually also be sweating, breathing fast and have a rapid heart rate (autonomic signs). And although it will seem like they are awake, during a night terror, children will appear confused, will not be consolable and won't recognize you.
Typical night terrors last about 5 to 30 minutes and afterwards, children usually return to a regular sleep. If you are able to wake your child up during a night terror, he is likely to become scared and agitated, mostly because of your own reaction to the night terror, especially if you were shaking or yelling at him to wake up. Instead of trying to wake up a child having a night terror, it is usually better to just make sure he is safe, comfort him if you can, and help him return to sleep once it is over.

Diagnosis
The diagnosis of night terrors is usually made by the history of a child 'waking' early in the night screaming and being inconsolable. Night terrors are most often confused with nightmares, but unlike night terrors, a child having a nightmare is usually easily woken up and comforted.
The other worry for many parents is that these episodes are a type of seizure. Although different types of partial seizures, including temporal lobe and frontal lobe epilepsy, can appear similar to night terrors, they are usually brief (30 seconds to a few minutes) and are more common in older children and adults.

Treatments
No treatment is usually necessary for routine night terrors. Since they are often triggered in children who are overtired, sticking to a good bedtime routine and making sure your child is getting enough rest can help to prevent them.
For children who get frequent night terrors, it might help to wake your child up before the time that he usually has a night terror. This is thought to interrupt or alter the sleep cycle and prevent night terrors from occuring (it also works for sleepwalking).

Rarely, sleep medications might be used for a short time if your child gets very frequent night terrors.

What You Need To Know
Night terrors are also called sleep terrors or pavor nocturnus.

Similar to sleepwalking and sleeptalking, night terrors are considered to be a disorder of arousal and are a partial arousal from non-REM sleep.

Unlike a nightmare, children usually don't recall having a night terror.

Also unlike nightmares, night terrors usually occur in the early part of the night, about 1 to 4 hours after going to sleep.

If your child gets night terrors, make sure that baby sitters and other caregivers are aware of them and know what they should do if one occurs.

Most children outgrow night terrors as they get older.

I hope this is helpful...I know when my oldest first had one, it scared me so bad. glad to help if you have any more question.
E. in Flower Mound

She's probably too young for nightmares. My guess is teething. Even when you don't see any teeth popping through, it can be going on. My daughter had a terrible time with it. The Highland's teething tablets are great and they are available at Walgreens and Whole Food Market. If she has been around a lot of other kids, always check for an ear infection too. That sort of thing hurts worse once you've been laying down.

Hi P.,

maybe she is cutting some new teeth? Check her mouth to see if you see anything suspicious, and try giving her some tylenol before bed.

:-) H.

P.,
Have ya'll checked to see if their is black mold in the house? I know that should have been reported by the inspector, but sometimes they miss that. Mold and allergies could be the cause of her unhappiness/ poor sleeping habits.
I've heard of glyconutrients working wonders with nightmares disappearing. It's nutrients that have been depleted from our regular diets. If you want to find out more about them, the doctor who discovered glyconutrients is going to be speaking in Ft. Worth at the Botanical Gardens this Thursday evening (tomorrow) from 7:30 - 9. It's free and Dr. Reg. McDaniel (it's a real honor to meet and hear him speak w/ such passion, especially with all the babies/ children he has empacted) would love to talk to you about your sweet girl's condition. I can give you more info if you would like to give me a call @ ###-###-#### or email me back.
I hope you find something, b/c I know w/ the move alone it is a life-changing experience.
God Bless,
A.

Hi,

I have a 19 month old daughter and when she was about 5.5 - 6 months old she started crying in her sleep as well. I thought she was having a bad dreams too. I was told not to wake her up and just try and calm her down by patting her, etc. My doctor told me to video tape in while it was occuring to show her. My daughter's went away, but I did have a friend who's daughter did the same thing after they moved and she put a favorite stuffed animal in the corner of the crib to let her know that she was not alone in her new strange place. This really helped her. You could try it.

I know you have probably already done this but you did not say so I just have to ask. Have you talked to her pediatrician about this? All medical concerns should be looked at first. If there is nothing going on with her health then there is a program that might be able to help "explore" strategies that might get you through this. The Early Childhood Intervention Program in your area will come to your home and do a free developmental evaluation to see if there are any developmental concerns then they will be able to look at the concerns you have with her sleeping. It depends on where you live in Carrollton who the program will be. There is the Infant and Toddler Intervention program ###-###-#### and Special Care and Career Services ###-###-####. You can either of them and they will make sure you are directed to the right program. God bless you and keep you sane while working and taking care of such a precious possession as your family.

Hi P.,
She is having night terrors. It is an imbalance in hormones due to growing. My 2 year old son has this on rare occasions too...started when we moved into our new home. Your daughter is not awake when she is screaming like this, and it is very difficult to wake them. The only way we have found to wake my son is by taking him in the bathroom and turning all the lights on, splashing cold water on his face and yelling his name very loudly to wake up. This goes on for about 45 minutes. Have heard that if you make them pee, they will wake up (kind if hard if they aren't potty trained). There is really nothing you can do to prevent night terrors...they will eventually grow out of them. We have found that if we put our son down to bed too early, he will have a night terror. You might want to contact your pediatrician for more info. Hope this helps!
H.

Hi P.,
Sorry to hear your stress and feeling helpless. I went through some what of the same issues, we finally figured out our son was getting more hungry. At the time he was drinking 4oz and i started to give him 6oz.
I don't know if you have attemped to change her feeding habits if not just see what happens if you feed her more.
Good luck.

Hi P.,
I wouldn't worry too much but if this continues I would discuss it with your pediatrician just to get their input. I will tell you that my son (who is now 3) began having similar sleep issues at approx. the same age. I discussed it with his dr. and she labeled it "night terrors". It's not impossible to have them this early but slightly unusual. It doesn't really "come" from anything specific from what I understand - i.e., stress, etc... Some kids have them and the best thing to do is just be comforting and quiet with them until they relax and go back to full sleep. My son still has sleep disturbances but doesn't wake up screaming (crying) as loud as he did when he was smaller. Now it's more restless sleep and wimpers. He will have times where he "seems" awake during the night almost like sleep walking but yet he's totally incoherent when we try to talk to him, even though his eyes are wide open and he's able to walk around! All very scary I know, but hang in there, I'm sure it's nothing to be upset about but I still recommend talking to your pedi if it continues. Good luck with the house! Take care, S.