Night terrors effect about 1-6% of children, and can be triggered by sleep deprivation, stress, and traumatic experiences. Typically, episodes occur approximately 90 minutes after the child falls asleep. Often the child appears to be awake during an episode, but may not be responsive to any comforting attempted by the parent or guardian. The child may look confused and disoriented while screaming and/or crying in fear. For a child to be diagnosed, there must be frequent, recurrent episodes where it is difficult to wake the child up as the episode occurs. Other symptoms include increased heart rate, fast breathing, and sweating. While most episodes only last a few minutes, they can last up to about 30 minutes before the child is able to settle down. It could be even longer before the child is able to remain calm long enough to fall back to sleep, impacting the child’s quality of sleep for the whole night and the child’s performance in school the following day. Not getting enough quality rest will impact the child’s attention span, emotional control, and memory.
“We stop nightmares in both adults and children,” says Dr. Jolene Ross, director of Advanced Neurotherapy. “I had an adorable little five-year-old girl who used to call me the “Bad Dream Doctor”. It took a few sessions to get rid of the bad dreams, but they stopped happening. They were awful.” Would you like to see the quality of your child’s sleep improve and eliminate nightmares and/or night terrors?
First image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Second image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net