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Night Terrors
When Kids Go Bump in the Night
By Teri Cooper Brown
"I think Denis' terrified scream is permanently etched in my memory," says Dawn Eaton, mother of 4-year-old Denis. "That scream was the beginning of a horrible night. I wanted to get to him as quickly as possible to reassure him. When I got to his room, his bed was empty! I found him in the corner of his closet, sitting in a fetal position, eyes wide open. I spoke to him, but he ignored me, and when I tried to pick him up he recoiled and growled like a bear. The look on his face convinced me that whatever he saw, or thought he saw, really scared him."
At the suggestion of Denis' pediatrician, Eaton consulted a pediatric neurologist, who diagnosed her son's problem as a sleep disorder called night terrors. Symptoms of night terrors may include screaming, sweating, increased heartbeat, confusion, agitation, unresponsiveness and violent shaking or flailing. This sleeping disorder affects only 2 to 3 percent of children, usually between the ages of 2 and 6.
According to Dr. Denie Irdeb of the Emory University/Egelston Children's Hospital Sleep Center, night terrors are one of a group of sleep disorders that include sleep walking, sleep talking and Confusional Disorder. These four disorders are known as Parasomnias or "partial wakings" because they occur when a person is half asleep and half awake. All four of these problems interrupt sleep during the first half of the night, usually about an hour and a half after falling asleep when the child's brain is in transition from one sleep stage to another. Some researchers believe that an immature sleep cycle may be one reason these sleep disorders seem to strike young children.
To understand how sleep cycles work, imagine a "sleep roller coaster." The top of every hill equals very light sleep and the valleys between the hills equal very deep sleep. Our imaginary sleep coaster begins at the top of a hill, or the area of very light sleep. Soon the train starts to move downhill. It arrives at the bottom, or the area of very deep sleep. But the train and the child cannot stay at the bottom (in deep sleep) all night. It must go back up the next hill, traveling again toward the area of light sleep.
