Night terrors and sleepwalking

[fiveallmineblog]

My boys have night terrors. 

And then I have night terrors because to tell the truth, they scare me.  When they are shaking and crying and staring at me and saying "I want Mama" and it's me they are looking at, the hair on the back of my neck rises. I have to resist the urge to look over my shoulder into the dark hallway and to slap them awake.   

We have discovered that night terrors at our house happen when bedtimes are too late and the kids are overtired, or when they don't pee just before they go to bed. Usually a quick trip to the bathroom solves the problem but sometimes some serious back rubbing and soothing is necessary.

We are used to hearing our eldest son walking around, or sometimes running around upstairs, sometimes crying, sometimes talking in a regular voice.  Sometimes, he will run down the stairs and pass us without noticing we were sitting there, staring at him.  He often repeats weird things, his most common being a repetition of ‘I want, I want, I need, I need' while staring with glazed over wide eyes. 

I almost lost my own bladder control one night at bedtime, around 11:30, when I reached around the double doors to my bedroom to hit the light switch, and he was standing up against the wall in the pitch black with his eyes wide open.  Amazingly, my scream didn't disturb him and he stayed there until I reached out, grasped him by the shoulders and steered him back to his bed. 

Once while my hubby and I were deciding whose turn it was to deal with him, he ran down the stairs, through the family room and into the kitchen where he opened the door under the kitchen sink and peed into the garbage can.  My husband and I always stare at him in stunned silence when he does these things, because what can you say?  He's not really there.  He's peed on piles of clean laundry and on his bed while sleepwalking, so we've been very grateful that he hasn't peed on his little brother who sleeps in the bed next to his, often openmouthed.