So today Greg had another "episode." The first time it happened was on Wed 3/31/10 and after being asleep for 2.5 - 3 hrs, I heard Greg just start screaming hysterically from his room. I raced into his room to find him kicking and thrashing around in bed while screaming at the top of his lungs. I quickly picked him up and tried to soothe him, which seemed to make it worse. I struggled to hold him, rock him, quietly say "Mommy's right here, you're OK," but nothing seemed to work. After about 8 minutes I gave up and put him on the floor in the middle of the room where he continued another 7 or 8 minutes. It reminded me of a seizure, even though I knew that wasn't what was happening. His body was rigid as he lashed out, his eyes were tightly closed and he just kept screaming. No real tears were coming from his eyes but it was so scary and heartbreaking that I was the one who ended up crying real tears.
Then, this afternoon it happened again. This time, he'd only been asleep for 45 min - 1 hr and I was on the phone with Andrew when the screaming started. I hung up the phone and raced into his room. After 10 minutes of violent thrashing and screaming, I called my neighbor to come over. Her daughter had sleep terrors when she was about 2 yrs old so I had her come over to tell me if she thought Greg was having the same thing. She and I sat in Greg's room while he carried on another 10 minutes (20 minutes in total). I even got out the video camera and recorded about 30 seconds of it to show the doctor if need be. Today's was even worse than Wednesday's. He scratched himself in the face, was frantically trying to climb on a shelf, and it lasted about 5 minutes longer than his first episode. Then, all of a sudden, he seemed to wake up. He blinked, looked up and saw the neighbor and gave her one of his huge, gorgeous smiles like nothing was wrong.
As soon as he was calm, I called the doctor right away. I left a message for them to call me back and then began doing some research online. Sure enough, Greg's episodes seemed to match the sleep terror symptoms with frightening accuracy. Sweating, thrashing about, screaming uncontrollably, hyperventilating, & accelerated heart rate. Not cool, not cool at all. The doctor's office even said that he could start hallucinating, pointing to things and seeing things that are not there. I really hope that doesn't happen.
When the doctor's office called back, they confirmed what I had already assumed - Greg is having sleep terrors. They said the #1 cause of sleep terrors is sleep deprivation. We had company last week/weekend and we were letting Greg stay up until 10 or 11 pm so that might have been the trigger. So we're going to be implementing a strict and earlier bed time. And no more watching sitcoms or adult TV programs while Greg is still awake. We never watch anything bad on TV, but obviously he's picking up something that scares him, whether it be the programming content or even things he may see in commercials. Either way, it's causing stress to my child so it stops today.
The doctor says that children have no memory of sleep terrors. They have total amnesia and don't realize that they've been screaming and carrying on while their parents freak out and worry. So in reality, he's fine and I'm the one that's suffering! It is seriously the worst feeling in the world to see your child scream and not know you're there, not know that you're trying to help. There is nothing I can do to comfort him. Just like a seizure, I have to let it run its course and just be there to make sure he doesn't hurt himself in the process.
I'm exhausted, mentally and emotionally. I think I'll be implementing an earlier bed time for me tonight too!
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