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*grumble* damnit kids
  • TurthipoTurthipo
    Posts: 340Member
    Woke up in the middle of the night to a horror movie style blood curdling scream... It was wicked intense and quickly followed by "moooooommmmmmmaaaaaa!" I originally assumed it was my dd2 because she's been weird lately and randomly waking up.
    As I pulled my groggy ass out of bed I realised it was dd6. Fml not only was she bawling hysterically, she had woke up the toddler. Pissed me off instantly. Tbh because she's not like this usually and she's big enough she could get out of the room to see me instead of screaming her fool head off.
    I asked her what it was and she said, "had a bad dream" (gee, really???) asked her what it was about and she was like "bad ppl" so because the bean was still screaming/crying I told her to go back to sleep and to smarten up (Yup... Mommy fail)
    Dealt with the bean critter, lay in bed frustrated because I couldn't get back to sleep (alarm goes off at 4am)
    So.I guess I have a cpl questions
    (1) *I know it could have been handled better* any suggestions how to do so? Apparently adrenaline at 2am makes me a nasty mommy
    (2) doesn't happen often but anyone else's critter do the 'wake up screaming' b.s.?
    (3) can I write off Monday & start over tmr? LoL sooooo sleepy....
  • Charlotte_SometimesCharlotte_Sometimes
    Posts: 1,757Member
    It happened with our DD at about that same age.   Not a lot, but a few times and it was always shocking as hell.

    I don't do well at all with being woken up, especially with the adrenaline,

     But yeah she's still little and could be scared enough to do that without thinking... sometimes it's hard to remember that six is pretty little when there is a littler one around, you know?  It's perspective.

    I have always tried to just apologize to my kids when I realized I could have handled something better than I did.  My mom never apologized no matter how mean/wrong she was.  I think it's just important for them to know we're human too and tired moms are more likely to be grumpy moms. ;)
    "But a lesson must be lived
    In order to be learned"

    Ani DiFranco, Manhole
  • momsaidnomomsaidno
    Posts: 1,813Member
    my DS8 woke up at 1am screaming about a nightmare. I went in to the room had him tell me the scary part and had him pray for happy thoughts

  • ZidashaZidasha
    Posts: 830Member
    The only thing that might help is maybe make sure the older one is ok and than have her sit out in the livingroom or something till you get the little one calmed down and in bed THAN go back to the other one to talk about the dream and such.

    I was horrible at doing that.  I figured out it was the fact that not only was I being woken up at an insane hour by my screaming older DS but I also had a screaming little one and it was way over whelming for me.  I simply asked him what was wrong and told him to go sit in the livingroom till I calmed down the little one.  Once I got my youngest Ds calmed down I would go back to my older one and re assure him everything was fine and it was just a dream.

    Even if you don't get the little one back to sleep you can always calm her down enough to hold her while talking to DD6.  And afterwards put them both back to bed.....hopefully.


    "I have a theory that placenta is brain matter I push out, so with each child I get dumber and dumber." ~ Unknown

  • jezebeldelilahjezebeldelilah
    Posts: 338Member
    I know that me neighbours kid had night terrors and we could hear her screaming throughout the apartment complex. She sounded like she was being beaten with a hammer. It scared me and she would take an hour to calm down.
    http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/14338/1/How-to-Deal-With-Childs-Nightmares.html
  • sunnymommasunnymomma
    Posts: 2,264Member
    My DD used to have night terrors. More often than not she was incoherant and couldnt verbalize what happened that scared her. It took a while to calm her down and most of the time she didnt remember it in the morning. All I could do was hug and kiss her and say mommas here its ok. the first couple times it happened I didnt handle it well, I didnt understand that she had no idea what I was saying, i tried to talk to her about it the next day to apologize for the momma fail, and thats when i realized she didnt remember! Ha haha I guess no harm done by the fail! But I would suggest like the ladies said above and talk to her about it today when you two have a moment. We also got a dream catcher for above DD's bed when she was older and the nightmares were the problem. 
    “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
    ― John Lennon
  • momofdbbmomofdbb
    Posts: 9,033Member
    All three of my kids have had "night terrors " and their fair share of bad dreams. My 12 year old insisted on sleeping in my bed with me and little brother for several months. He still has bad dreams from time to time. DS 4 has been having more lately. I just hugging Helps them .
    " Wibbly wobbly timey wimey ......." The Doctor
    " I'm a leafe on the wind..watch how I soar ." Wash :((
    " Oh the wall had it comming.' Sherlock Holmes
    yea I am geek !!
  • unforgivenunforgiven
    Posts: 12,889Confessional Manager
    2am adrenaline would totally piss me off too. I probably would have just stayed with her for a while until she fell back asleep and assured her that it was just a dream and dreams can't hurt her. 

    confessional-manager

    "What looks like torture is a time to rejoice
    What sounds like thunder is a comforting voice
    When what is beautiful looks broken and crushed
    And I say I don't know you
    But you say it's finished"
  • jezebeldelilahjezebeldelilah
    Posts: 338Member
    Does she have a favorite poem or song? Tell her to sing or say it when she feels scared. Also if she has a favorite cartoon character or super here she can imagine them dancing. Weird right? It takes the mind away from the thing that scared her.
  • Lanafairy81Lanafairy81
    Posts: 32Member
    It sucks when wee ones do tht, I never had issues with my son doing tht, but my 7yr old neice is queen of it, and insist she sleep with me I sadly cannot sleep with little kids in the bed, I have rods in my back and one kick to the spine can hurt me.. I have made bedtime for her a ritual when i am thinking about it, I do forget to do it sometimes. I onetime took a straw and some string and little things and told her it was a magic wand and to draw a circle around her to keep bad stuff away... it wrked for her, but she will still have nights where shes scared and said she saw a monster and i tell her to draw a circle and tell it to get out of her house in her loudest voice and tell her she can cuss it out if she wants and she usually starts laughing and goes back to sleep. i think sometimes giving them a dreamcatcher, a magic wand, stuffed animal can rly help. When my son was little i use to sprinkle sea salt around his bed when hed go to sleep.
  • GingersnapGingersnap
    Posts: 7,304Member
    I don't know if this is recommended, but this is what we did. My eldest had his second nightmare, he woke up screaming and woke up his little brother. I took the eldest, hubby took the youngest. I did get him out of bed and had him stand up for maybe a minute before we got back into bed, to try to wake him up a little more. I don't know if it helped *at all* because he was still sobbing. We all got into the big bed. I held him and I didn't ask him what happened because he can't really access his verbal abilities when he's upset. I just kept holding him and saying, "It's not happening. You're safe. Mommy and Daddy are right here and nothing bad is happening." He calmed down, but there were some waves of screaming and sobs before he calmed down enough to sleep. Half hour total. Youngest got back to sleep before eldest. Mom and Dad did not sleep well. At all. 
    image
  • AnonUser29
    Posts: 1,182Guest
    Seriously, I think we all go through this at some point in our children's lives. DD calls them sleep stories.. think.. Land Before Time.. I really like @Lanafairy81's idea about the magic wand. A dream catcher pretty much did the trick. The source of our scary dreams seemed to stop when we bought DD a new bed. She would always tell us her bed gave her night mares. I thought this was the silliest thing ever. I mean, after all, it was MY bed when I lived at home (with my grandparents)... nothing had changed.. same mattress and all. But when we moved to this house, we bought her a new bed and put the old one in the spare room, her nightmares stopped. Odd isn't it?
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