My son has night nightmares that I do

The nightmares are unpleasant experiences that sometimes they are so realistic that they lead us to face our worst fears, and the worst thing is that we cannot escape them until they wake up.

Criteria for nightmare diagnosis

Repeated awakenings during the period of greater sleep or diurnal naps, caused by extremely terrifying and prolonged dreams that leave lived memories, and whose content usually focuses on threats for their own survival, security or self -esteem. Awakens usually occur during the second half of the sleep period.

When we wake up from the terrifying dream, the person quickly recovers the state oriented and awake (unlike the confusion and disorientation that characterize night terrors and some forms of epilepsy).

Nightmares, or sleep alteration determined by continuous awakenings, cause clinically significant discomfort or social, labor or other important areas of the individual's activity.

Nightmares do not appear exclusively in the course of another mental disorder (P. eg., Delirium, posttraumatic stress disorder) and are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (p. eg., drugs, drugs) or a medical disease.

During the episode it is common for the child to feel abruptly in bed and begin to scream and cry with a facial expression of terror and signs of intense anxiety. Unlike what happens in nightmares, it does not usually wake up easily despite the efforts of other people who try to get it out of the unpleasant trance. If it is finally achieved, the child is confusing, disoriented for a few minutes and with a certain sense of fear but not as accused as in the case of nightmares.

There is no memory of the dream and if it has not been aroused totally again to sleep immediately without memory of what happened the next day. Night terrors usually appear in phases 3 and 4 of the Non -rem Dream. Emotional tension and fatigue seem to increase the appearance of these episodes.

Recent traumatic facts (hospitalizations, separation from the mother, death being loved, etc.) They are risk factors that can trigger and maintain episodes. Some authors defend a hereditary component in night terrors and even genetic factors are pointed out (96% of the subjects of a study with night terrors had relatives in the first, second or third grade with the disorder). However, this should not minimize the influence of external or environmental factors such as stress, whose presence is associated very evident with some of these episodes.

What to do if your child has nightmares

What to do if your child has nightmares:

1. Do not wake him up.
2. As with a sleepwalking person, you don't have to wake it up. You are guided to continue sleeping but without interfering in your process.
3. Light the lights so that your child does not confuse the shadows and tell him phrases of calm.
4. If your child has a night terror you will not be able to comfort him, and if he is small and want to take it, he may be irritated more. Therefore, you do not take him that your child is in danger of harming himself or if you see that he will really comfort him.
5. You never shake, you shake or shout your child because that will make you more nervous.
6. Talk to her soft and calm. If it is agitated a lot, put in the middle of it and any obstacle close to you that can present the minimum danger.

This article is merely informative, in psychology-online we have no power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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