Night terrors are relentless lately

Last night Emily had a night terror and dear god it was like summoning something from the exorcist. At first, not knowing what it was, I picked her up and Sam said put her in bed with us, which of course woke up some mini-demon and a full-blown temper tantrum followed, lasting 10 mins downstairs in the sitting room. A lot of rolling around, red in the face, kicking and screaming until Sam came down, Emily somehow connected with reality, got up and ran to me, heavy breathing and clung to me like a baby monkey for the next hour.

Night terrors have occurred on a few occasions before, but not like this. That moment was terrifying. Nothing seemed to soothe her, I didn’t know whether she had a painful tummy upset, if something was wrong or if I failed somehow as a parent. The last few nights have been tough with so little sleep, and yesterday I almost felt like a zombie trying to catch up with my day job, housework and whatever else I needed to do plus be a fully-functioning mum to an active 18m old. After browsing the internet with Emily draped across my chest, relying on mummy’s heartbeat and slight panicky breathe as a comfort, I read how other parents on chat forums had experienced similar moments of distress, some thinking what were these moments of tantrums but all relating back to the same thing – the nasty night terror. After much research and note taking (Dannii the list as Sam would joke), the main helpers to prevent such a thing include a healthy balanced diet (getting there!), increase daily activity and a better night light- we have one but maybe it’s too dark for her and she prefers a light saber to take over the room. Emily is still in our room, whilst Sam sorts out her nursery, I hope maybe this is just a phase but have read these are common in her age group so can happen whenever and there’s no real time they could just stop.

Hopefully these few days are just a phase and stops shortly. I’m not sure how much longer 2-hours of sleep can work for me and we hate to see how terrified she is and how little we can help her.