You must be able to distinguish between the nightmares and the night terrors, because they have the different causes.

 

The nightmare is a terrible dream.

It usually appears near the end of the night and lasts about twenty minutes, although then it seems to the baby the terrible dream has ended in much shorter time. Waking up, the child is able to recall the nightmare in all the details, and often these details are not only visual, but also auditory and even tangible.

During the dream-nightmare, the baby experiences the extreme anxiety, his pulse quickens, but no movements are observed. This can be explained by the fact that the nightmare usually occurs in the phase of sleep when all the muscles are relaxed.

If the child had the nightmare, waking up, he choked with crying, began to tell his parents (= if, of course, he already knows how to talk) about what had scared him so much. The child’s nightmares are mostly a reaction to the fears that he experiences in the waking state. If they are associated with age-related stages of the development, there is not much to worry about it, but sometimes children’s nightmares are a direct reflection of any stressful situations, dysfunctional relationships between the family members. The children have not yet learned to express their feelings clearly, so the day’s fears are reflected in the dream.

Although no the nightmare is like any other, yet their most common themes are the danger, falling, stalking, and attacking. If the child is very sensitive, emotional, the same dream can be repeated from the night to the night.

If the child had an accident (= even when he was very young), it can be permanently fixed in the memory and then also lead to the nightmares.

In young children, the nightmares are often the memories of the experiences during the day. The horror movies, the horror stories, the scandals, injuries affect the psyche of the baby, resulting in the nightmares later.

How can you help the child when he is waiting for you in the middle of the night and tells about his terrible dream in the tears? First of all treat the baby with the attention and the patience.

At the moment of awakening, he does not distinguish between the dream and reality; it seems to him that the nightmare, he has just seen, is still going on. You should not tell the kid that it was just the dream. He is still so young that he is simply not able to understand the difference between reality and the dream.

Best of all, the baby will be reassured by assurances that everything what he has seen in the dream is not dangerous. Do not force the child to tell his dream, because in doing so he relives the horror experienced. Just calm him down, pick him up, shake him and whisper the sweet words.

But the next day you need to talk to him about what he experienced in the dream (= if, of course, the baby has not forgotten about it himself), and try to smooth out the traumatic situation. Recount his terrible dream in your own words, but at the same time finish the terrible story on an optimistic note.

 

If the child is prone to the nightmares, you should pay the special attention how to prepare for sleep. Avoid exciting outdoor games before going to bed, do not let him look at the scary pictures; do not tell the scary stories. A lullaby song, a heartfelt conversation on an abstract topic assurance that he is loved by everybody and in case of something, the parents will always come to his aid.

 

If you behave correctly, do not focus the child’s attention on his terrible dreams, try to calm and distract him, soon the nightmares will not dream so often, and then completely stop. If your child is haunted by the nightmares, pay the attention to the climate in the family, how your child lives among the adults. By eliminating the causes of the family order, you will take the first step in the process of ridding the child in the nightmares.

Starting from the age of two, the appearance of the nightmares can be affected by the separation, with the mother acutely experienced by the baby, as well as the excessive severity of the parents, lack of love on their part.

At the same time, this attitude of the parents is involuntarily associated with the child’s fairy-tale images of the evil. The psychologists have found that the evil Baba Yaga often dreams the children who experience a callous attitude, and even threats from the mother. Koschey, Barmaley and a terrible uncle are associated with the unresponsiveness, cruelty of the father.

If the child is constantly forbidden something, deprived of his independence, it can also be expressed in the nightmares, when the strict parents appear in the images of the terrible fairy-tale characters. The baby falls into a kind of the closed space: during the day he is haunted by the numerous prohibitions, the threats and at the night-bad dreams. As a result, the negative emotions constantly experienced the excitement, the nervous tension can contribute to the fact that he will begin to suffer from neuroses.

The night terrors are sleep disturbances that occur at the very beginning of the night, shortly after the child has fallen asleep.

They can frighten not only the baby, but also the adults who are watching it. The child begins to mumble, to cry out in the terror, to toss randomly about the bed, he is covered with sweat, his heart is beating strongly. When his parents approach him, he does not recognize them.

The attack of the night fear begins with a frightened whims or screams when the kid “wakes up”, then he begins to move actively, as if trying to escape from the danger. It is still not clear whether the child is asleep at this moment or awake. Although he does not react to the presence of the adults, it is impossible to call him asleep at this moment either. Most likely this is some kind of the transition state from sleep to awakening.

At the moment of awakening, he experiences real symptoms of the fear – his blood pressure rises, his heart rate quickens, the pupils of his eyes widen. At this point, you should not slow down the baby, figuring out what he saw, as it is natural to go into the phase of the quiet sleep. The child simply needs consolation: despite the fact that there are all the symptoms of the fear, the real horror (as during the nightmare), he does not feel. Better put him to bed, pat him on the head, rock him, and the child will sleep peacefully. It is quite possible that the baby will immediately fall into a deep sleep, and the next morning will not remember what happened.