Night terrors & Daycare

[sakura]

We started daycare about a month ago and my DS (18mos) has been waking up screaming inconsolably in the middle of the night after a day of daycare. I think he's having night terrors, he's not really awake-seems to be not seeing and wants nothing to do with us.   We do daycare twice a week and it's like clockwork. He sleeps through the night every night except the days he went to daycare.  Also, when he was an infant he'd get easily overstimulated from loud noises or seeing lots of people and it was guaranteed that he'd have a bad night of sleep. 

We've tried waiting out the nighttime wake-ups and he just cries harder.  The only thing that we've found that works to calm him down (and that I'd rather not do) is let him watch a cartoon on the phone. Then once he's calm we keep him in bed with us until he falls asleep and we move him back to his crib.  I've read that for night terrors you're just supposed to be there but not interact with him. We can't go into his room stay there because my DS and DD share a room and if she sees us hanging out she wants to get out as well. This then creates a bad cycle for the entire night.

In addition to being overstimulated, I think part of the night-terror issue is that he naps less at daycare than at home.  He naps about 1-1.5 hours at daycare. Bedtime is 7:30-8pm and they wake up at 7am.  He still takes 1-2 naps at home. If he takes a nap in the morning he has about a hour of quiet time in his crib in the afternoon. I'm trying to transition to 1 nap a day, but it's slow-going. 

Any suggestions on what we can do differently to handle the night-terrors or avoid them all together? Or things that we can ask daycare to do to help? Thanks

[erbear]

My kids get far more night terrors and crappy sleep when they are overly tired. I'd try putting him to bed early (6:30-7) on daycare days if he didn't have a good nap.

[meij]

My DD had night terrors and they always followed a day where she didn't get enough sleep or went to bed late. They were definitely triggered by being overtired.

It's hard to watch because the things you normally do to comfort make it worse.

Are you saying the phone/cartoons snaps him out of the terrors? We could almost always get my DD to snap out of it by the moonlight or even street lights. My DH opened our curtains one night to try and see better when we were dealing with it and she just stopped and stared out the window. We did it after that and it almost always worked plus she'd just pass back out after. It didn't wake her up, just got her out of the night terror somehow. Maybe that would be a less stimulating way to get him out of it and allow him to back to sleep quicker? It's kind of the same idea.

[sakura]

meij, yes, the phone snaps him out of it. The reason I don't like it is because I think it's too stimulating and that makes him take awhile to fall back asleep. The moonlight/street light sounds like a great idea! I'll give that a try tomorrow night.
erbear do you find that if you change the bedtime that it affects when your kids wake up? We generally have a good routine down and I'm worried about messing it up.

[erbear]

Oct 19, 2014 20:21:25 GMT -5 sakura said:

meij, yes, the phone snaps him out of it. The reason I don't like it is because I think it's too stimulating and that makes him take awhile to fall back asleep. The moonlight/street light sounds like a great idea! I'll give that a try tomorrow night.
erbear do you find that if you change the bedtime that it affects when your kids wake up? We generally have a good routine down and I'm worried about messing it up.

Nope. They actually sleep better/later when they go to bed between 7:30 and 8 (they're older, 3.5 and 5.5) than they do if they go down at 8:30. They wake up a lot if they are overtired. 

[Deleted]

My DD did/does the same thing. Like the pp it has to do with being overtired/not enough nap.
Earlier bedtime or an earlier nap the next day usually helps.

Some of it is also the age. 18 months is prime for that due to brain development/ability to make better connections etc.

I always had to snap DD awake too. We'd walk the entire house, turn lights on, wash her face, flip on the TV...all sorts of things. It was the most sad, pitiful cry otherwise and I couldn't stand to leave her be.

[pinkdutchtulips]

we had to switch dcps when dd was 18 months old and omg .... the night terrors DAILY for 6 months ! a spot opened up at a her old dcp and I joked that the night terrors would stop when she went back to her old dcp .. sure enough w/in a WEEK of being back at the old dcp she was back on track sleepwise - NO more night terrors.

to this day, I have no idea what caused them or what made them stop ?!?