Confusional Arousal

Cailyn's been having these weird sleeping fits for a while now and I've been a little worried that she may have sleep terrors. So, yesterday I got this e-mail (I get these weekly newsletters from parents.com) that had an article about knowing the difference between nightmares and sleep terrors. I read it and it talked about something called "Confusional Arousal". It sounded exactly like what Cailyn's been having. Here's bit of the article that talks about what she seems to have.

"A confusional arousal begins with the child moaning and moving about. It progresses quickly to the child crying out and thrashing wildly. Even if the child does call out her parents' names, she will not recognize them. She will appear to look right through them.

During these frightening episodes, the child is not dreaming and typically will have no memory of the event afterwards. If any memory persists, it will be a vague feeling of being chased, or of being trapped. The event itself seems to be a storm of neural emissions in which the child experiences an intense fight-or-flight sensation. A child usually settles back to quiet sleep without difficulty.

These are very different from nightmares. You won't become aware of your child's nightmares until after she awakens and tells you about them. A child may be fearful following a nightmare, but will recognize you and be reassured by your presence."

It also says that some triggers for it are waiting until she's super tired to put her to bed and irregular sleep schedules. So sure enough, last night she went to bed two hours later than her bed time, and she didn't have a nap yesterday, double whammy. She had another episode of it. This time, instead of trying to wake her up, I took the advice of the doctor who wrote the article. He said to let it run its course and not to hold her down because it would prolong the experience. It worked she went soundly back to sleep in about a minute.

I felt a little bad though because she was talking, saying "Mama c'mon" and "Mama sit" asking me to come sit with her like she does on a regular basis when she's awake. I thought maybe she was having nightmares about me not spending enought time with her or something. Anyway, I'm super glad that I know what she's experiencing now. It's supposedly somewhat common in toddlers, I just hope she grows out of it.