Nightmare's

April 22, 2006

I tried posting question in the India section without much luck, so I thought I might try here. Our 24 month old son who we just adopted sometimes has nightmares while sleeping, sometimes he has to be consoled 2 or 3 times in a night in order to go back to sleep. The doctors in India told us this was probably related to unknown hardships he and child like him suffered in their early years and these nightmares should go away in time.

I would like to hear from parents whose adopted children also had nightmares and how they dealt with it their situations.

Thanks

Tony

taramayrn

April 22, 2006

I would suggest you post this over at the General Adoptive Parent Support board...you'll get more responses I believe.

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ripples

April 22, 2006

Hi Tony,

While I'm not an adoptive parent, I do know that my adoptive dad had tried cuddling my adoptive brother throughout the night. Apparently soon after my brother was brought into our home when he was 3 years old, he had screaming nightmares for several nights. All my Dad could do was try to console by bro'. And from what I know about my brother's years before he was adopted, it was full of hardship.

While I appreciate your doctor's recognition of the possible causes of your son's nightmares, I'm not sure I agree with the 'they'll just go away in time' approach. If the underlying issues get ignored and unadressed, I'd say that the trauma might just get buried and repressed over time. Good on you for seeking input and possible ways to deal with your son's situation. Perhaps the following pages might be of help? [url="http://parenting.adoption.com/"]http://parenting.adoption.com/[/url] and [url="http://www.bensoc.org.au/parc_search/transracial_fp.html"]http://www.bensoc.org.au/parc_search/transracial_fp.html[/url]