Advertisements
Yeah. I so don't want to be posting this. But it's gotten to the point where I need some feedback.Nick has been having nightmares at night. Not every night. But on nights that he does, it's usually two (or more). Sometimes you can tell what he is dreaming about because he'll use actual words when he's calling out and trashing about in his bed. Randomly, he's upset that he has to share a toy in his dream.Mostly? He's calling out for Daddy. And mostly? Those are on days that Josh has been gone all day (24 hours) to work at the fire department.And mostly? That leaves me feeling like crap.I mean, my placed daughter doesn't have abandonment issues? But my parented son does? Who feels awful now?And so, my question: do we need to be doing more about this than we are? Obviously, a two year old doesn't quite grasp, just yet, that Daddy WILL be home in the morning. Thankfully, he doesn't yet have the added fear that something COULD go wrong that would make Daddy NOT come home in the morning. When Nick has a nightmare, I wake him up, get him to look me in the eye, which calms him down and he usually cuddles into my side or his blankies and goes back to sleep. Do I need to mention this to my therapist? Blah. What do I do with this one?
Like
Share
Do you know if they are nightmares or night terrors? They're different in nature. H has both on occasion. Night terrors come w/ schedule or routine disruption (e.g. staying overnight for a few days w/ grandparents when we're traveling) Nightmares are kind of random, no particular cause. You're doing the right thing for those. Dreaming and nightmares are just a form of processing, and at 2, they're processing SO much. Honestly, I would not assume that they're deep seated emotional disturbances at this stage. I notice that H is more prone to nightmares right before he masters a new skill. Maybe Nick's doing that, or maybe he's just going through one of the parental preference phases that they go through naturally anyway. If they're actually terrors, though, waking him is not recommended. They'll be over in about 10 minutes on their own. Take a look at What to Expect, the Toddler Years---there's a little section in there about how to tell them apart and what to do. (Also some reassurance about how common both are in toddlers!)
Advertisements
From a brief writing I did on nightmares and night terrors, I'm pretty sure that they're nightmares. (As with night terrors the crying/episode will last 10-20 minutes after natural wake up.) As soon as he sees me, he stops crying. So, again, without any actual education on the subject, I'm really assuming that they're nightmares.And of course, last night he went right to sleep after both of them. And i was up for an hour after each one. FUN! Gee.