By which I mean not without fear of birds.
Just as I was about to hit "publish post" on the previous entry (which you may actually want to go read first) we started to hear faint noises from Zuzu's room on the baby monitor. We hit mute on the TV, I continued to type and we listened without worry. It wasn't long before we heard Zuzu screaming in terror and it was very clear she was saying, "go away!" repeatedly. I only had to hear it a few times before I was up and on my way in, not knowing if I was supposed to wake her from this state or not, but compelled to do something.
She was HYSTERICAL. I picked her up and she screamed her head off for what felt like ten minutes. But was probably two. She was crying. I was crying. It was a full on tear fest. Finally, after bribes of television, books & bottles she settled for the milk, sucked it down, farted, and fell quickly back to sleep while holding my hand.
We're still not sure if it was a nightmare or a night terror because after doing a bit of googling we've learned that they are different. Whatever it was, I just hope it doesn't become a regular experience.
She's whining again now.
Shit.
If you have any personal experience with this please...do share.
Goodnight?
Friday, January 16, 2009
or maybe not.
3 comments:
See if you can get out what it was that she wanted to go away. Emery had this big black monster named "Oofoo" that we finally tracked back to this nasty dog that always barked at us jumping on the window of the second floor living room of its house. It was far away and no actual threat, but he was terrorized. After that we went to a simple "Go away Oofoo!" and "No Oofoo in Emery's room!" at bedtime. Greta was less than 2 and she picked up that mantra on his behalf also.
Thanks. I was hoping you would remind me of your experience. I couldn't remember the details.
Seems there was a wicked witch involved in Zuzu's dream. Cinderella was there too. It's all so ironic because I sold out of dream catchers yesterday. Two in one day!...so I'm off to make a new one especially for Zuzu girl and tonight we will go to bed chanting. "no bad witches in zuzu's room!"
Miss you!
There is a difference, and it's very clear (my son gets both - I used to as well).
With nightmares, he wakes up and calms down as soon as he hears my voice.
With night terrors, he appears awake, but his eyes are vacant and he is completely somewhere else. He is sometimes upset and crying, kicking and thrashing, or sometimes physically calm but babbling about things that make no sense.
He stays "locked in" the night terror until I carry him out of his room, walk around the house with him, and wait (they say that a change of environment can nudge them out of it).
When he "wakes up", it's like a fog lifts: "Hey! Why am I in the living room?" It's amazing how clear it is that he's back, and actually awake.
If your daughter doesn't calm down as soon as you go in her room, try what we do and take her to another room, and just carry her until it passes. Hopefully that helps.
Good luck :-)
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