Category: Kids & Parenting

After a week of racking my brain, consulting toddler how-to books, Babycenter, and Dr. Google I have determined that Zach is having night terrors.  I keep reading and reading and every new description of night terrors I read describes exactly what he is going through.  Each description is slightly different, but the main points are the same and nearly every one states that in children stress and overtiredness may be a contributing factor.

Since we took his pacifier away, a little over a week ago, Zach has been waking up screaming pretty much every night.  It lasts anywhere from a few minutes to well over an hour.  Sometimes it is only once and then he settles back in for the night (usually in our bed).  Other times he settles down but still wakes several times throughout the night screaming and crying out.  When he has screamed it out as much as he can and is finally exhausted, sometimes he will let me hold him and rub his back until he drifts off to sleep.  Other times he still screams at my touch.

There are many thoughts and ideas about how to handle the night terrors, but I’m still stumped as to what I should actually do.  There is no true cure, only suggestions for alleviating the stresses that may be causing the night terrors.  I’m pretty sure that Zach’s main stress is not having his pacifier.  This leads to a difficult bedtime routine, restless sleep, and eventually being overtired.  I’m sure it also doesn’t help that he’s starting to refuse to take a nap in the afternoons.  I know where the stress is, but how do I fix it other than to give the pacifier back?  I don’t want to do that, but I really, really, need a good night’s sleep.

The worst part of all of this is that I have to sit there and just watch as my son screams and thrashes around on the floor.  I feel so helpless and all I want to do is to just hold him and make it better, but my touch seems to upset him even more.  All I can do is watch and make sure that he is safe.  If I get too close, I’m bound to get hit or have something thrown at me.  I’ve already taken several kicks in the belly and other various places, an elbow to the nose, and had a dog bone thrown at me.  Once he finally settles down enough and I can hold him, I never want to let him go.

Last night, during one of his worst episodes, I took out my camera and actually video taped him.  I’m not sure why I did it other than that I was looking for answers.  He had settled down quite a bit by that time, but was still crying and throwing himself around a bit.  After the fit stopped, we were snuggling on the floor watching Blue’s Clues (in an effort to relax him a little more before going back to bed) and I played the video back on the camera.  He wanted to see what I was watching so I let him.  He looked up with a concerned look that nearly broke my heart and said, “That’s me.  Me crying?”  Yeah baby, you were crying and so is Mama (on the inside).

Everything I read says that it will pass, but how do I survive in the meantime?

I had this post all laid out in my head about how great of a weekend we had.  I was going to write about how we finally took Zach’s pacifier away and how well it was going.  I was going to write about how much fun we had going to my nephew’s soccer game and picking out pumpkins at Red Barn Farm.  But those things all seem like distant memories now after the night we had last night.  It’s a good thing we have pictures because my brain is fried today thanks to a certain little two-year-old who decided there was no need to sleep last night.

I think I might have managed to get about four hours of sleep last night total and for a pregnant woman who wants to sleep all day long, that really isn’t enough.  I feel like I spent all night out at a smoky bar knocking down shots, but I didn’t even get to enjoy it.  Zach was in a fine mood this morning of course, but I’m not looking forward to the report when I pick him up from day care since he spent most of the night screaming and thrashing around instead of sleeping.

I want to blame it on the pacifier.  We took the pacifier away Friday night (with the help of a friend who offered to keep him for the night).  My friend, who is also Zach’s previous day care provider, managed to convince Zach to throw away his “noonie” while he was at her house.  He went all night without it and did very well, so I decided this was the weekend we were going to get rid of it for good. 

He did really well throughout the weekend without his pacifier.  There were a few minor breakdowns with begging and tears, but I stuck to my guns and didn’t give in.  I kept telling him that we threw all the noonies away and that since he was a big boy now he didn’t need them.  The tears would subside after a few minutes and some creative distraction techniques.  I was really proud of him for handling it as well as he did.  I expected much more screaming and definitely more tantrums.

All was well until last night.  I started trying to get Zach to bed around 8:30, which is his usual time.  He was fighting the bedtime routine a bit, but I figured I could get him settled down.  Apparently I was wrong.  He kept getting up and crying giving me those sad little puppy dog eyes until I caved and let him stay up just a little longer.  I didn’t manage to actually get him in bed until after 10:00, and that was only because I took him to bed with me.

Then he woke up.  Sometime around 2:00 a.m. he woke up crying.  I’m not even sure he was completely awake at the time, but the crying was loud and would not stop.  Then came the thrashing, hitting, and kicking.  The more I tried to figure out what was wrong the more angry he seemed to get.  Then he started screaming for the noonie.  I wanted so badly to just go back to sleep that I almost gave in.  I really, truly, considered getting up and giving him the dang pacifier just to make it stop.  Then I realized that it would ruin all of the progress he had made over the weekend so I sucked it up and just tried to hold him.

Eventually, he gave up asking for the noonie and asked to go watch TV.  So I let him.  I couldn’t calm him down and I knew that the TV would soothe him a bit, so I unfolded the futon and we watched TV.  While he watched Little Bear and his friends, I cried a bit inside because I wanted so badly just go back to sleep already.  When the show was finally over, we turned the TV off and went back to bed where he proceeded to chatter for the next 45 minutes or so before finally going to sleep.  We both slept restlessly for the remaining 2 hours or so that we had before it was time to get up.  I spent most of that time contemplating how a 33-pound two-year-old could manage to practically push me off the edge of the bed.

It’s a good thing he’s so cute most of the time, because otherwise I think I’d be ready to trade him in today.  All I can think of is what in the heck am I going to do when I have two?

Sometime around the middle of September I started thinking about costume ideas for Halloween.  I was trying to come up with something fairly simple for Zach that wasn’t scary as practically everything he sees right now is “scary”.  He was really into Curious George at the time, so I thought that would be a good choice for a costume.  I searched and searched for the perfect Curious George costume for him, brought it home, and he was terrified of the dang thing.

He screamed while I forced him to try it on, then begged to take it off.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I was out of ideas and was hoping that his fear would subside by Halloween.  I was scheming and planning trying to figure out a way to make him like the costume.  I was even planning to go so far as to have his cousin try it on.  Zach wants anything and everything that his cousin has and vice versa.  I figured there was a pretty good chance he would want to try it back on after Ryan did.

While I was still trying to figure out what to do about the Curious George costume, Zach’s cousin Ryan formed an obsession with the movie, “A Toy Story”.  Ryan wouldn’t go anywhere without his hand-me-down Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys.  So guess what Zach wanted all of a sudden?  Buzz Lightyear and Woody of course.  He didn’t know why they were so cool because he hadn’t seen the movie, but Ryan had them so he had to have them too.

I decided that if he was going to get obsessed about the toys, then he might as well see the movie.  I picked up a copy while we were wandering around Wal-Mart waiting for a prescription one day.  We went home and watched it right away and Zach was in love.

After trying again to get Zach to put on the George costume, I finally gave up and decided to take it back.  It just wasn’t worth the fight.  After talking to my sister, I decided that maybe I should just suck it up and get something different.  I knew that Ryan was going to be dressing up as Woody and thought it would be pretty cool if Zach was Buzz Lightyear.  I asked him over and over again if he wanted to dress up like George or Buzz and his answer was very consistent.  Buzz it was.

Thanks to my sister-in-law who works at the Disney Store (and gets a very nice discount) we finally got our hands on the costumes yesterday.  I don’t think I have ever seen two happier faces than I saw yesterday when we showed them their costumes (except maybe when I was in 6th grade and my sister and I got New Kids On The Block tickets for Christmas).   Those boys were absolutely glowing.
 

I wanted to wait until Halloween to show off the costumes, but I couldn’t resist posting this picture.  They are just too cute!  I already had to promise Zach this morning that he could wear his Buzz costume for a little while when he gets home tonight.  He wanted to wear it to school today but I had to veto that.