night terrors

One of the challenges we have had to face as parents of Jacob is enduring his night terrors and loving him through them.

He hadn't had one for quite a while - months, I'd say, or has it even been a year? - until this week. If you aren't familiar with night terrors, let me explain. A night terror is not a bad dream. There is no waking up and discussing the dream and being comforted. In fact, the person experiencing it doesn't even remember it the next morning and is usually impossible to awaken. Rather, it is more related to sleep walking and other sleep disorders than it is to nightmares. It begins with the child waking up screaming. You go in to comfort the child but are completely unable to comfort him, and in fact, your touches may provoke more screaming and writhing. So, realizing it is a night terror, you wait it out, watching over the child to make sure he doesn't hurt himself. After a while, he calms down, usually abruptly. He is peacefully back asleep, while your nerves are rattled and shaken.

It seems that Jacob's night terrors are often triggered by his allergies and asthma. It seems that if he doesn't have full capacity to breathe, when he slips into a deep sleep he awakens screaming. For a while, when he would frequently awaken screaming, we knew it meant one of two things - he needed to pee and was painfully holding it but unable to wake up enough to get to the bathroom, or he needed his inhaler. If he was very tired, his brain wouldn't even attempt to wake him up to get to the bathroom, but he would wake up with breathing trouble no matter what, and more often than not, he was in the night terror state. In other words, it was no use trying to talk to him. So, we have given many inhaler and breathing treatments through screams. We always figured, at least he was sucking in big breaths of the medicine.

So last night, close to 11 pm, Jacob abruptly jumped down from his bed and stumbled out to the couch and curled up into a ball. He would not respond to me at all, but he wasn't screaming either. I was getting ready to go to bed, and Heath was already in bed, so I went to get Heath to carry Jacob back to bed, thinking maybe he was just making a sleepy attempt to escape his bed. I stayed in our bedroom, but shortly heard screaming, and came out to find Jacob partially in Heath's arms, both sitting on the floor, and Jacob screaming blood-curdling screams and kicking and writhing. We made the normal attempts to communicate with him, and then sat back to wait it out together, talking in soothing voices and keeping him from kicking hard objects. Eventually I suggested that we try putting him in the bed between us, so that maybe he would know he was safe and calm down. Thankfully, it worked. Or maybe it was just time for the night terror to be over. Near the end, when he was still screaming, I was trying to stroke his hair or arm, and Heath reminded me that it doesn't help, it seems to just irritate him more. Finally, he abruptly stopped screaming. He reached up and tucked his right ear in, like he used to while sucking his binky. Heath and I looked at each other and nodded; it was over for now. In seconds he was conked out in a deep peaceful sleep. I laid next to him and let my arm rest next to his raised arm, next to his chest so I could feel his deep, steady breaths, and we let him stay in our bed for a little while.

I am always struck by how our children being in danger brings out a deep, almost primal love from within us. I know the night terrors are harmless, but seeing his face frozen in an expression of terror with mouth wide open screaming still triggers that response in me. The feelings and the situation itself seem to underscore the nature of my relationship with my firstborn. Tumult cushioned by fierce dedication. Perplexity moderated by deep attachment and delight in exactly who he is.

There has been more drama and emotion in my relationship with him than with my other children, and sometimes I say it's because he is more like me, but I don't really know that that's the case. He wants to be near someone all the time; I need time alone. He still throws violent, unpredictable, lengthy tantrums; I indulged only in milder tantrums typical for young children and outgrew them at a typical age. He has resisted almost every direction I've ever given him; I am very uncomfortable breaking the rules. But still, even when he resists me and pushes my buttons, even when I am most perplexed at his insistent struggle to have complete control over every detail of his own life, his emotions resonate with me. I think maybe it is a suspicion that the only difference between him and I is that I am quietly angry and quietly rebellious and quietly struggling to control every detail of my life, while he is dramatically so. (Yet aren't we all quietly struggling with things like this to some degree?) So, hopefully, as I discover ways to confront my quiet anger and rebellion and desire for control, I can help him deal with his. In the meanwhile, I will fiercely love and protect him.