5 Year Old Anxiety/Not Eating-Sleeping

[7Cs]

Hello,

I am the father of 5 children ages 16, 11, 8 and twin girls who are 5. The past 4-5 days now, one of the twins has had this immense anxiety and what I think are night terrors. She said she had a bad dream and now for whatever reason, this feeling will not leave her. She is not sleeping, has dark circles under her eyes, will not eat (has lost about 4 pounds) and will just cry at any given moment for no apparent reason.

We ask her why she is crying and she'll either reply with "I don't know" or something odd like "I didnt get to ride my bike" or "I wanted to go swimming today". She will just disappear and go into her room and either lay in her bed facing the wall or sit on her bed and weep. It gets worse as night approaches. Bedtime she will eventually cry herself to sleep or her twin sister will distract her enough to get her to sleep but she'll wake up after a couple hours and get into bed with us. At first we tried to put her back in her own bed like we'd normally do but the past few nights we just take her in and get her calmed down so we can all sleep.

I thought it would have passed by now but the fact she has lost weight is now concerning me. She went from 44 pounds to just over 40 pounds and did not breakfast again. Her demeanor has gone from being the cute little happy princess to this quiet, barely audible little cry baby. Intellectually she has always been way ahead of her sister and her sister has usually been the one to have sudden bouts of hysterical crying over small things but its like they've suddenly reversed roles and now the sister is the totally happy and without a care in the world normal child.

I do not know what to do. We've always been able to to figure out the best course of action with our children (the older ones are all boys) but this one has us a little worried. It's like she all of a sudden has a strange psychological problem that we can not help her through.

Any Advice?

Thanks,

Derek

[redneckmom]

My sister had extreme night terrors and was also a very emotional yet very intelligent child.  Her night terrors were so bad she would through her mattress off of the bed and scream all night.  My parents had to cut her hair short because it bothered her so bad she would pull it out.  I (the sister) was very calm throughout childhood and a little scared of her. As an adult she now knows that she has mild ocd.  However, as a child this was extremely hard to understnd and we did not know she had this or how to help her.  Ask her doctor if this is a possibility.  My sister is still very smart and much less emotional now that she has control of her surroundings and an adult's view of how to handle things.  I hope your little princess feels better soon.  Good luck

[savik]

Take her to the doctor and see what he/she thinks. I hope she feels better soon.