4 year old with violent dreams!

About a year ago my son ( 3 at the time) had begun having violent nightmares. He would scream so loud I often felt the neihbors thought I was abusing him. He never rembered his dreams but acted a bit dazed in the morning. This went on for around three monthes. I had gone to our PCP and he said not to worry, that they would go away soon. They did actually. Untill just recently. Maybe about three weeks ago. In the begining they where every night non-stop, but now they are maybe two to three times a week. I now have a six month old. They share a room and when my oldest wakes up I then have to deal with two screaming boys. I'm scared for my son because he gets very violent, in the way of him hitting me and slamming himself into his wall and headboard. What do I do?

[April2]

It sounds like he could be having night terrors. This is actually pretty common in young children. The bad news is there's nothing much you can do about it. It's pretty scary to watch. The child will be completely out of it for awhile and usually doesn't remember the dreams. The good news is children usually outgrow this as they get older.

There are a few things you can do that might help. Since most children who have night terrors are overtired, make sure he's getting enough rest. You might want to put him to bed earlier. Make bedtime as pleasant as possible. Maybe give him a warm bath, read him a book in bed, say prayers, leave a night light on, etc. I'd remove the baby from his room while this is going on. This is only scaring the baby and isn't fair to him. I understand if you don't have enough bedrooms, but it'd be better if the baby would sleep in your room or another room while this is going on. Otherwise, you might be setting yourself up for bad sleep habits for your little one.

One more thing that you can try is if there's a certain time of night that you know he wakes up screaming (if there's a pattern here, say like he wakes up every night around 2am), wake him up before you know he will wake up. Does that make sense? Sometimes you can disrupt the night terrors by waking them up right before they have them. So if you know he usually has them every night around 2am, wake him up at 1:30 or 1:45am. Play around with it and see if it works. It's worth a try. Like I said, the good news is they usually outgrow this as they get older. Just hang in there! It should get better!