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CRAZY middle of the night Tantrums

I have a daughter that just turned 6 in June. She is good kid with a great personality. We are having MAJOR problems with her in the middle of the night. She basically slept in our bed until she started Junior Kindergarten 2 years ago and is now in her own bed. She used to have these crazy spells waking up from naps when she was younger but now they are happening in the middle of the night, usually about 3-4 hours after she falls asleep. These are so mind boggling that my wife and I just don't know what to do. She will wake up crying and come into our room. One of us will take her back to her room and she will continue to cry and the crying increases more and more and louder and louder. She will come into our room 3 or 4 times and by the 4th time she is going bonkers. We will get her back in her bed and she will kick the walls so hard that it knocks things off the wall in our room. During this time she is crying and yelling so hard her voice begins to crack. Last night was more than either of us could handle and we started yelling at her and eventually spanking her. She was swearing at us, telling us she hates us and all in a very scary voice almost like she was possessed. We will tell her to get to bed and she will SNAP yelling at us to get out of her room and than SNAP again when we try to shut her door and leave. The yelling from all of us was so loud we were afraid the police were going to be called at 1:30am. Our daughter continued to yell and scream and kick the walls, kick the door, swearing and telling us she hated us and we just went to our room hoping she would calm on her own. She then comes into our bed jumping up and down freaking right out and when my wife tried to ignore her and put her back to her my daughter bit her in the back and left very noticable teeth marks. Than I had jump in and take her back to her room and shut the door. My wife went back in to try to show her what she had done to her and she pulled my wifes hair so bad that my wife was pulling hair off her head that my daughter got loose. We put her in the shower to try to calm her down which it did a little but not totally. After the shower she was in bed and asleep within about 10 mins or so.

We are at our wits end here and don't know what to do. It makes you feel like you are a bad parent because you cannot control your child AT ALL!!!!!! She would NEVER EVER do something like this during the day.

I must add that we also have a 16 month old daughter but our oldest was having these before she arrived but they have gotten worse the older she gets.

PLEASE give us some advice on how to control these tantrums and control our own minds.

Thanks,
Chipper1010
7 Responses
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535822 tn?1443976780
Hi April yes they do, my dd had nightmares a lot as child but it was mostly when she was upset by anything , usually at school. Find out if anything is happening there, mine went through a phase of bullying at school and that affected her a lot ,once it was stopped by the school she did in fact recover a lot , she still had some especially if she was over tired . Perhaps curtail the napping on the couch, is the TV still on , what does she watch anything scary, as that's another thing can upset them,especially if she falls sleep watching  Good luck hope you find some answers.
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Avatar universal
My 10 yr. old daughter is having similar episodes.  Last night was 2nd or 3rd time and it always happens within 20-40 minutes of her falling asleep on the couch.  We can hardly wake her up and when we do she is a challenge to say the least.  She screams and kicks and lashes out and hits and/or kicks her dad and I sometimes. She yells so much that I can't understand what she is saying and she almost sound like she is possessed, that's the best way I can describe it.  She remembers what happenned a little while later when she has calmed down and is very upset that she behaved the way she did.  She asked me if something was wrong with her and I told her I didn't know.  I am trying to find out if night terrors happen in older kids and they happen just after the child falls asleep.  My research hasn't shown this, but it is sure what it sounds like.  Good luck with your daughter, it's not her fault.  
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372900 tn?1315512302
It sounds like she suffers from night terrors.  They are extremely violent "dreams" and it's really hard for a child to wake from them.  Don't confuse them with nightmares.  Nightmares are bad dreams that happen during REM (when you are dreaming and are paralyzed as in your body doesn't move and you can't scream or cry, etc).  Night terrors are completely different.  They happen in between states of REM (where you still have the ability to move, scream and cry).

Think of yourself about to fall asleep but then you fall off a building.  It's sort of the same thing only a lot more terrifying and realistic.  My sister used to suffer with them and my mom would come in and talk to her to help her wake up.  She would stroke her back or hair to calm her.  When she was awake she would then have her crawl into bed with me so she felt safe.  That is probably why your daughter wants to sleep with you afterwords.  You and your wife are her safe haven.  When I say these dreams are realistic they are a million times worse than your worst nightmare and you can't help but believe they are really happening.  My sister actually would sleep walk (which sounds like your daughter is doing) while having a night terror.  The worst thing you can do is wake them up immediately.  That's when they can actually hurt themselves (my sister almost fell down a flight of stairs once when my mom tried to wake her).  I just remember waking up to bloodcurdling screams and my sister lashing out violently.  They really can't help it and are fighting back from the terror of what is going on.
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Avatar universal
Hi,
  It sounds like night terrors to me; I had some experience with the terrors when my daughter was about 12-24 months.  She would wake up crying/talking and just didn't seem like she was "there".  She eventually outgrew them.
  There really isn't anything you can do except remain calm and keep them from hurting themselves.  I would soothe her by humming and trying to rub her head or back.
  Talking/reasoning with her and spanking probably won't help as she probably isn't really conscious and probably will not even remember these episodes the next day.  
  Is it possible to allow her to fall back to sleep in your bed and then carry her back to her bed?  I hope this helps.
Helpful - 0
509215 tn?1363535823
I wonder if she's having severe nightmares or hallucinations? Is she on any type of medication that could be affecting her? If you can't get this under control, maybe going to her physician and getting her referred to a child psychologist or child psychiatrist may be able to help you. They may be able to find the underlying problem. Maybe a allergy could be the cause of all of this stuff. I can give you this example: I grew up with this boy who had such severe allergies all his life that he had to wear hearing aides. The doctors and his parents honestly believed that he was born deaf. I don't know what happened to make them test him for allergies but they did. Once they did this and he was receiving the proper treatment for his allergies, he no longer had to wear the hearing aides anymore. All of this stuff that was happening to him also affected his way of talking. He could talk but not very clearly and had to use sign language as well. Another example would be my one cousin was born with a heart defect and always had to be on medications. I remember this one time that she was sick and had to be on something for whatever was making her sick. She looked like she was awake at one time but she was screaming and carrying on about something she apparently saw in front of her but none of us saw it. She thought that something was going to attack her. When she finally woke up, she didn't remember a thing about it but she was frightened because she was a young kid. She was hallucinating. It was some kind of medication that she was taking that made this happen to her. I think that since this has been happening since she was little, maybe you should get a medical opinion. Some medications do have side effects that will cause nightmares/hallucinations/ or allergies. Good luck.
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535822 tn?1443976780
Dr's Name is Doctor Kennedy he is very good anfd hopefully have some good words of advice for you.
Helpful - 0
535822 tn?1443976780
It sounds to me as if you have some major problems with child /parent interaction ,if would be a good thing to seek some counselling for you and .your daughter, You are sending mixed messages, there could also be some jealousy issues regarding the other younger child. You have got into a battling/confrontational situation here, you are the adults its only you can change this, she is the child.We also have on MH a very good child behavior expert /Doctor if you go to the forum pages you will see it on the right. Good Luck
Helpful - 0
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