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Night Freak (Well, Dawn Actually)
"Toast!" was the plaintive cry at five o'clock this morning- the only coherent part of the cry, I should say. Felix was screaming.
We scooped him out of bed and tried to sort him out, though the way things appear when one has been jolted out of sleep aren't always as they are. I thought my kid was awake and screaming. Felix was inconsolable, barking in his hysteria. The only other time I've heard him like this was on the first leg of a flight back to Manhattan from Canada and frankly, his reaction was completely reasonable then. The only word I could get out of him was "toast" but offers of toast and water, even the latest favorite on the food hit parade, watermelon, did nothing to quell his fury. Finally I gave up and plopped my screamer back in the sack where he eventually settled and slept so late that even the dog went in to check on him. When he got up, things were sunny. Toast was enjoyed and yogurt. The terrier got watermelon on his head for his troubles.
So what the Hell happened? I'm not really in the habit of doing Merck manual (yes, I have the lay-person's and the physician's versions on the shelf, why do you ask?) or Internet diagnoses, but I have done some poking around. It sounds as if Felix had something like a "night terror" or a "confusional arousal." If my diagnosis is correct, he wasn't awake at all. All of the noise was sleep-shrieking. And now that I have a possible idea about what was going on, did I handle things with delicate instinctive aplomb?
Nope. I did everything wrong. One isn't supposed to engage with one's kid when he is having a night terror. One isn't supposed to pick up and talk to and feed a kid who is having a night terror. One is supposed to monitor and let the child fall back into a normal (or "normal") snooze all on his own.
So apparently I could have spent the wee hours not covered in strawberry jam and melon juice.
What causes these things, you ask? Well, many things, but given that Felix bucked many naps this weekend and exhaustion is a prime contributing factor to sleep freakouts, I suspect I have my culprit. I hope I do, at least.
posted by Elise at 8:11 PM
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