Nightmares/Afraid of the Dark????

Last Week at about 10pm Joshua woke up screeming. Both Laz and I ran down to his room and he was absolutely histerical. It took us about 15 mins to calm him down.

He has been unsettled ever since.

At what age can babys have nightmares? He has never done this before and we have never heard him cry like that.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can settle him now at night. We rock him to sleep which takes about 30 mins but if he wakes he starts to cry.

I really wish he could talk so we knew what was wrong. I just feel so bad when I cant comfort im straight away.

Any suggestions would help

love

Jen

PS: His room is not completely dark we leave the hall light on, but could he be afraid of the dark???

This is an interesting topic Jen, and funny you should bring this up now. Jacob woke up 2 nights ago with a terrible scream. He was absolutely screaming is little head off as well and it took quite a while to get him back off to sleep - we were wondering if he had a bad dream or something like that.

For about a week now, we've had some trouble getting Jacob to sleep at night (not every night). I'm unsure if it's just another little phase he's going through (I think some teeth may be causing him a bit of pain) as every now and then we have good runs with sleep, followed by bad patches. Silly me never learns that just because you get a few good nights sleep it doesn't necessarily mean it will stay that way forever LOL! So it's still a rude surprise when he starts to have a few feral nights again. But like I said, I'm not sure if it's his teeth upsetting him or if it is something else as it has largely been night time that we have had problems lately. It had crossed our minds too that perhaps he is a bit frightened of the dark....I guess they are getting to an age where they are more aware of this??

I don't know what to suggest in terms of helping to settle him, as we have been in the same situation, where we have had to rock him back to sleep.

When I went to Maternal Health for alana's app on Tuesday, she actually asked me if Alana had started waking from nightmares. She said apparantely around this time some babies can wake with nightmares. So from the sounds of it quite normal and probably just a stage they go through. Alana isn't doing it so unfortunately didn't go into much more than that.

Update: Jacob is cutting his two top eye teeth!! Eeeks!!! No wonder he's been Mr Cranky Pants!!! That will bring his teeth count up to 10!! Hooley dooley.....

Can you have a musical mobile going that he can turn on/off himself.

Kameron is a bit scared of going to bed with the light off as sometime early last year I think it was, Andrew walked past Kameron's window when he was meant to have been asleep. Being a full moon Andrew actually casted a shadow across Kamerons blind when he walked past and it scared the absoloute crap out of him.

Since then we haven't really been able to get Kameron to bed with the light off, so we got a really low wattage enery saver bulb for his room. We did buy a small night light but it wasn't enough for him. We also used to turn his light off once he was asleep but we discovered he was waking up through the night and turning it back on.

Love

Thanks Guys

I will try the musical mobile and let you know how we go.

I didnt think of a night light as we keep his door ajar and keep the hall light on, but it may comfort him to have a small light in his room :-)

Love Jen