Each night, roughly two hours after Natalie Nugent would put her son, Wilkie, to bed, she’d brace herself, one ear trained towards the little boy’s bedroom for signs of another night terror. Between the ages of six and seven, they’d happen three or four times a week and last for several minutes – sometimes as long as ten. And there was almost nothing she or her husband could do to stop them.
“He’s always been a restless sleeper and he frequently slept walked. He still does,” the Sydney-based mother told Mamamia. “But this was different. He would sit up in bed, start screaming, eyes wide open, looking like he was possessed or something. Sweating profusely… There were instances where he’d run the length of our hallway, screaming, thrashing his arms around.
“It was really frightening at first.”
Trying to wake Wilkie was fruitless. Restraining him seemed to make him more distressed.
“We just eventually learnt it was better to not worry about whether he was awake or asleep, just to sort of be with him in the moment, and make sure he’s actually safe,” she said. “Like with the worst one. That was the night where he actually got into his wardrobe and started pulling clothing out and thrashing his arms and legs around, screaming. That was scary, but we just calmly directed him out of the wardrobe and then sort of put him back into bed.”
Wilkie is now ten, and his night terrors appear to be a thing of the past. But for those two years, it affected their whole family; “We hardly went out because you’re concerned that a babysitter might not know what to do. So it does restrict you,” she said. “It was hard.”
It’s an experience thousands of parents have endured. Most sound similar. “He screams like someone’s set him on fire.” “It’s like they’re possessed.” “He’s screaming in fear.” “He’ll jump up and down on his bed, screaming.”
What are night terrors? And how common are they?
Night terrors, also known as sleep terrors, are strong feelings of terror or panic experienced during sleep. They typically present in children under the age of ten, last several minutes and can occur in varying frequency – in some cases, up to several times a week.
Specialist sleep physician Dr David Cunnington, of the Sleep Health Foundation, explained that night terrors occur when two parts of the brain fight against each other during deep sleep, usually a few hours in.
“You get this hybrid state where the cortex – the part of the brain that says ‘It’s OK, this is where we are, it’s not a big deal’ – remains asleep, but the brain stem – the part of the brain that drives the fight-or-flight response – is fully awake,” he said. “So there’s this escalation of adrenaline drive.”
This process also underpins nightmares, but Dr Cunnington notes that night terrors are typically shorter, far more intense and often the child won’t remember them in the morning.
“The stereotypical events a nightmare is where someone who’s got that visual imagery, dreamlike imagery. And so when they wake up the recollection of that imagery is distressing,” he said. “Whereas with a night terror, the kids can’t necessarily describe what happened beforehand, or what the dream was about. But there’s just this abrupt awakening with an absolute sense of terror; screaming, fast heart rate, high levels of distress. They’re almost inconsolable.”
Figures suggest between one to five per cent of children and one per cent of adults experience night terrors. But Dr Cunnington expects that the prevalence among children, in particular, is likely to be much higher: “It’s pretty common as an occasional thing for kids – in fact, it’s almost universal as an occasional thing. So that ‘one to five per cent’ is maybe where it’s occurring more nights than not, is causing major household issues and the patient ends up in their doctor’s office.”