Does your child experience nightmares or night terrors? Does he wet the bed or thrash in his sleep. If so, he may have parasomnia, which covers a wide variety of sleep disorders.
Your crawl into bed after an exhausting day and just as you are drifting off to sleep, you’re startled by the horrified screams of your child. You race down the hall like the demons of hell are after you and find your child cowering against the headboard. You ask him what’s wrong, as you gather him into your arms and he sobs, “Something is after me.” Is this a nightmare or night terrors?
Parasomnia is defined as, “around sleep,” and nightmares are a type of parasomnia. Other types include bedwetting, night terrors, and sleep walking. All types of parasomnia can turn nights into total chaos for the entire family and some types can actually harm your child.
Categories
Parasomnia falls into three different categories. They are paroxysmal, rhythmic and static disorders.
Paroxysmal
Disorders that fall into this category appear without warning and recur infrequently. Just when you think they have disappeared forever, your child has another bout. Paroxysmal disorders are bedwetting, nightmares, night terrors and sleepwalking.
Bedwetting
Also known as enuresis, bedwetting is a common problem that can seriously affect your child’s self esteem. Bedwetting is usually a problem in children between the ages of three and eight, but can carry over into the teen years. If your child wets the bed on a regular basis, talk to his pediatrician so she can rule out all physical problems.
Nightmares
Nightmares and night terrors are two completely different disorders. Nightmares are based on your child’s psychology. He will often remember them for long periods of time, but they aren’t dangerous. Nightmares only occur during rapid eye movement or REM sleep. Your child’s eyes will move rapidly, his breathing will become irregular, his heart will race and bad dreams or nightmares will occur. Slow wave sleep, also known as non-REM sleep is a much deeper sleep.