ok dh and I have encountered a problem with dd that we dont know how to handle.
The last 1/2 doz times she has woken up in the middle of the night, it may be a bad dream or waking from coughing and can't sleep ( she has that now a nasty cough and keeps waking up)
We go in to her and first she wont use her words to tell us what she needs or wants, she just crus, acts like she is half asleep, not with it, but the problem is, we try to comfort her, rub her back talk to her , she does not want that gets us, she wont settle, she wont let use hold her she just kicks and screams, if we just leave her she throws a fit and screams even louder, crying to the point she makes herself sick.
i dont know what to do. if i cant talk to her, hold her rub her back or leave her to fall asleep ..what do I do?? I get so frustrated cause she keeps crying. out of being frustrated I will say if you dont stop crying you are going to get a spanking, sometimes that works, but i dont spank, i just say it cause I am SO frustrated. it feels terrible when you can't even comfort your own child.
its like ..fine then you dont want me I will leave.
usually after about 1/2 hr she will get so tired she falls asleep and in that stage I can rub her back. But for the most part I cant even comfort my child .
What do I do??? This is VERY frustrating. :cry:

Hmm maybe its night terrors...She's the right age for them...Night terrors scare the wajeebas out of little children and then when you try to comfort them they don't realize you're trying to help and freak out more...I've had a few nieces with this problem...We always forcefully removed them from the bed and took them to another room to rock and comfort them..The livingroom for instance..Is she afraid of the dark? Mine formed a fear of the dark after staying with MIL for a few days..Up until then she'd never used a night light...It lasted about a year and now we're back to sleeping without a light...

Hope its just a stage and she passes through it quickly [praying]

If she can't be comforted, it sounds like night terrors. My kids both went through phases when they had them. They aren't awake, which is why you cannot give them any comfort. It is a very difficult thing to go through as a parent....not being able to comfort your child.

Here is a site that has some information. I haven't looked through it all, but a brief glance looks like it might have some helpful info for you.

http://www.nightterrors.org/

Night terrors was my thought too.

My eldest has experienced a handful of them. Oh my goodness, it's so weird :shock: He 'wakes up' and comes into the room with us, but looks frightened, he's frantically looking all around. We talk to him, he sometimes he responds, but he's not "all there" KWIM? We would try to comfort him to no avail. He may come and sit for a moment but then jump up to dart around the house again. Other times he's done stuff like "I want mommy I want mommy!!" And I'm sitting right THERE. I would tell him "I'm here honey, I'm right here, what do you need?" And he would look 'through' me. He's done the same thing asking for dad.

He can never really explain what's going on, what his dream was or anything. And never speaks of it in the morning.

As for how to deal with it...
Just sit back and let her ride through it. Keep her safe. Like if she's walking around, keep the area free from obstacles. Do NOT try to restrain her. If she wants held or hugged briefly fine, but as soon as she begins to squirm away, release! As in night terrors, they are already feeling trapped/constricted/restrained. Hence, no comforting measures working, because our comforting measures involve touching. They don't want that. That's what they're trying to get away from. She may or may not talk through it. Just ask her every once in a while if she's ok now, if she's awake. You'll have to pay attention to her actions there, not words. She will likely say she's awake and even ok before she really is over it.

These can be scary for the parent to watch. I know for us it was like our child was possessed. It was really freaky. We discovered it was more likely to happen when he was overtired. He's not had any now in quite some time. I can't recall for sure if he's had one since living here and that's been 10 months now. But he had a handful of them between 7 and 8. One every couple of months on average.

I recommend doing some reading about it. It's ok, nothing is wrong with the child. It's just nice to read up on it to ease your own mind.

thank you, that is what is sounds like. She acts like what you said TARA.
like she 'not all there'
I guess I can just try to be there for her. Now i feel really bad for getting frustrated and saying 'if you dont stop that you are getting a spanking', thinking it was a fit she was throwing.

How old is she? That sounds exactly like what we went through just about a week ago with our dd. It was so strange and ours couldn't be comforted either. She would ask me to hold her and then she would jump out of my arms again and would say "don't touch me". DH and I were very freaked out.

She 2 1/2 yrs old will be 3 end of MARCH

You might want to check with your daughter's doctor. I agree it sounds light night terrors, but you might want to rule out anything more serious such as sleep apnea, or seizures. Is she still taking a nap during the day. Her fussiness sounds like she is over-tired. I will pray for her sound sleep!

I agree, dd has done the same thing since she was about a year old, not so much now. We have learned that you can't touch her, even though your first instinct is to pick them up or hold them. WE just sit there and let her cry and wait till it's over, touching makes it worse.

We figured this out b/c my sister, who is 12, has walked in her sleep since she was 3 and does the same thing if you try to touch her. If you hold your hand out and tell her to follow you she will. So with dd when these night tremmors come on I pat my hand on her pillow an say,"It's ok, lay back down", usually this works but not always. I find they occur after we have had a busy day.

Good Luck, it can be scary but it eventually passes.