Night Terrors

“Dada! Dada! Help! Help me! DADA! HELP!” This is what I’ve been woken up to almost every night since we’ve been back from Yellowstone. For the last month, Troy has been waking up with night terrors. He runs halfway down the stairs and screams that phrase over and over while I try to rush to him. The first couple of nights, it scared the living daylights out of me, because I thought he was injured or being attacked by something. But now, I’m a little desensitized to it. In fact, most nights I’ll wake up around 3:00 am and wait for it. I can hear his feet pounding rapidly across the floor heading to the stairs, and I’ll get up and start heading that way.


And the issue, according to Troy, is that he’s scared of being alone. Before our trip, he was doing pretty well making it through the night in his room by himself. But now, he can’t make it a single night. I’ve tried taking him back up and putting him to bed, but by then he’s so awake that he won’t go back to sleep. He’s scared himself so badly and convinced himself that monsters are out to get him, and he can’t be alone at that point. And he’ll come back downstairs every 15-20 min. I’ve tried laying up in his bed until he relaxes back into sleep. That’s more successful, but not guaranteed. The only thing that’s guaranteed to work is to let him sleep in the big bed with my wife. He’s content knowing that someone is with him.


The problem for me is that I have a very difficult time going back to sleep again after that. My heart’s racing, the blood is flowing, my mind is awake, and I’m done. So, night after night, I get too little sleep, and I’m exhausted. I’ve started trying to take naps during the day in between meetings to compensate, but it never feels like enough. I’ve tried talking to Troy about it, telling him that monsters aren’t real and giving him forewarning that I won’t be staying with him all night, but it seems to make no difference.