One day last week I was busy all day helping out my mother in law so Hanley had to stay at my sister in laws house. She was practically there the entire day and had no nap. That night I put her to bed just like any other night. We went through our routine of brushing teeth, going potty, jammies, reading books, then laying down. About an hour or 2 into her being asleep, she woke up crying. She was laying on her back with her hands up toward the ceiling saying "hold me mom" with her eyes closed. I went to her like I normally would if she wakes up and isn't soothing herself back to sleep. I tried putting her pacifier back in her mouth and she was refusing it which never ever happens, which should've been my first clue.
So I pick her up and sit down in the glider in her room and she just keeps yelling "no mom, no mom, no mom" over and over and over. Nothing would break her from saying that nonstop. I noticed her eyes were still mostly closed so I turned on her lamp and her eyes opened but she got mad. She slid off of my lap, onto the floor and started screaming at the top of her lungs at me. She's never even done that on a bad day so I had no clue what was going on. I was so confused, I just kept saying "what?? Hanley, what is wrong?" My only thought while this is all happening was that she was in pain for some reason.
So Michael comes in her room because he heard her screaming at me and then she just started saying "no dad, no dad, no dad!" And screamed a couple more times... We kept asking her if she was in pain and what was wrong but she just kept saying "no".
Then all of the sudden, like the flip of a switch, she was her sweet normal self and said "hold me mom" and so I picked her up and cradled her while sitting in the glider and she drifted back to sleep almost instantly.
So strange and confusing. I put her back to bed and researched it some and according to Baby Center "Night terrors are sleep disturbances in which a child may suddenly bolt upright in bed, cry, scream, moan, mumble, and thrash about with her eyes wide open, but without being truly awake. Because she's caught in a sort of a twilight zone between being asleep and being awake, she's unaware of your presence and isn't likely to respond to anything you say or do. They commonly have night terror in the first few hours of the night, during deep non-dream (non-REM) sleep. An episode can last anywhere from five to 45 minutes, and when it's over your child falls back to sleep abruptly with no memory of the incident. Don't try to wake her. And expect that your efforts to comfort her will be rebuffed — a child having a night terror really can't be calmed down, and if you try to hold her it may make her wilder."
After reading all of that, it was very clear what Hanley was going through was a night terror. It was pretty much exactly how the website explained it, to a T. Now that she's had one and I am aware, I will react differently and know how to better handle the situation (or lack thereof).
