Things that go bump in the night...

I've only ever had two nightmares in my life that I can remember vividly... The most recent one happened in college when my nightmare centered on my getting stabbed and dying. Yes, it pretty much freaked me out.

The first one, though, was much milder and happened when I was just a little kid. I imagined that someone had kidnapped all the characters from Sesame Street and had each one tied up between two plant stakes along a hillside. Okay... sounds pretty silly now, but as a little kid, it had me completely terrified.

Needless to say, my sparse past with nightmares has left me completely unprepared for dealing with tonight's round of night terrors in our toddler.

Heck, I didn't even realize such a thing was even possible until recently. After all, how much life experience does a toddler have that can actually lead to scary dreams? What can they possibly get upset about? All the milk's gone from the fridge? Maybe the red fish and the blue fish escaped from the Dr. Seuss book and are chasing him around the house?

Regardless, tonight we were faced with Tyler's first extreme case of night terrors. He was sleeping soundly in his crib one minute, and screaming his head off the next... completely inconsolable. So, while Jeff was treating Austin to his nightcap, I did what my motherly instinct told me to do, and went in to try to comfort Tyler.

I took him from his crib, sat with him, took him into the guest room to lay with him in the bed, rubbed his back and the hair on his head, offered him a bottle of milk, etc... But, even with all that, it still took at least a good 1/2 hour for his frantic screaming to subside.

In the meantime, I asked Jeff to google "night terrors toddler". Turns out, my motherly instinct still needs major fine-tuning. The article compared night terrors in a toddler to sleep-walking and said not to pick them up or soothe them. Just stand nearby to make sure they don't hurt themselves, let them work through it in their sleep, and be there to comfort them if they wake up.

Too late. We already had a screaming Tyler out of the crib and on the loose.

Eventually, he did seem to "wake up" and calm down. Then, it turned into a game of making him laugh with the assistance of a stuffed monkey, a crazy Loki, and a grumpy Max. But, at least he had stopped crying and finally had a smile on his face.

Much to our relief, he is now once again sleeping soundly in his bed. Hopefully dreaming only of happy things now - like dancing monkeys, a fridge full of milk, and colorful fish in a fish tank where they belong.

Good thing he has that nightmare-proof chicken suit lined up for Halloween -- At least we hope it's nightmare proof... Jeff and I sure don't want any more of those night terror things again if we can help it!