So Owen freaked us the hell out last night. We were in a hotel, had put him to bed around his normal time, and that was that. We also decided to go to bed early, so we were in the room with him, and he made his usual little noises while he was sleeping. Tom and I had a hell of time trying to sleep—but that’s our fault for going to bed early in a water park hotel with a hundred kids running up and down the halls screaming. Anyway, no idea what time it was (though it turned out to be about midnight) I hear Owen start whining and whimpering. It was fairly quiet, so I thought it might just be something normal that we don’t hear because we’re not in the same room. Then it got louder and more insistent. And it scared me, because he’s NEVER EVER done that. I gave it a minute and the nurturer in me had to go get him.
By this time, Tom has heard him and woken up and we’re both kinda freaking out because he’s now CRYING and it’s the worst little cry and it’s breaking our hearts. He sounded like he was having trouble breathing, so I was really freaking out, and a hundred things were going through my mind. (In the end, I think it was just from the heavy crying.) But I was envisioning us having to go to the hospital because he was having an allergic reaction or something…and we weren’t in our hometown, and I had no idea where the hospital was (or even if there was one). Luckily Tom got up and took him for a few minutes while I tried to calm down. He seemed to be calming down so I went to the bathroom and apparently when I shut the bathroom door (and cut the light to the room) Owen freaked out again. So we were thinking bad dream or just unusual circumstances (he hadn’t gotten his best naps that day)—we didn’t know but he was certainly not himself and totally freaked out.
He calmed down again so Tom put him back in the crib and he instantly started crying again. It was horrible and we felt totally clueless. We got him out again and tried a bottle, thinking back that he hadn’t eaten much dinner. He drank that plus ate a yogurt, so he was certainly hungry. But hungry enough to wake him up and make him cry like that?
Needless to say I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night. We left the bathroom light on with the door open, and I was listening to his every move and every sound, checking the monitor every 10 seconds when he was [finally] quiet to make sure he was still breathing. And on top of that I was too hot, then too cold, too hot, too cold, ad nauseum. And Tom did fall asleep and was snoring. So I might have gotten two hours of piecemeal sleep from 9p-6a.
I posted on Facebook, and a friend said it might be night terrors. 88| I hadn’t thought of that, and Googling said it might be something similar (confusional arousal; night terrors are technically in older toddlers and are much, much worse).
Episodes of confusional arousals in children may seem bizarre and frightening to parents. The child can have a confused look on his or her face and “stare right through” you. Children may become more agitated when you try to comfort them. Most episodes last from five to fifteen minutes. But they may last as long as thirty to forty minutes in some youth.
This definitely sounds like what happened—and could have been brought on by a handful of things including unfamiliar situation, stress, and inadequate rest (which was definitely the case that day).
After talking to some other parent friends about what happened, they said it was most likely just a little nightmare, compounded by waking up hungry and in an unfamiliar place, then getting scared again when the (bathroom) light went out and not wanting to go back to the unfamiliar crib.
UPDATE: He slept fine the next night, so we’re hoping it was a one-time thing.