Night terrors can be a frightening experience for the parents, more so than the children affected. They most commonly happen 90 minutes after your little one goes to sleep and usually when they are overtired or going through an emotional time in their life. They cause your toddler to scream, cry and wildly throw their arms and legs around. They can appear awake at times and will often focus on something in the room that is not there.
 
Here are five tips on how to handle it:
 
Don’t try to wake them
While your instinct is to try to wake your child up this won’t help to settle them and can actually make it worse. Just stay as close as you can until it’s over and talk to them in a soothing tone. This will help them to drift back to sleep.
 
Don’t touch them
You are probably in a rush to hold and hug your child but you need to keep your distance, unless they are in danger of hurting themselves. Holding them closer can make them become even more agitated and make the terror last longer.
 
Turn on the lights
There is nothing more frightening than your child trashing their body around staring at something in the corner that you can’t see, so turn the lights on. It will at least calm you down and make you better able to handle the situation.
 
Protect them from dangerous objects
Block them from objects that may hurt them while they are moving around. This could be placing a pillow on the side of the bed or on the head rest, moving shelving or toys that they may get hurt from or bed linen that they can get tangled in.
 
Wait it out
A terror can last anywhere between one minute to a half an hour but it is important you stay with them while they are going through it. While it is a little tricky to simply let them get on with it, the best thing you can do is wait until it is over.  

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