Parents in our pediatric wellness program get more than just a trusted and experienced provider for their children, but access to our childhood wellness guidance resources online 24/7. As we combine the best of functional, conventional, Christian, and years of parenting without driving you to unnecessary fear, you get our guidance for parenting in this fallen world. Here we offer a sample of our wellness resources for ages Newborn through Five Years that accompanies your sleeping well at night knowing we will work with you to individualize your child’s health care.
Nightmares and Night Terrors
We all have dreams, some good and some not so good. As adults we can distinguish dreams from reality, but kids are still learning- so their nightmares may be a lot scarier for them. In the coming years, your child may wake up rather upset by the scarier ones. Helping them to understand the difference from reality and being present will go a long way in calming them. Helping them develop a regular bedtime routine also aids them in settling, hopefully avoiding some nightmares. On the other hand, reading scary stories or discussing scary images before bed may lead to nightmares.
Then there are night terrors. In the case of nightmares, once your child is awake, they can interact with you and generally be calmed. For night terrors between the ages of 4 and 5 years, your child may wake up upset and screaming and seemingly oblivious to any attempts at consolation. Then after 5 to 15 minutes of crying, they may fall asleep, remembering none of this the next morning. Night terrors can be a terror for parents who have no idea what is happening. Do not be alarmed. This is a part of development for some children and will go away in 1 to 2 years.
The one therapy for night terrors is that if you notice your child is having repeated night terrors at the same time every night, you can wake them 30 minutes before the predicted night terror. Doing this 2 or 3 times in a row can sometimes break the cycle.
Looking through a Functional Pediatric Wellness Lens is not very different than conventional medicine on this one. Conventional pediatrics uses common sense after recognizing that the pattern we all call “night terrors” is a benign stage of childhood for some children which needs minimal intervention. Having had children with night terrors myself, I understand that it can be a frightening experience, especially the first time it happens. Knowing that your children will be safe and that you can intervene with a simple pre-emptive wake up reassures parents that a night terror does not lead to life terror.
Dr. Eric Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
