Cherry,

I believe I have much experience to share with you but this will be a long post so let me apologize for it’s lenght right now.

First........ let me say that anything I might say is not in any way meant to offend you what so ever. 

My CAH son gave me a great deal of difficulty with waking up to eat when he was very young, only 4 months.  You are probably laughing that I would be bothered by that at such a young age but it was 3 - 4 times a night and my non CAH daughter (27 months older) was suffering from the night terrors (a very bad case).  I was exhausted all the time and I was having a hard time functioning or even being pleasant.  I was getting ready to go back to work from my maternity leave and didn’t know what I was going to do.  I spoke to my pedi about this and he told me that as long as I fed him he would continue to wake up.  He suggested that I only give him a bottle of water.  He promised that if I did this by night 4 he would be sleeping through the night.  He forewarned me that the first night would be the worst but that each night would get better.  He was right.  Ryan screamed to the point of almost not breathing because he didn’t want the water.  He would finally cry himself to sleep.  I would just rock him and sing to him but I would only give him the water.  By the 4th night he slept through the night and has since.

Now my Daughter was a different story.  I can honestly say that I got to the point where I almost didn’t like her.  I loved her but it was very difficult to like her.  Her night terrors became a family issue.  My husband and I even began to not get along because we were so tired from lack of sleep.  My pedi kept telling me it was night terrors and that she would out grow it.  I really got no support from them.  She had her first episode around 13 months and they continued severely until she was 5 and mildly until she was around 6.  It wasn’t until I showed up at the pedi’s office with 4 hours of tape of her screaming all night.  Then the took me seriously.  They referred me to a specialist in Boston, Ma for sleep disorders.  Let me also tell you the hell I put myself through until this point.  I WAS THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD.  That’s what I kept telling myself.  I must have been doing something to her during the day to be upsetting her that she was dreaming about it.  At this point I was screaming at her all the time during the day.  She was always fussy and crying during the day because she wasn’t sleeping good at night and always crying at night because of the night terrors.  I would cringe when she would cry during the day because I was listening to it all night.  I must sound like a terrible person and mother but I’m being honest because if you feel this way at all it’s normal and okay.  The specialist worked wonders.  He said she was sever enough to medicate her but that wasn’t what my husband and I were looking for.  So we worked on practical solutions.  He gave us graph paper and had us chart everything she did during the day.  Time she napped, ate, went to day care, her dance, everything even the start / stop times of the terrors themselves.  The idea was to see if there was certain days that were worse and then look at the days activities to see if there was to much stimulation that was causing it.  But the two biggest things were ........

1.  we used to let her fall asleep in front of the T.V. so that we could spend as much time with her as possible.  We never watched alot in the evening but a half hour before the "bed time" or in this case the desired "sleep time" we would put the T.V. on for ’quiet time" and then let her fall asleep.  The doctor said we needed to stop that.  He said that everyone goes through wakenings during the night where you open your eyes and close them.  We’re never aware of them but they happen several times a night.  When she would do this she would be in her bed instead of where she had fallen asleep in front of the T.V.  All she knew was that she wasn’t were she thought she was.  Being asleep she was incapable of deciphering that she was in her bed.  This would cause a sense of panic.  So we stopped the falling asleep in front of the T.V.  We would put her to bed awake.

2.  At this point she was 4 and still taking 2 naps a day each at least 2 hrs long.  He said that was way to much sleep during the day so that she wasn’t getting into a deep enough sleep an night.  He said to only allow one nap of 1 1/2 hrs. 

The charting I mentioned earlier pointed out that she would start her episodes when I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, washing my face etc.  The bathroom was next door to her room.  It appeared that the noise was occurring at a change in stages of sleep.  Apparently there are four stages of sleep and when we move from one to another we lighten in the one we are in before moving to the next.  She would be at this point when I was in the bathroom.  So I changed my time in there to earlier.

Let me tell you all the simple changes made a world of difference and they became very far and few between.  But at their peak which lasted for years she would start between 9 - 10 pm and go until 2 - 3 am.  EVERY NIGHT!

The other big thing that they told us was to never speak to her or approach her when she was having an episode because we were making it worse.  That was very difficult to do but I did eventually get to the point where I was able to just stand at her bedroom door. 

I hope this helps in some way and if you have any questions at all please don’t hesitate to ask.

My thoughts and prayers are with you because I know and remember all to well how difficult it was.

Oh, one last thing.  A friend of mines sister had a really tough time getting her daughter out of their room and back into hers.  With the suggestion of her pedi she put a sleeping bag on the floor of their room and told her daughter that she could only sleep in their room if she slept in the sleeping bag.    Every few nights they would move the sleeping bag closer to the door, then out the door and then across the hallway and then slowly across the floor of her room and then finally in her bed.  She was never allowed to back up in the process but only keep moving forward. 

Again best of luck!