Our toddler night terror

We experienced our first toddler night terror while we were still in China adopting our daughter.

Our daughter slept so peacefully the first night with us that I checked several times to see if she was still breathing. That was the only night while we were in China that she slept so well. As a matter of fact, that night was probably one of about a dozen over the next year and a half that our daughter slept soundly.

During the rest of our adoption travel to China, she experienced many of the classic toddler night terror symptoms almost every night. These nights were rather harrowing and definitely exhausting for her and for us.

Although we knew little to nothing about what precipitated a night terror in a toddler, we suspected the grinding schedule we kept in China triggered her restless nights.

Also, throw in the fact that she spent most of the first year of her life in an orphanage crib, being cared for by three shifts of nannies a day, and that her life had just done a 180 degree turn in less than 24 hours. We figured it was no wonder she was restless.

Yet, she continued to experience night terror disorder long after we brought her home. I began to worry.

What was I doing wrong with her? Was I somehow encouraging bad sleep habits or magnifying some underlying fear I didn’t know she was feeling?

More importantly, I wanted to know how to treat toddler night terror.

I questioned my pediatrician if an adopted toddler was more likely to experience a night terror than a biological child. He calmed my fears when he said the prevalence of night terrors is the pretty much the same in adopted and biological children. Additionally, he stated she would likely grow out of them.

But what was causing them? How could we cope with them and help her through them? Would she really grow out of them? Did adopted children really have no more of a chance of experiencing night terrors than biological children?

I began my research on toddler night terror.

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