# night terrors/anxiety "my feet hurt!!" 3YO



## stirringleaf (Mar 16, 2002)

my ds occasionally wakes up in the night crying and upset, and is very hard to comfort . ( as opposed to other times when he wakes up, nurses, goes back to sleep)

sometimes it seems like night terrors: incolnsolable crying, refusal to nurse, doesnt want to be touched, seems angry, etc

othertimes it seems like night anxiety, like tonight... he wakes up fussing alot but not really crying, and says over and over: " my feet hurt!" or " my foot hurts"!

we never see anything wrong with his feet, and he never complains about this feet in the day. the only other time i have seen him do this is when he is stressed out and tired in his carseat and he wants out and cries alot....it seems he resorts to physical pain as a manifestation of anxiety???

i am not sure , just wanted to see of this sounded familiar to anyone.

ps he has night terrors the most when he has had a hard night for whatever reason...sometimes of me and DH argue in front of him, or else like tonight ---he didnt want to go to bed, and he cried alot before he went to sleep ( DH layed with him) ---he usually enjoys bedtime so i think he woke up tonight cuz of how stressful it was going to bed tonight...


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## LadyGodiva (Nov 12, 2004)

Hmmm, the ds of a friend of mine had night terrors. He was 18 - 24 months old at that time and his parents were spearating. My friend sid that he was crying and being very upset, but he wasn't fully awake. She comforted him as well as she cold
*without waking him up*! If he'd wake up in the middle of a night terror, he'd start stresing real badly. He grew out of that.

I know that there is a homeopathic preparation for night terrors in children.

As to the pain in your boy's feet.... the only time I would wake up crying out "Outch, my feet", was when I was PG and had cramps. Maybe your lil one has cramps? In that case calcium supplements can do wonders (at least they did for me).

Good luck and good nights!


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## Shirada (Jul 29, 2002)

This happens with my dd too. It started when she was a litle baby and I really discounted night terrors because I had read that they don't occur that young, but I have since heard that they can start early. It is really awful to experience, both for the child and the parents. There seems that there is NOTHING that will console a child in this state. I just hold her, (sometimes for 30-40 minutes) till she quietens and settles. Something I read that made sense for us in retrospect is that if the child doesn't nap or has a unsettled day then he/she is more likely to have night terror if prone to them of course. I think that when my dd was younger we didn't have much of a routine and this perhaps is just what she needed. I thought it was unnecessary, but have since changed my view and have more of a routine with #2 which flows so much beter.

As far as the 'leg pains', she also complains of this when she has night terrors, now that she can articulate what is bothering her and other pains and we bought her a little heating pad which works really well when she has aches. I asked her when she was awake and in a sane moment what she thinks would help her when she has pains at night and she said a warm wash cloth so we thought a heating blanket would work just as well and be easier to use in the middle of the night, when she wakes up little sister too (!)

I hope it works for you too.


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## plantmommy (Jun 7, 2004)

The things that come to mind here are being overtired, first. Try an earlier bedtime if you can't get any napping to happen, and growing pains! These are real, and my two oldest have been through bouts of aching feet/legs, and the heat is a good idea, as well as massage.


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## Book Addict Jen (Mar 1, 2004)

DS had the same problem for a year! We took him to the DR & he got special orthodics & stopped crying. Anytime he left the house without them, he would wake up crying again.


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## Shirada (Jul 29, 2002)

Oh yes, I second the massage, (how could I forget all those nights of rubbing my dd's legs). Heat seemed to work better though.


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## stirringleaf (Mar 16, 2002)

well, its true we have a crazy routine (i.e. lack thereof) due to us being in school and DS growing out of naps. some days he naps, others he doesnt.

now that its school break we are going to start instituting a real sleep routine, and the advice here seems like yet another reason to do it. (and a daytime routine also)

i think it could indeed be growing pains as he seems to be in a growth spurt right now

however, he did have a turned in foot for the longest time, becasue it was turned in the womb. i cant tell if its still turned when he walks cuz he is always moving around so much ,LOL but i will try to pay attention and see if its that foot. i remember i wondered that the last time he complained of a sore foot and i forgot to follow through ( we get that busy







)

i also wonder about ingrown tonails, cuz his tonails grow kinda weird.

but he definatly has actual night terrors too, where we just cannot talk to him. they started when he was maybe 18mos old! if something "scary " happens to him ( one time he saw some slapstick violence in a cartoon and had night terrors that night)

thanks for the suggestions and thoughts, ill try heat also. he also told DH last night that his feet were cold...so we dont know for sure if they were just so cold they hurt...but heat sounds good either way, for growing pains or cold.


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## stirringleaf (Mar 16, 2002)

after i posted that i just asked DS about his feet, and asked him if he remembered. i asked "did your feet hurt last night?" and he said "yeah, cuz it was so dark in my room" "were you scared?" "yeah, cuz it was so dark"

so....i dunno, it might be some mental thing after all, LOL who knows


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## Ruby Pearl (Dec 18, 2004)

My DD used to do the exact same thing. She still does at 4 1/2. We have to make sure she has lots of "wind down time" before bed and if she is crying out unintelligibly we don't wake her up we just tell her "you're dreaming honey, go back to sleep". If it is the feet thing, then we rub her feet until she falls back to sleep. She has had nightmares since she was a newborn and it seems that the more active her day is the worse she sleeps at night.


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