The Pee-Nightmare Connection

Since he was about six weeks old, DS used to start screaming as if in extreme pain in the middle of the night. He would cry, go red in the face and howl with his eyes closed. There was little I could do to soothe him though he would calm down after several minutes and drink a bottle of formula before falling back to sleep. After this continued intermittently over the months, I did a search on "baby nightmares" and found Dr. Greene's site about night terrors in which he explains the pithy terms "confusional arousals" and "nighttime dryness." Apparently these night terrors are brought on by the urge to urinate or the desire by the child to stay dry while sleeping. Once I learned this, I would put DS on the potty when he awoke crying (or screaming) and sure enough, he would pee, often having held quite a bit of liquid in his bladder. Now that he's older (11 months), however, he tends not to wake up in such an agitated state and often when he does wake up, his diaper is already wet and he just wants to be changed and fed. But it was interesting to learn about the link and that it could help some parents who are puzzled by sudden night terrors by their infants or toddlers.