How do you deal with a sleepwalking child?
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My eldest daughter is a sleep walker. It took me a long time to actually realise that she was sleep walking and not just getting up in the night and gibbering nonesense.
I am a very matter of fact kind of mom but sleepwalking, despite being quite a common problem, still unnerves me a little. I was amazed to learn that up to 30% of children will sleepwalk at some point. Although the behaviour is more common in children, the number of adults affected is higher than previously thought (I suspect my other half would like the opportunity to sleep deeply enough to even contemplate sleep walking.)
Sleep is a big topic in our house, whether it be the lack of it or my snoring or the sleepwalking children, sleep should be about resting your head on the pillow and hopefully waking up in the same place 8 hours or so later shouldn't it? Not in our house! We have had:
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Running down the stairs
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Wandering around on the landing
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Random conversations about putting bread in the bath
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Finding her sleeping curled up at the end of our bed
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Opening doors in the middle of the night
Most of the time she has her eyes open, which was a little disturbing to start with but now I am used to it. Having researched it, the NHS website says that the most common triggers are:
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sleep deprivation
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fatigue (extreme tiredness)
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stress and anxiety
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fever
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drinking too much alcohol
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taking recreational drugs
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certain types of medication
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being startled by a sudden noise or touch and waking from deep sleep, or waking from deep sleep to go to the toilet
I can assure you that the 8yo has not been in the drinks cabinet and has no access to recreational drugs but I do notice she sleepwalks more when she is especially tired.
So how do you deal with a sleep walking child?
I was always told never to wake a person who sleep walks ( I remember my best friend when we were younger, getting up in the middle of the night and standing on the alarm sensor, waking everyone else up .... except her!). I have learnt that trying to have a conversation is pointless and trying to decipher what she is saying is even more futile, so I just take her by the hand and lead her back to bed.
I have always worried that sleep walking was as a result of her feeling unsettled but after reading so much about it, I find that it usually happens when they are in a deep sleep, so whilst she is waking everyone else up with her antics, at least she is in a deep asleep.
Hopefully she will grow out of it as she gets older, although they do say it can run in the family so maybe one day her own children will do the same and she will know how perplexing it is.
