Pediatric SLeepwalking?

[MKCP5]

ANyone have a child who sleepwalks? Woke up this AM to find my DD downstair on the couch. She doesn't remember getting there, we never heard her leave her room, and we are concerned that she will walk out out of the house during the night!! Any thoughts on alarms etc?

 

[cigarboo]

my ds7 sleepwalks every so often. It's usually while he's dreaming and he'll go downstairs, into our room or where ever. I usually hear him though, because he's usually mumbling or yelling and I go and get him. I lead him back to bed and he's usually OK. Sometimes he'll get up again and I'll try to wake him up so he doesn't continue on the same walking around dream. He's never tried to go outside so I haven't been too concerned. I used to sleep walk when I was young. Now I just look like I'm sleep walking.

 

[GothTink]

My son (14) has been sleepwalking since he was 3. He never remembers and is very, very grouchy when you speak to him during one of his episodes. When he's awake, he's about as pleasant as a guy can get, but his sleepwalking personality is really angry. He'll look right at us, talk to us, and get in a cycle where he wants to go to a particular place (say, the kitchen...or the couch) and we have to talk him down and insist that he returns to bed. He's never left the house and has never been hurt.

It was scary at first. Now it's just the norm around here.

 

[mommy-on-the-move]

yep- my eldest son (nearly 6) is a sleepwalker, we have a stairgate at the top of the stairs so he can't wander without knowingly going onto them (if he opens the gate even if he's sleepwalking there is something registering to tell him he's off down stairs) and it's an alarmed gate so it beeps when open anyway so it wakes us, we have upper locks on all the external doors which he can't reach even with a step and we have safety chains- there would be that much clanking if he did get 3 bolts, a lock and a safety chain off and left a stairgate beeping we'd be up.

The handy thing is he WILL sleep walk to pee in the night - it was alarming the first couple of times as i didn't start until he was nearly 3ish but we've gotten used to it.

 

[abdmom]

My ds sleepwalks. It's partially inherited, but also due to some emotional traumas (people close to him dying). It also got much much worse when he was on a particular medication. He sleepwalks more when he is upset about something.

DS tends to head towards where there is light when he sleepwalks. Most sleepwalking in children occurs 1-2 hours after they go to sleep. So, I try to stay up for that time period.

We have a house alarm which I turn on at night. It goes off if the door is opened. It's never gone off because he sleepwalks. One time, the alarm went out of commission while we were on vacation- the alarm company seemed to think that I could fix it when I got back- uh, NO! A few days later, ds decided to open the front door. About a year later, he tells me that he woke up to find himself at the neighbor's, across the street, ringing their doorbell. Luckily, it wasn't winter! I did know at the time that he got out of the house, but didn't know he got so far.

The next morning, I was on the phone to the alarm company insisting they come fix that alarm. Haven't had a problem since, either with the alarm or sleepwalking out the door.

 

[magicalfoursome]

The handy thing is he WILL sleep walk to pee in the night - it was alarming the first couple of times as i didn't start until he was nearly 3ish but we've gotten used to it.[/QUOTE]

My DS10 sleep walks to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He usually walks around the house and I ask him what he is doing. He tells me he has to go to the bathroom. I have to show him where the bathroom is. Then he goes right back to bed. He has on occasion bypassed the upstairs bathroom (right next to his bedroom) and used the bathroom in the family room two sets of stairs down! He is also grumpy when I speak to him but I am just glad he always manages to find the bathroom!!

 

[Rylee]

My oldest daughter used to sleep walk.

She, too, would be very irritable and become defensive if we tried to wake her. I spoke with our pediatrician, and he said not to wake her, just direct her back to bed... we had to physically place our hands on her shoulders, turn her around, and lead her to her bed. She never remembered it in the morning.

The scariest thing I remember was hearing someone walking around upstairs, as I went to check on the kids, I got to the bottom of the stairs and saw her standing at the top of the stairs, completely wrapped up in her bedspread. No way, would she had made it down the stairs safely, with that wrapped around her body, but... her other senses must have been working, because she just stood there, making no attempt to come down the stairs. Or, maybe I just got to her in time???

Also, with our 2nd daughter, I would sometimes find her sleeping, sitting straight up in her crib, (not even leaning on anything). I wondered if she, too, would be a sleepwalker, but nothing ever came of it.

High locks or alarms on doors are a good idea, especially if you have sliding/french doors that lead out to an in-ground pool.

 

[Benducci]

Two of my dds sleepwalk. I keep a gate at the top of the basement stairs - they generally just walk into our room & snuggle with us- they have no memory of it. I used to do it also when I was a kid.

 

[GothTink]

She, too, would be very irritable and become defensive if we tried to wake her. I spoke with our pediatrician, and he said not to wake her, just direct her back to bed...

Yep, that's what we've always done.

 

[MKCP5]

DD has been doing this for quite a while. I did it when I was little. I agree you have to redirect, not wake. If I just agree with everything she says and point her towards her bed she is fine. I'm just concerned that now in our new house which is larger, I didn't hear her last night and it frightens me to think of her wandering out into the night. A bell on her door maybe?

 

[Wendy*Darling]

My 6 year old sleepwalks occasionally. Not too long ago he came into our room and climbed on our bed (I was still up, lights on and everything). I said something to him (thinking he was awake) and he got up, walked in to my bathroom, stood at the vanity and peed in to my trash can! I started trying to get his attention until it occured to me he was sleepwalking. He had no memory of it the next morning.

It's not often he sleepwalks. When it happens it's usually on nights where he was upset when he went to bed (on this night he was mad b/c he had lost his Wii time for the next day for his behavior that evening). We have a chain at the top of our front door that we put there when he was a toddler and learned to unlock and open the front door. We never took it down so now we just lock that at night so he can't get the front door open.

 

[mickeylove2]

I've never had any experience with sleepwalking but this thread made me remember a dear friend of mine. We were in our early 20's when we 1st met and became instant friends and the very 1st time I met her family, her mother told me a story about her growing up...she used to sleepwalk all the time and 1 night when she was 7 she walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door and peed in the veggie drawer! I have never laughed so hard in my life...I just thought I would share that.

Anyway, I think the alarm and some locks would prevent anything serious from happening when you have a child who sleepwalks.

 

[SalandJeff]

My niece recently was sleepwalking and went outside the house. She had never sleepwalked before, so they had no idea to watch for this.

If you don't have a house alarm, you can get individual door alarms that just press on and go off if the door is opened. Very inexpensive and they sell them at Babies R Us or Home Depot/Lowes type stores.

 

[floridaminnie]

You can also buy the hotel bolts that have the arm that comes around that can go high enough so she can't reach but the door doesn't open either.

 

[fhirleighinn]

It may not technically be sleepwalking, some people just have very poor perception of thier sleep, and she might just not remember going downstairs. But most kids will grow out of sleepwalking as they get older, usually by thier teens.
Waking someone from thier sleep while they are sleepwalking is not actually dangerous, they will just be confused. Now if it is a night terror, you most likely will not be able to wake them from it, and will make the night terror worse. You should just guide them back to bed.
Once or twice is not really a huge concern, but if it happens more frequently you should consults your PCP.
Consider a bell attached to her night clothes?

 

[Manymice]

Yes, yes, yes! We have a sleepwalker bigtime Our 7 year old started sleepwalking when he was about 3. As a pp mentioned, our son is angry or aggravated when he sleepwalks.

It looks so scarey when he's doing it because he has a completely blank face, glassed over eyes, and can't register anything we say. I found the best thing to do for him is to talk him out of the situation in a very sweet and calm voice and lead him back to his bed.

We've found him trying to pee in our kitchen trash can , trying to walk through a wall like it was a door, trying to get out the front door, trying to get into the garage, trying to get something to eat and going up and down stairs.

When he is sick or trying to come down with something it is far worse. Also if he is worried about something or we've made a change in our routine it acts up. Going to a hotel is always a worry for me because I'm not sure where he will end up! My dh or I always take the bed closest to the door and push a big chair in front of it so it's another barrier for him.

 

[starbox]

DD9 was a sleepwalker until about age 5. My favorite memory is of finding her in the hallway with the clothes dryer door open and her little naked behind stuck in it.

The scariest was when she walked on vacation and we could not find her. The condo had a very steep flight of stairs and we only had the spring-style gate (not a locking and mounted one like we had at home) and so I'd put her in bed with me to keep her close. I woke up and she was gone - checked the bathroom and all the bedrooms and she was not there. Went upstairs and did not see her at first. We were right on the beach and it was storming and I was freaking out.

Turns out she'd gone up the stairs, and was fast asleep on the floorbehind a couch. It was terrifying.

We did have really good gates on the stairs at home and our alarm system goes off if an exterior door opens.