Sleepwalking?

[newfiemountiewife]

Benjamin does this occasionally, he gets up and wanders, but it's almost always when we're awake, and still up. He usually doesn't make any sense about what he's talking about, and the next day has no recollection at all about talking to us or getting out of bed. It's pretty occasional, and I hadn't any concerns about it until now.

Tony's mom called me this morning to ask me if Benjamin walked in his sleep, I told her that he did sometimes. She got up at 2:30 this morning, heard knocking on the door. He sleepwalked, went OUTSIDE, and started knocking on the door to come back in! Tony's mother about had a heart attack when she woke up and looked in his bed and he was gone, and rightfully so! I feel so bad for her! To my knowledge, he has never gone outside, but that makes me worry that he has gone out before, and I just never knew about it. The what ifs are making me sick.

He's almost 8. I am worried sick about him now. What can/should I do, aside from locking the doors (which apparently doesn't work)? Should I worry about it at all? Anyone have any experience to share?

[LenaGardner]

Yes, it's totally normal! Nathan will be 8 next month and he went through a phase like this about five months ago. It has to do with certain stages of development and there are a few things you can do to help...they do it more often if they are really tired or overstimulated, so keep that in mind.

The best thing you can do is just keep him safe and don't try to wake him up, just put him back in bed promptly. If it gets to be severe you can lock him in his bedroom from the outside with a chain or sliding lock but that seems cruel, huh? You can put him in a sleeping bag, that helps for some people, and you can put him in a sleeping bag with oven mitts on his hands if he starts undoing the sleeping bag. Put the oven mitts on after he is asleep (or even a pair of mittens). These sound silly but of course his safety is your number one concern. We didn't do these things with Nathan, we just made sure he was getting plenty of sleep and rest during the day....we found he did it on nights he went to sleep late or had a particularly busy day. Good luck

[newfiemountiewife]

Thanks Lena. That explains a lot. They have kept him up almost 2 hours after his bed time every night that they've had him, they've dragged him all over the place to things, and while that is nice for him, I know it's too much too.

I'm going to go and get him today I think, I want him home with me. He's been gone almost 2 weeks, and I think he needs back on his regular schedule.

[LenaGardner]

Ah, that does explain a lot. I'm so happy I could help make you feel better. I think you are right...two weeks is plenty of time with grandparents...and you miss your baby anyway

[Julie Billingsley]

I'm a sleepwalker It's kind of embarrassing because it's so weird to not have control over your body like that. I've sleptwalked since I was a child and right now I'm at a point that I do it every night. I will go periods of time when I don't do it for a while, then I go through times when I basically can't stay in bed! I've never gone outside, but I've done all sorts of stupid stuff inside the house. I don't recommend locking a bedroom door from the outside because of bathroom needs, fire escape problems, etc. And as a sleepwalker, I can say that I am always confused and get upset at myself when someone wakes me up while I'm sleepwalking. Better to just guide Benjamin back to bed. Some recommendations on keeping him safe-
1. little alarm thing on the door to outside. Those are pretty cheap ($10?) and work well.
2. motion detector lights outside... if he goes outside, the sudden bright light might wake him.
3. chain lock high up on the outside door. But that concerns me because of fire safety issues, but does provide one more obsticle to him getting outside.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. I'm not thinking clearly yet, I was actually up several times last night sleepwalking and this morning isn't clicking with me yet.

[AmyM]

I was a sleepwalker until about 16/18? Haven't done it in a very long time. I don't think I ever made it outside, but I did come downstairs and talk some junk to everybody in the house once

Julie's got some awesome suggestions there.

[Paula]

My brother had terrible sleepwalking issues. He actually got out of the house once and panicked my parents because they couldn't find him. He was found in the floorboard of their car.

One thing my dad did was put a lock at the top of all the doors exiting our house. Then when Bobby tried to get out, he couldn't because it was locked.

[pbumbaca]

My son had what they called night terrors but not the screaming kind, he would mostly get up come downstairs and babble at us, then not remember it in the morning. He did it every night at about the same time so the doc told us to figure out what time that was and wake him up every night for about 2 weeks 15 minutes before that time to break the pattern. It was something about the deep REM sleep and that if you got them before they got into that stage it would help and it did! He never did it again during the night.