Sleepwalker

So on Thurs we had a visit from a couple dear friends from our Ann Arbor community, Doug Corey and Jordan Fowles. We were enjoying brownies and ice cream, when one of them calls from the kitchen, "I think someone is in the wrong place." Derek & I are wondering what he means, so we go in the kitchen to find Domba standing next to the garbage can. She was holding her nightgown up and rummaging through the garbage can... It was then that we noticed the slowly spreading puddle at her feet and her undies around her ankles. We also noticed that her eyes glazed and she had a vacuous smile on her face. Needless to say, that girl had sleepwalked to the wrong room in the house to relieve herself. I took her in the bathroom to clean her up while Derek mopped the kitchen. She never really woke up the whole time I was wiping her down and as soon as I put her in bed, she turned over and was instantly deeply asleep. Poor kid! :) I still need to ask her if she remembers anything.

I guess this is something we shouldn't be too surprised about. After all, Bub still has the occasional night terrors/confusional arousals, and Domba has even had the occasional confusional arousal. In fact, just a couple weeks ago, Bub came in in the middle of the night mumbling something to me about Domba not going to sleep (keep in mind that it was midnight and they had been asleep for more than 3 hours). I asked her if she was sleep walking and she got mad and stalked out. A few minutes later I heard her toilet flush and she went back to bed. One interesting corollary is that the girls often have full bladders. In fact, if we could get Bub to go potty during her terrors, she would usually go back to bed peacefully for the rest of the night. We also often linked them to wetting the bed. Of course, those aren't the only triggers: stress, anxiety about upcoming events, sleeping in different places and other things bring on the arousals/terrors.

Most of the time now, they are harmless and something funny to look back on. But occasionally still, Bub has the worst of her night terrors: the sleepwalking tantrum. In these she gets mad over something little that she doesn't really comprehend or just wakes up screaming and mad. She often throws things and bangs doors and is unresponsive to our talking or touch. Usually, she will wake up somewhere in the middle of the tantrum, and being so disoriented and with the leftover feeling of anger and sadness, she will continue to act out. But at least once she awakens she can eventually be calmed back to sleep. Then of course, she'll be tired and grumpy the next day from lack of good sleep... Anyone else have kids that deal with these fun nighttime experiences?