My son is 7 and and was diagnosed with ADHD combined type at 6 with inability to control him anger. He has had night terrors and bad dreams since he was 3 or 4.
He currently takes adderall and Guanfacine. He still has bad dreams that wake him at night and in turn effect his sleep.
I'm not sure if his bad dreams are related to ADHD or possibly undiagnosed anxiety. Has anyone else experienced this? How were you able to help your child with bad dreams?
My son also used to have these bad dreams that would make him wake up screaming & terrified. He couldn't really seperate the dreams from reality until he was about 6 or 7. He is now diagnosed with ADHD/ ANXIETY...& still going through the elimination process for possible other disorders.
I would try breathing techniques with him before bed. I started doing this with my son around homework time in the evening & again at bed time. I would eliminate any distractions in the room & send my other children to their room or have them stay calm & quiet. I light a candle and turn on meditation sounds on my phone & we listen to the sounds & breath deeply in through the nose & out through the mouth. After 5 minutes of this he is even now able to sit & do his work & also doesn't seem to awake in the middle of the night from bad dreams. Its worth a try.
Good luck!
I will give it a try. Thank you!
My son is 8 years old struggles with both ADHD and anxiety. We are on a low dose of Strattera now, and that has helped some of the symptoms. He no longer wakes up screaming, but I sleep with him at night and we are working towards him being able to be alone at night... that said, he was having night terrors, would have panic attacks about "bad guys" breaking in, being stolen, fires... and we live in a VERY safe area with three dogs...so, this wasn't from television or something that he saw in the area. That has nearly completely stopped - those fears - and he is doing much, much better. In his room he has a light that projects the Aurora onto his walls and has white noise, and a new fish tank that seems to be very calming for him. Having the responsibility of gold fish has been good for him, and he calms down watching them from his bed at night. My advice is go one step at a time. We are also in therapy once a week and trying new relaxation techniques, though he will reject them if he is really wound up or angry. Every day we are doing a little bit better. When my son was five, he had a horrible night terror about a giant snake that was going to kill him. I made him a bottle of "Snake Away" spray out of water and lavender oil and made a nice fake label. I told him the spray was made from Mongoose extract and we watched a video that I had pre-screened of a Mongoose killing a cobra. Well, he was sold. We have a lot of garter snakes around our house.... I told him they were "guarder snakes" and they guarded the house from the bad snakes (there are no poisonous snakes around here, but as long as we were full in on this story, I went with it). That also worked and now he loves the snakes, even big ones at zoos and sanctuaries are okay by him.
My 8 year old was having bad dreams on Vyvanse and Guanfacine. i removed the Vyvanse and started giving him melantonin with l-theanine before bed and have not noticed anymore night terrors. He still wakes up at night but it is more like sleep walking and he is no longer afraid to come to my room to sleep the rest of the night. Does he have any irrational fears during the day?
Since I posted this, my son has switched from Adderall to Sertraline and we reduced Guanfacine and added melatonin. We have seen very good improvements treating anxiety first. He doesn't complain of bad dreams anymore. I think reading really helped him. He would just read and read until he fell asleep.
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