If you’ve tried our prevention pointers and they didn’t work, talk to your child’s pediatrician or see a sleep specialist. Your child may also be a candidate for medical help if:

• Your child has sleep terrors and also snores or has any problems breathing while sleeping. Night terrors can be a sign of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a medical condition in which a child briefly but repeatedly stops breathing during sleep, which disrupts deep, slow-wave sleep. Plus, bedwetting can be a symptom of OSA, although it’s not related to night terrors specifically.
• You notice jerking or shaking. Frequent night terrors accompanied by repetitive movements such as jerking or shaking can be a sign of nocturnal seizures, although these are relatively rare. Night terrors can be confused with nocturnal seizures. Kids who are at risk for daytime seizures are prone to having them at night.
• Your child has night terrors nightly or more than once a night. They’re probably not harming your child, but they can disrupt the rest of the family. To treat frequent night terrors, benzodiazepine medications (e.g., Versed or ProSom) are sometimes used to suppress slow-wave sleep and lessen the chances of a night terror. A more common treatment is a technique called scheduled awakenings, which involves tracking the time the first night terror or sleep walking episode occurs, and waking your child 30 to 45 minutes before then for a couple of weeks. “Scheduled awakenings stops frequent night terrors in 50 percent of all cases, she says.