We passed a bit of a milestone the other day: It's been six months since my little guy has had an episode of night terrors.

Once every two to three weeks or so after coming home to America, he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and shaking. He wasn't really awake, though he would get up out of bed and race for my room--or even down the stairs. When I got to him, his heart would be racing and his eyes would be wide open but not focusing on anything. And even if my Russian or his English had been better, I got the sense that there wasn't anything he could tell me about what it was that made him scared. The best I could do was scoop him up, hug him for a bit and tuck him back into bed.

I quickly took precautions, installing a child safety gate across the top of the second-floor stairs. And I began to read up on night terrors.

It seems that night terrors are quite different from nightmares. Despite my use of the words "boogey man" in the headline here, people who experience night terrors aren't really afraid of person or thing. When my son's English got better, and I asked him in the morning what had made him so scared the night before, he couldn't point to any one reason--for the most part, he didn't even remember waking up.

I almost laughed when I read the description of night terrors on the Web site of KidsHealth--one of the places I've come to check for pediatric information. It noted that night terrors are seen in children who are "sleeping in a new environment or away from home." I wouldn't call a Sakhalin Island orphanage a home, but it was pretty much all my little guy had ever known, and he was definitely away from it now. The Web site also noted that stress and fatigue were believed to be factors. My little guy is a smart, flexible kid, but he was being called upon to learn a whole new way of existing, and I have absolutely no doubt that it was, at times, very stressful for him.

Other than taking safety precautions, there isn't much to do about night terrors except wait them out. My pediatrician never suggested medication, and I never requested any for my son.

And now, my little guy is pretty well settled into his new life. He loves school and he's got a good group of friends there. He burns off more energy than a coal-fired electricity plant during the day--and he sleeps like a rock all through the night.

Image credit: Jusben at Morguefile.com