A sleepwalking son

My daughter sleepwalks

Question
My nine-year-old son talks and moves things about while he is fast asleep.

He never remembers anything about it in the morning. He has also been having violent headaches, which come on suddenly.

I give him painkillers and send him to bed. He is a very bright child and enjoys everything in life – what do you advise?

Answer
Your son's night-time behaviour sounds like a form of sleepwalking. This occurs during deep sleep, mostly in boys aged between 5 and 12.

In a typical sleepwalking episode a child will wander around in a calm but confused state with open eyes and a glassy stare.

He may even rush about in an agitated manner. Although these episodes can be disturbing for parents to observe, they won't harm the child and it's important not to aggravate the situation by making a big fuss about them.

As your son won't remember anything about the episodes the following morning, the best way of dealing with them is simply to make sure that he can't hurt himself while he's wandering around at night, and make little mention of the sleepwalking during the day so you don't make him unnecessarily anxious about it.

As he gets older, it is likely that the sleepwalking will stop.

I doubt that his headaches have anything to do with the sleepwalking, so they need to be dealt with as a separate problem.

If the headaches are frequent, occur first thing in the morning when your son wakes up, are accompanied by other symptoms such as nausea or vomiting, or if he has also developed other physical problems such as difficulty with balance or walking, you should take him to be checked by your GP.

Giving him an occasional dose of painkilling medication is fine but you wouldn't want this to become a frequent occurrence unless it's absolutely necessary, so if you have had to give him a painkiller quite often recently it would be worth discussing the problem with your doctor.

You might then have a better idea of what is causing your son's headaches and can chat about the best way of managing them when they occur.

Yours sincerely

The Medical Team