Sleepwalking

The first time my oldest daughter sleepwalked, my husband and I were totally unaware that was what was happening.  We'd tucked her into bed about 2 hours before, and we were just getting ready to head upstairs for the night ourselves, when we rounded the corner of the hallway downstairs to find her standing in the foyer, seemingly wide awake.  Once we landed (we had both jumped about 10 feet in the air, we were so startled to see anyone standing in the foyer), we immediately began to investigate, "What are you doing up?  Why are you just standing there?  Did you have a bad dream?"  After we realized that she was clearly not awake, we quietly escorted her back to her bed.  The next morning she had absolutely no recollection of the event.

Sleepwalking falls into a category of conditions referred to as parasomnias.  Parasomnias includes everything from sleepwalking to sleeptalking to sleepeating to night terrors to bedwetting to teeth grinding.  Parasomnias are extremely common during early childhood (from about 18 months through age 7 or 8) and as children get older they are likely to outgrow the problem, usually by early to mid teenage years.  Of course, some adults still suffer from nighttime walks through the house, but that percentage is fairly small.  So what causes parasomnias?  Well, it's a disruption in one of the stages of sleep (there are 5 stages of sleep that we all cycle through about 4-5 times a night).  Sleepwalking typically occurs during stage 3 of sleep, which often happens about an hour or two after falling asleep.  It tends to run in families, so if one or both of the parents had a history of sleepwalking or another parasomnia themselves, the child is more likely to have issues as well.  Aside from genetics and being a normal phenomenon in childhood, there is no specific cause that has been identified.  Sleepwalking is not caused by children going to bed too late or too early, being sick, having emotional trauma, having low iron or other vitamin deficiencies, or any other identifiable trigger.  The only concern with sleepwalking is the obvious safety issues that arise when a child is prone to wandering out of their bed at night.  Here are a few tips that parents might consider, if you have a child who sleepwalks:

1.  Consider installing a door chime style alarm on his/her bedroom door, that would alert you when the door is opened in the middle of the night.
2.  Remove any objects from the child's room that might be potentially dangerous (sharp objects, etc.)
3.  Keep windows in the entire home locked, not just in the child's bedroom.
4.  Keep external doors locked in the entire home.
5.  If a child is prone to getting into a particular part of the home (the pantry, the refigerator, a particular closet, for example), consider putting a child-proof lock on the doors of those locations.

If you're interested in a much more in-depth look at this issue, here's a link to a great overview article:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/491438_8