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Sleepwalking and sleep terrors often run in families. Some things that can cause this are: Lack of sleep. This is the most common trigger for sleep terrors and sleepwalking. Illness Noisy or new environment Stress Some medicines

Sleep terrors and sleepwalking are related disorders of sleep that usually go away by adolescence.

Hours after bedtime, do you find your little one wandering the hall looking dazed and confused? If you have a sleepwalking child, you're not alone. It can be unnerving to see, but sleepwalking is very common in kids and most sleepwalkers only do so occasionally and outgrow it by the teen years. Still, some simple steps can keep your young sleepwalker safe while traipsing about. Despite its name, sleepwalking (also called somnambulism) actually involves more than just walking. Sleepwalking behaviors can range from harmless (sitting up), to potentially dangerous (wandering outside), to just inappropriate (kids may even open a closet door and pee inside). No matter what kids do during sleepwalking episodes, though, it's unlikely that they'll remember ever having done it! As we sleep, our brains pass through five stages of sleep — stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Together, these stages make up a sleep cycle. One complete sleep cycle lasts about 90 to 100 minutes. So a person experiences about four or five sleep cycles during an average night's sleep. Sleepwalking most often occurs during the deeper sleep of stages 3 and 4. During these stages, it's more difficult to wake someone up, and when awakened, a person may feel groggy and disoriented for a few minutes. Kids tend to sleepwalk within an hour or two of falling asleep and may walk around for anywhere from a few seconds to 30 minutes.

We experience some deep, quiet sleep and some active sleep, which is when dreams happen. You might think sleepwalking would happen during active sleep, but a person isn't physically active during active sleep. Sleepwalking usually happens in the first few hours of sleep in the stage called slow-wave or deep sleep.

Sleepwalking may run in families and sometimes occurs when a person is sick, has a fever, is not getting enough sleep, or is stressed.

acting out the movements of a dream.

Sleepwalking begins when you move your legs in your sleep, in synchronization.

It's more common in children and young adults,

Drawing knives from kitchen drawers Walking outside, in the yard or street Physical and verbal attack of others

Cooking and eating food Getting into automobiles Using the telephone Moving furniture Washing clothes Feeding pets Dressing Bathing

Nightmares tend to occur after several hours of sleep, screaming or moving about is very uncommon, the dream is

usually elaborate and intense, and the dreamer realizes soon after wakening that he or she has had a dream.

Your chance of being a sleepwalker can more than double if one or both parents have had episodes.