Don’t be alarmed if when you’re home next Thursday evening, Oct. 22, you hear the blare of fire truck sirens and see flashing red lights in your neighborhood. Firefighters may be responding to a call – or they may be delivering a pizza! 

That’s because local fire fighters, pizza restaurants, Safe Kids Southeast Wisconsin Coalition, Safe Kids Wisconsin Coalition and State Farm Insurance are teaming up for the eighth annual “Delivering Fire Prevention” event. It’s a program designed to bring fire prevention education to local families in a fun and original way.

To find out if your community is participating, check out BlueKids.org/SafeKidsWI. If the fire department delivers your pizza and you have working smoke detectors, you’ll get a free pizza! If you have a smoke detector that isn’t working you will receive a free smoke detector. We even have a limited number of carbon monoxide detectors to give away. Everyone will receive fire prevention education materials from Safe Kids and a great experience. 

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With Halloween around the corner this month, horror movies are filling our theaters and TV guides. If your child has bad dreams, avoid these films and pay attention to what your child watches on TV.

Nightmares occur at all ages, but the peak ages are between 3 and 6 years old, when most children’s imaginations blossom. The content of these dreams varies across the age groups. Younger children may dream about separation from parents, shots at the doctor’s office or scary monsters. Older children may have nightmares about stories they’ve seen in the movies or on TV.

Telling the difference between nightmares and sleep terrors can be difficult because they both can happen in early childhood and the child may appear frightened and scream under both conditions. But during sleep terrors, the child doesn’t appear to be awake, and trying to console the child worsens the situation. Children can recall details about a bad dream but have no memory of a sleep terror. Therefore, sleep terrors often are more distressing to the parent or caregiver than the child.

So, what is a parent to do?

Nightmares and sleep terrors increase with sleep deprivation, so a regular sleep schedule, good sleep habits (no TV, computer or video games or caffeine before bedtime) and a quiet sleep environment are helpful. Avoiding frightening movies. Parental reassurance and security objects may help with nightmares. If your child seems to fight or avoid your attempts to comfort, he or she may be having a sleep terror. The best thing to do is to make sure your child is safe but avoid contact. Interfering with the sleep terror may increase your child’s agitation and prolong the episode. Don’t worry, sleep terrors usually disappear by adolescence. But nightmares can persist into adulthood, so choose your movies wisely this Halloween season.

–Louella Amos, MD, fellow, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Sleep Center

October is SIDS Awareness Month, so it’s a good time to review safe sleep practice for babies. Babies need to sleep safely and develop a healthy bond with their mothers. These two essential newborn needs must occur in the first months of an infant’s life, but they do not occur simultaneously.

How can a loving parent provide the safest possible sleep environment for that beautiful little infant? The most important advice has been repeated since 1992: Always place your baby on his or her back to sleep. This has cut the number of infant deaths from sudden infant death syndrome in half.

Unfortunately, 50 percent of babies still are dying. A close look at the deaths has revealed that many of these babies who died were sleeping in unsafe places. We don’t know all of the answers to the question of why these babies die. But we do know the chance of death would have been reduced if those babies were placed to sleep in the way recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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