Big scary monsters in the dark... hugely affecting sleep

[Ldowson]

Hello

I don't know whether anyone will be able to give me advice on this, although I imagine many will relate! Since my son turned 3 in December he has been waking screaming for me every night without fail. The only way to soothe him is to bring him into bed with us. Sometimes he then stays awake for an hour or 2 but often he just drops back to sleep. The only problem is he is very wriggly and pretty big too so our sleep is awful. Plus, we have a 4 month old baby sharing the space as well.

My son says that he s scared of lions biting him, monsters and men coming to get him in the dark. And I have to say his fear seems genuine - last time I tried to put him to bed in his own room he was actually shaking. Poor sweetie.

I've tried: giving him a torch which beams a giraffe face to get rid of the monsters

telling him all our doors and windows are monster proof (he was interested in this)

a good nightlight

It's possible to go and sit by his bed until he goes back to sleep, quite fast usually, but often he will wake again an hour later until he gets into our bed.

Friends with similar problems have put mattresses on the floor and go off to sleep in the kids room. This would be a last resort for us! I really like my bed and sleeping with other half.

Any new and genius ideas or advice gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Laura

[littlemoo]

We have a set of monster fairy lights around the door. Son too small to be worried about monsters etc, but a friends older son said that he wanted some to keep the other monsters away at night.. Might be worth a try?

[womanofdulwich]

drastic step get a dog/ cat to protect him?

Fit a burglar alarm down stairs- or if you have one already -start to use it downstairs?

I remember a stage when the dog had to go and check my bedroom everynight before I went to bed.

[Belle]

my s on is same age and starting to do this a bit. i have tried to limit some of the stuff which is causing his imagination to run riot - he watches scooby doo for instance which I think is prob a bit scary for his age. This is prob really obvious but it's something I let creep in when I was pregnant and too tired to argue. I find gentle things like peppa pig good pre bed.

one tip i read somehwere recently is not to do the 'look we're keeping the monsters out' etc routine - that in fact this perpetuates the myth that there are monsters. instead it's meant to be good to reinforce the idea that they are not real. So now we do a lot of 'they're just pretend though, they aren't real' and this seems to be helping. I went in the other night and he was scared one was behind the door so I took down the stuff hanging there but made a point of showing that they were just harmless things etc.

Could you get him some new cuddly toys to have in bed with him? Havcing never been interested till now, since the arrival of his little brother who has his own set of cuddly toys, my 3 yo is really into them so that's helped too...I sympathise as we have had the 4 in a bed scenario and it wasn' tmuch fun for us!

[Saffron]

Does he wake-up at apprx the same time every night? You might be able to use something like the wake-to-sleep technique to re-set his sleep cycles and keep him asleep. xx

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

When my daughter was little, she was frightened of the big, bad wolf and convinced he was coming to get her.

'We' wrote a letter to the wolf telling him he wasn't allowed into her bedroom and pinned it on her bedroom door. I said he would read it and leave her alone.

Did the trick.

[The Nappy Lady]

It is interesting they way that this fear of the dark, and monsters etc. all kicks in around the age of 3 - having similar with our youngest who turned 3 last October and remember her sister also going through a similar phase.

We have night lights, and she has a special teddy, and we've been really firm about there being nothing to be afraid of, we talk about how our house is safe, and our bedrooms the safest and cosiest places of all, where we are always tucked in warm and cosy even when it's cold outside etc. etc. This seems to help, but there was a bad phase a couple of months back where she was coming in to us most nights. We did try hard to put her back, though I tend to be half asleep and very naughty about just letting her snuggle in!

A friend has a bottle of something (random lavender pillow spray or similar), which she would spray around the room as an 'anti monster spray' but this goes against Belle's advice, which I have to say does seem to make lots of sense. Hmmmm I guess whatever works really. I agree about being careful what you expose them to in terms of TV, books etc. whilst their little imaginations are in this overdrive phase.

It is really hard, and the only thing I can say is that it does pass, and for both of ours seemed to do so quite quickly (number 2 already seems better so I'm hoping we are through the worst). I know this doesn't solve your immediate problem, but at least it might give you hope for the future.

[womanofdulwich]

scooby doo us the worst.thats what set my son off. madness really

[Sanne Panne]

Night lights weren't enough here, 3yo would just stand on something and turn the big light on... which wasn't great for the quality of her sleep I think. We put a red bulb in her ceiling lamp now and just leave it on all night. It's dim enough to not bother her in her sleep and bright enough to let her pick up a book and look at pictures for a while until she falls back asleep.

During the real monster phase she slept in our bed a few times but it's better now and I think the light helps.

We also happened to need our carpets steam cleaned and told her it would help keep the monsters away. And we used monster spray (e.g. water with a bit of lavender) and let her stick princess stickers above her bed... all helped a little bit but you also run the risk of cultivating the thing too much.

As with everything, every child is different... but in our case having more "warm" light in the room seems to really help.

[The Nappy Lady]

Yes - I've found the main light has been turned on more than once, it's on a dimmer so I try to make sure it's set to a lower light level so if she does put it on it isn't too bright and will not wake her sister up.

[Ldowson]

Thanks everyone for your ideas. It's so nice to hear others go through this too! We've taken little red riding hood and the billy goat gruff back to the library today and hope this calms things down. Lots of cute non-scary stories from now on.

[HAL9000]

My 2.5-year old daughter developed similar night terrors about, of all things, Darth Vader - after watching Star Wars videos obsessively. Her fear vanished as soon as I bought her a small toy Darth Vader.

My theory was that having a small version of the item enabled her to learn that it was harmless and completely under her control. I've no idea if my logic was right or wrong, but it seemed to work.

Therefore, in the OP's case, buy him a small toy lion. Try to discover what real-world images correspond to the 'monsters' and 'men' and buy him small toys of them, too.

[Saffron]

When my niece developed a profound attachement to her wicked witch doll from the Snow White film, a psychologist friend told my sister-in-law that secure attachment to the antagonist character meant that the child had mastered her fear of it. Very interesting! xx

[Fuschia]

I would think the presence of a 4m old baby in your bed is a major factor ...

How about popping a cot bed mattress and little sleeping bag on the floor of your room and say if he needs to come in, can he snuggle in there without waking you?

[Fuschia]

In the midst of d&v I would just give weak orange squash

Make slushy lollies with it too

[Sanne Panne]

I used to think that the fact that I wanted to be "the nurse from the anaesthetics room" (after many, many minor but full anaesthetic operations in childhood) meant I wanted revenge/power but maybe it was a matter of respect/acceptance after all :)

Saffron Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> When my niece developed a profound attachement to

> her wicked witch doll from the Snow White film, a

> psychologist friend told my sister-in-law that

> secure attachment to the antagonist character

> meant that the child had mastered her fear of it.

> Very interesting! xx

[Smiler]

Our 3yo did this, reckon the co-sleeping with the baby was a big factor, she didn't want to be the only one to sleep on her own. Almost a year on and she still doesn't like it, is a disadvantage of co-sleeping.

[BellendenBear]

Same thing in this house. 3 year old daughter is scared of all sorts of things, mostly the kinds of monsters and things already mentioned that she sees in books and DVDs. Unfortunately even Peppa Pig isn't gentle enough, the tooth fairy episode terrified her! Also snowmen and foxes seem to be quite frightening, she frequently reports that there was a fox in her room, sometimes on the ceiling, looking at her. Bloody good job she didn't wake up the other night when there really was a fox in our bathroom at 4 am!

Things seem to have improved since we moved her and 10 month baby into the same room. I doubt she's just being considerate so must find it comforting to have someone else there.

[Fuschia]

You had a fox in your bathroom?!!!!!!!

[Fuschia]

You had a fox in your bathroom?!!!!!!!