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Re: Advice

Posted by yet another tired mom on May 15, 2002 at 21:39:04:

In Reply to: Re: Advice posted by xila on May 15, 2002 at 16:37:02:

Who knows what goes through kids' heads? For 2-1/2 years we followed the same bedtime routine- read a story, sing a couple of songs, turn out the light and close the door, and even though he was still awake, he'd go to sleep without any complaints or tears. He'd wake up at some point in the night and crawl into bed with us, but no tears, no upset, and he'd do it without waking us up.

Then one day- literally out of nowhere- he started crying that there were monsters and ran screaming from his room. And since then he won't lie down unless someone is in the room with him. This happened 2 months after we moved, so I thought it might be a delayed reaction once he realized we weren't going back to the old house. But it's just going on and on. It's one thing to talk about a baby just crying itself to sleep, but if a three year old is yelling "Mommy I need you, please don't leave" and you just ignore it, you're sending a message that Mommy won't be there if he's upset and if something is wrong.

I guess my big question is how to figure out what might be causing the nighttime fears, instead of just how to deal with them. We've gone through 4 different night lights, sticker charts, 5 stuffed animals, special blankets, pictures in his room, taken down the mirrored closed doors, moved furniture that causes shadows, tried monster spray, magic wands, signs that say no monsters allowed... and still the kid is seeing monsters at night. It seems like all the websites deal with physical reasons for not sleeping (like apnea), sleep training, or really superficial solutions like monster spray- what do you do if your kid is really scared of something and you don't know what it is?

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Archived Children's Sleep Forum3 viewing only. To post a new topic go to the Children's Sleep Forum Homepage.
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