can you deal with nightmares?

[Chloenewoneagain]

My 2 year old (well 2 in December) has recently become terrified of anything to do with dinosaurs!

He's started waking in the night, which isn't usually odd as he wakes for me to go in for a minute then goes back too sleep.

But recently screamsssss and crying about dinosaurs and monsters

[Chloenewoneagain]

*posted too soon.

..and monsters then takes him ages to go back to sleep cos he says he's scared and doesn't want me too leave.

Iv tried too show him movies/programmes with dinosaurs to 'get him to like them' kinda thing. Not working!

What do I do? Is there anything I can do? It's happening every night recently it's really sad I feel bad for him.

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

We turn the pillow over to the side that has the nice dreams. Sometimes it gets put on the bed with the bad dream side up by mistake.
Seems to work.

[Chloenewoneagain]

How old is your child? I appreciate that and will defiantly try it. Not too sure if he will understand it though, I don't think he even understands dreams. Not sure but I'll try my best too explain it to him, thank you

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

It worked from when DD was about two onwards (from when she started dreaming)

[HJBeans]

Had exact same issue at this age - suddenly fearful of lots of stuff and having first nightmares. What worked for us would be to ask what happened to the dream when he woke up. And remind him dreams always go away when you wake up. And if you're still scared, say "Go away dream!" in a loud, strong voice. He loves that last bit. I think he didn't know what dreams were when they started but this little liturgy (and we did repeat it word for word night after night) taught him what they were and that he had power over them.