Frightening dreams in 4.5yo

[FlamingoBingo]

My lovely 4yo has a very, very vivid imagination and is a very passionate little girl - lots of big cuddles, lots of big temper explosions etc. And lots of very bad dreams .

We're at a loss as to how to help her now.

We've tried worry dolls, magic blanket, lights on. All help for a while but then the dreams start again after a few weeks. She wants to make a dream-catcher so maybe that will help for another few weeks. She has lavender on her pillow at night.

This is not attention seeking - it is genuine, real bad dreams and it's really sad for her and us.

She does go to bed very late, but not overtired (she sleeps late in the mornings so gets plenty of sleep) and used to get them when she had early nights too so I don't think it's that, but I'm considering taking her to bed early for a while and cuddling her to sleep - she has great difficulty getting to sleep every night whatever time it is and will do it a bit easier if she's cuddled to sleep.

At the moment, I'll do anything to stop it - I hate my little girl being so frightened and, of course, being tired the next day from being woken once, or twice or sometimes repeatedly

[FlamingoBingo]

Bump!

[Stormfly]

Not sure I can help but I do know what you mean as my ds is also very imaginative and goes through bad dream phases which I guess may be connected to the development of the imagination. He also has trouble getting to sleep sometimes because he keeps imagining scary things.

He made a dreamcatcher out of geomag the other day and seemed to find it helped - perhaps because it was his idea to make it. I have also explained about how bad dreams happen - it's just the brain sorting out all sorts of different thoughts and pictures from the day and sometimes getting them mixed up.

It's hard to know what will help each child at each stage though so I guess that is just trial and error but I do feel for them too when they wake with a bad dream. Hope you find something to ease things or that someone else has some concrete ideas.

[FlamingoBingo]

Thanks, stormfly. It is heartbreaking isn't it