Monsters!!

[FusionChefGeoff]

DD (5) is going through a phase of taking aaaaaages to settle at night because she's thinking about monsters. She also desperately wants to sleep in with DS (7) in the bunk bed which is fine when he says yes but causes real issues if he says no, as we've told him he is allowed to.

We often hear her crying / moving around upstairs up to 30 mins after bedtime so will go up to reassure but it's always the same story. We let her sleep in our bed which seems to help but she doesn't want to start off in there so she's quite late to bed but is still up early and I'm worried she's not getting enough sleep.

We've tried monster spray and also writing letters to ask the monsters to be her friend but neither seems to improve the situation.

Today I've gone old school with bedtime and gig back into a more 'solid' routine which had started to slip in lockdown so any other ideas?

I know it's easy for me to say but. Don't be doing the monster spray or writing them letters. Things like that just make them more 'real', after all. I'm her little mind. Why are you writing to them and spraying them if they're not there.

Yes I was worried about that angle too but it was her idea to write the letter!

Ok I will try going back to broken record 'there's no such things as monsters'!

Ironically, yesterday was the first night in ages she settled quickly (in the bunk beds) and stayed there all night!

I realise this may not work in everyone's house, (we are an odd bunch!) but when my daughter went through a phase of being scared of monsters, we did the whole "monsters aren't real" thing which didn't really wash with her because how could I posssibblllllyyyy know mummmy?!?!!! Then one night, I was getting a bit fed up (I'm not the most tolerant of mothers ) and I just flippantly said something along the lines of "Well, honestly LittleRandom, if a monster did come into the house and I found it scaring you, who do you think would end up being the most frightened? You, me or the monster? Do you think after I'd finished with it, it would come back? I think it would warn it's friends to not bother either too, don't you?!" She looked at me, considered it and that was that. No need to be scared of monsters with HER mummy around.

But then I'm quite fierce & a tiny bit scary (more bark than bite but my daughter doesn't know that yet, so shhhhhh! )