5 year old suddenly scared of going to sleep

[Sajocon]

Hi all. My 5 year old daughter has, luckily, always been pretty good at going to sleep but for about a week now she has started crying at bedtime and saying she doesn’t want to be alone / is scared / can’t sleep / gets lonely / wants me to stay. She’s often taken quite a while to fall asleep in the past but hasn’t got upset about it but now she seems really distressed. I’ve been really understanding, comforted and reassured her, stayed with her for a short time and then said I’ll come back and check on her (which I then do every few minutes) but it doesn’t seem to making much difference. Tonight I tried the moshi app and although she liked the story it didn’t send her to sleep and she still cried... advice gratefully received! Thank you.

Could you make her a ‘worry monster’ and see if she can write down (or maybe get you to write) what is bothering her and post it away into the worry monster?

Just sit with her for a few nights until it passes. It's pretty normal at that age.

What has happened to upset her/cause this? Has she heard someone say something that's worried her? Seen something on TV?

My DD is a little younger, so this may not work, but we have a "monster spray". We spray it around her bedroom at night and it stops the monsters being able to get near.

It's an old spray bottle with water and a few drops of lavender oil.

Is she starting school next week? She may be anxious about that.

A worry doll helped my DD, she was 5 too. She still has it under her pillow

Thanks everyone. I’m not sure why she may be anxious; as far as I know she hasn’t seen / heard anything but she’s starting school in two weeks so it may be that she’s worried about that. I’ll try your suggestions... fingers crossed...