Toddler help

[Rosie922228]

Ok so the topic choice makes no sense! But .. my toddler keep telling me she's going to wall .. happens every morning it happens not every morning but some mornings .. she will say. Mummy I went into the wall again but tonight she woke me up shouting and I went into her room and she said I want to the wall again .. she says she doesn't know how she got in but she has to shake herself out... any help! Thank you in advance 🩷

Toddlers have a big imagination and are trying to make sense of the world.

OK, is she scared? Or is more of an exciting or interesting adventure for her?

She's imagining / dreaming, obviously. If she's frightened by the wall, sit with her after she's in bed. Ask what she can see, and use your own imagination to try and see what she tells you. Make some sense of it.

I remember having a fear of a wardrobe in my room; it'd been there for ages, but all of sudden it became a hive of monsters and suchlike. My mum imagined it with me, then she showed me how the grain patterns in the wood could be seen as pictures. We traced a few whorls that could be dragons or faces, then she suggested I could either choose to remember it was only wood patterns or we could trace nicer pictures in the grain, like butterflies and fairies.

See if you can find out what DD's imagining when she goes into the wall. Then you'll know whether she needs your help to demystify it or reimagine it, or if it's more that she wants you to understand where she goes (in her imagination) on these journeys.

She's a very clever and articulate 3 year old so she can tell me exactly what happenes. She's definitely scared of it, she says there are spiders in the wall and when she is in there she cries and shakes herself out, we've sat down today and talked about it and she's spoke to the wall and asked it not to do it again, she's almost definitely having a bad dream I think, I can't think of another explanation .

How's DD tonight, OP?

Oh bless her. I wonder if she has seen a crawl space or something, or a picture in a book or a partially renovated house/room? Even maybe a children's programme which featured e.g. an electrician or handyman doing some work inside a wall where you can't normally see. There ARE often spiders in those places and that could be scary for a 3yo to think that there are just voids in all the walls waiting to trap her. My mum still remembers that I was scared of a broken window at the hall where I used to practice ballet when I was about five. I don't remember the window but I do exactly remember the feeling of it and it being scary because it was like it wasn't finished - that feeling stuck with me throughout most of childhood and I was often nervous of more industrial/unfinished type places.

If you can find out where she's seen it then you could reassure her that she can't get trapped in the walls in your house, and show her that they are all sealed with no holes in them.