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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to actually consider a psychic to sort out my daughter's sudden fear of her room..

115 replies

brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 14:28

OK, I know I'm being a prat, but I'm at my wits end with this situation. Over the past 4 days DD refuses to sleep in her bedroom. She lies there with scared, wide eyes and tells me the windows have been rattling. It freaked me out too...
She'll happily play with her toys in there but as soon as she has to get into bed to lie down, she starts screaming.
She's 2.5 yrs old, with an extremely vivid imagination, but she normally loves her sleep and her bed.
Gaahhhh....I'm knackered.............

OP posts:
Original poster
brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 15:20

Plant spray it is tomorrow then..

OP posts:
katiestar · 19/10/2009 15:22

One of my DC had a fear of 'the eye' in his bedroom about that age.It was the little semicircle of light that comes through on to the ceiling where the curtains meet.
Your DD is frightened because the windows are making a noise.Simple as that.

Original poster
brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 15:23

Singstar, I would never pay a medium. My mum's friend told me a few months ago that she's been seeing people and animals who have "passed over" since she was young but she just doesn't tell anyone about it. She tries to blank them out now, but it would have been great to get her over here just to convince me nothing untoward was going on in DD's room.

OP posts:
Original poster
brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 15:24

Katiestar, DD had the same fear but it was "the elephant".

OP posts:
pigsinmud · 19/10/2009 15:26

Well it's just a noise so can't see how medium would help.

Have a story similar to singstar. When dd1 was nearly 3 she's started giggling and smiling when in her bedroom - appeared to not be listening to me. She'd wave goodnight to an area of the room and said she could see faces. We thought about spirits and were happy as she seemed happy. Few weeks later she was downstairs and started screaming that there was a black shadow with stripey trousers - she didn't like it as she couldn't see his face properly. I was terrified and dd1 was hysterical for about half an hour. She was so scared. After that she never saw the faces again - bit sad as she seemed happy with the giggling faces.

slowreadingprogress · 19/10/2009 15:26

agree that she doesn't need a psychic she just needs her parents to help her out with some sensible strategies or support! Fears like this are a big part of childhood and it is a good time now to find a way round this that works for your family without getting silly about it and introducing the idea of 'psychics' to her which is bound to freak her out and frighten her more. There is enough in THIS world for her to learn about and process without bringing fantasy into the equation.

Original poster
brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 15:30

I would never bring a psychic into the house if DD was here. I'm not really thinking about taking it that far, just want to see DD enjoying her bed again, thats all.

OP posts:
slowreadingprogress · 19/10/2009 15:33

Well she can do that if you help her. Honestly - you are enough and you can do it, you don't need anyone else.

pjmama · 19/10/2009 15:37

I had something similar when DD was the same sort of age. She woke up screaming one night saying that spiders under the covers were biting her legs. Then for the following several nights, flatly refused under any circumstances to get into her bed.

Eventually we re-arranged the furntiture in her bedroom so that it looked different and was a bit of a novelty, to take her mind off it. That coupled with sitting with her, cuddles, letting her fall asleep on top of the covers and a big stuffed dog called Henry to "chase the bugs away" - after a week or so she gradually forgot about it and things got back to normal.

Singstar · 19/10/2009 15:37

don't think anyone is suggesting bringing a psychic into the house - all I know is that for whatever reason us saying what we did stopped the chatting - could be explained a million ways, but at the time (and still now to be honest) I didn't care why, was just glad that it had and ds was getting a decent nights sleep.

Glad to hear that my ds isn't the only who chats away to nothing though

Original poster
brightongirldownunder · 19/10/2009 15:39

Right I'm off to attempt to sleep - which is going to be extremely hard after this as I'll be expecting weirdy faces with striped pj's to be standing over my bed now. Sheesh..

Thanks for the advice, guys. Will try to be more relaxed about it tomorrow.

OP posts:
OldLadyKnowsNothing · 19/10/2009 15:42

Sleep well.

Morloth · 19/10/2009 16:21

Give her a weapon. We subscribe to the Terry Pratchett school of child rearing and gave DS a sword to take to bed with him (a toy one! though it was wooden and quite heavy as far as toy swords go) when he was scared of the monsters.

We told him if they bothered him again to tell them to go away or else. Or to call us and we would give it a whack.

Haven't had a problem since. He will now quite happily move around in the dark.

Kathyis12feethighandbites · 19/10/2009 16:22

"We subscribe to the Terry Pratchett school of child rearing "

I would like to know more about this method. Is there a book?

posieparker · 19/10/2009 16:23

MY dd was about this age when she did something similar, only she was right . We had left her window open one night and her blind flapped. She has her flower light on until she goes to sleep and her door open. When the boys did this we made up ways of making sure there were no monsters.... you know things like if a Teddy faces the door monsters can't enter!

TheBlairSnitchProject · 19/10/2009 16:27

LOL Morloth - DS's favourite book is "Where's my Cow"

Morloth · 19/10/2009 16:31

LOL, ours got all chewed up Blair which I thought was a good touch. I love the bit where you have to talk about the Animals Act of 1905 or whatever.

I get night terrors and they feel SO real that there was no chance I was going to tell him there were not any monsters, just in case I was wrong.

Poledra · 19/10/2009 16:36

DD1 had a phase of waking up screaming in the night that the black people were coming out of the walls to get her. My dad eventually worked out that, when a car went along our street with its headlamps on, the shadows raced across her bedroom wall. We got thicker curtains, and explained what was happening to her (and DH went up into her room with her one winter evening to show her what he meant). No more black people

neversaydie · 19/10/2009 16:42

I like the Pratchett school of child rearing!.

What worked the best with our ds, though, was reminding him just how much his father hates unexpected visitors, followed by wondering if he would ever allow any monsters in the house at all. (It did give us some problems explaining Father Christmas though. Which is why at our house he comes through the front door, having rung the door bell first!)

TheBlairSnitchProject · 19/10/2009 16:44

"Never try to milk a chicken, it hardly ever works"

I'm getting close to being able to recite it without the book. I read it 2 or 3 times at day at the moment!!

pranma · 19/10/2009 16:53

My dgs was suddenly ver afraid of 'the tower' wher something was going to get him!It was the church tower that he could see from his window in daytime,His mum put the king from a set of mega blocks by his bed and said that the kig would protect him.It has worked really well.My friend used to sleep with a spray of water to shoot monsters but best of all was another friend whose dgs was given a torch to have in bed.No more night fears.Try sleeping in the room yourself.Do the windows rattle?If so put paper wedges in them to stop it.

OrmIrian · 19/10/2009 16:55

No monsters in our house. THe children know exactly what mummy would do to them! They wouldn't dare.

Morloth · 19/10/2009 17:00

Pratchett should write a parenting book. He could put a picture of the excellent Rihanna on the front page to prove it works. I would buy it .

Boobalina · 19/10/2009 17:28

LOL Ormirian - my kids know the same - Monsters are too scared to come to our house as I would shout at them and smack their bums (monsters that is).

SolidGhoulBrass · 19/10/2009 21:25

Another vote of approval for Where's My Cow, which has been much loved in our house too.

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