Terrified by Santa, lions, bunnies etc...

[fitzliness]

At 3.6, dd is a generally happy and easygoing child until, that is, she encounters someone dressed up in, for example, a lion or rabbit suit, whereupon her face crumples, she screams blue murder and tries to climb over or through whichever one of us happens to have scooped her up. She seems to be genuinely terrified. There is no comforting her until we are well away from the scene. We once asked a nice man in a lion suit to take the lion head off so that she could see that he was, in fact, a nice man in a lion suit, but it didn?t help.

Santa has the same effect, to the point where just the mention of his name causes her lower lip to wobble. In October.

I imagine this will pass with time and we can probably do without EuroDisney for a decade or two but avoiding Santa means she misses out on a lot at Christmas time.

Any ideas anyone?

DD was exactly the same at that age. We lived on a US airbase and Easter was really not fun, they had the Easter Bunny sitting in the middle of the BX and I had to shop, so I had to cover DD's eyes with my hands and push the trolley past at a run, while avoiding the nice Bunny's Helpers who were trying to persuade me that my screaming, crying, hysterical DD really would love a photo...

No advice, sorry, just know that this too will pass.

DD was over it by the time she started full time school, if that helps.

dd had a short phase of this sort of thing but was back to normal pretty quick... DS however is 21m and terrified of the fecking shapes on mr fecking maker... properly terrified... climbs on me wailing if I don't notice the program quick enough to flip over! pansy

strangly enough we went to eurodisney in feb which was where we discovered these fears of his... was balling his eyes out as the cute characters were saying hello to him mostly because his sister had been screaming to get them to come over

Oh yes, the old bunny-in-the-supermarket. Why? For what purpose?

As ever, good to know we're not alone. :)

I was very like that when I was little, terrified of anyone dressed up, esp Santa Claus - I couldn't sleep on Xmas Eve cos I was scared I would see him, not cos I was excited (I blame my dad, somebody dressed as Santa came round to our house collecting for charity when I was a toddler and my dad took me to the door to see him when I'd just woken up from a nap - cue hysterical screaming!!)

Unfortunately I'm still very uncomfortable around people dressed up even now (I'm 31 ). I once came out of John Lewis near christmas time and was frozen to the spot cos there was a guy dressed as Santa zipping about on a golf buggy, and I can't go within 100 ft of those living statues without having a bit of an inner freakout. Sounds really pathetic but suppose you would just call it an irrational fear.

Anyway, my point is that even me, who is still scared of people dressed up now, grew out of the screaming in fear stage when I was a toddler - it just turned into quiet avoidance as I got older. So I wouldn't worry, such a strong reaction is definately a phase, just wait it out.

P.S. I fear my 20mth old DS is heading the same way so you're not alone (Saying that, I don't mind if DS is the same to an extent. I have no wish to take him to see Santa Claus or go to Disneyland - shudder. Think DP will have to do all that side of things)