How to get 5 yr old to go to sleep -apparently scared of nasty thoughts.

[tiredandwanttogotobed]

My DD, aged 5, usually gets into bed at about 7.15 and reads for a while until an agreed time when we come up and turn off her light and she goes to sleep.

However, for the last 9 nights this hasn't happened. She saw a clip on Stephen Lawrence and has been apparently having 'nasty thoughts' ever since which stop her sleeping. She has been getting herself into a real state, literally hysterical at times. She has been waking her brother so we told her that if she needed us she should come downstairs but now she is just staying in her room for 5-15 minutes and she's downstairs again.

So, what do we do. Our response has varied from softly softly getting into bed with her, telling her to think of other things e.g. imagining animals going into the Ark alphabetically, to I'm afraid being really cheesed off and telling he to go to her bed now or we'll shut her door for the night.

So, what do we do? We're getting no sleep and all 4 of us are shattered.

ds1 was doing this.hes very arty so we sat and drew pictures of what was keeping him awake.he drew,i watched encouraging-what else etc.then when he had finished i added funny hair and bikinis etc,making the monsters look funny,then i drew him as a super hero wearing a cape.he went to sleep with the silly pictures next to his bed and was fine!
worked on him,might be worth a try?

DD loves to draw - she does it all of the time. Perhaps this might work - good tip :-)

worth a try!goodluck!

Any more thoughts any one?

What about a story cd or music on quietly so that she can drift off to sleep with her thoughts occupied by something elsr

My DS gets worried by things sometimes. He is avery deep thinker. It has got better since he can distract himself by reading to himself. We often pray with him out loud if he gets worried so he know God is looking after him. This really works for him.

We had bad dream issues when ds was younger - and found that some friendly monsters were a great help. He named them (actually there was originally only meant to be one, but he decided that the one needed a friend so that there were two) and worked out what they looked like and where they liked to sit in his bedroom so that they could look after him in the night - they, of course, were invisible to anyone but him, just in case you were wondering.

Ds nearly always goes to sleep to the radio for an hour - rarely listens for that long, and if he wakes up in the night we sometimes put it on for a short time and it helps to get him back off to sleep quickly.

a dream kiss works well for ds too. I kiss him on the forehead right on the bridge of his nose and that kiss gives him a really special happy dream of his choice.

We throw his bad thoughts down the toilet and replace them with good ones.

My DS (6) is very similar and when he goes to bed he has all sorts of 'bad' thoughts, mainly about robbers coming into our house. Before he goes to bed, I get him to lock the front door and I always say 'Right, nice and safe now'

When he is in bed and he tells me he has scary thoughts, we come up with 3 nice things that he can think about before he goes to sleep - normally with him its generally thoughts about Man City and football! Anyway, e get the 3 nice thoughts and then I get my hands and hold his head and pretend to 'pull' the scary thoughts out and I catch them in my hand. I then go to the toilet, lift the seat, throw them in and flush them away.

I then go back into his room and remind him that the scary thoughts are gone and we have a quick reminder of his 3 nice thoughts.

This usually works for us.

I had this problem with my DD at a similar age, my mum gave her some worry dolls from Peru. (small dolls in a little box from ebay or craft shops) She was encouraged to tell the dolls her worries and fears then put them in the box and place them under her pillow. She was told that the dolls were made by special loving people and it was their job to take away all the horrible things in your head. This really helped as she was able to talk about her fears without anyone chipping in or feeling silly. She is now 15 and still uses them sometimes. I used to listen at the door just to check there was nothing more sinister worring her( not PC I know) Hope this helps.

Hi, i bought books from this company, www.kidz4mation.com/index.html. and they really help with my child's confidence. i bought the story book called " Positive thinking" I would recommend these books for your children. they also have same activities and questions u can talk thru with your child. :)

Would a dream catcher help?
DD was convinced by one after she went through a spell of night terrors.

Similar to what everyone else has said, but we had a "bedtime box" which I decorated with stickers. Every night, DS would tell me exactly what was worrying him that night, I would write it down on a piece of paper, and then put it in the box. Then I'd say "Right, you don't need to worry about that any more tonight, we can talk about it again tomorrow if you want to". It was a combination of validation of the fears, talking them through and then "putting them away" for that day that worked I think. He had been worrying for weeks and this dealt with it in a couple of days.

We have this and I think it's lovely:

www.amazon.co.uk/Bedtime-Meditations-Kids-Calm/dp/1901923908/ref=pd_sim_m_h__1

I am reading the ideas here with interest. Love the worry dolls/box and flushing, monsters and thinking of 3 nice things to think about as you go to sleep. I will be using all those ideas.

We're a month into this thing now. DD upstairs hysterical because the bad men are killing. I'm feeling like I've got permanent PMS because I haven't had a full night's sleep since this started.

Do we now go to our GP and wait forever for a referral to see a counsellor?