2.7 year old having nightmares and seeing animals in her room?

[llynnnn]

My dd is 2.7 years and for the last couple of months now she has been waking in the night a bit upset saying there are animals in her room, 'big, mean animals'. She also talks about it in the mornings too saying she doesnt like the animals in her room.

We have tried reassuring her that there are no animals and we are here for her, she has a night light on, which helped a little. We have also tried to pre-empt it and say before bedtime that we have got rid of all the animals and nothing will disturb her tonight. But shr is still getting worried and anxious about this and it seems to be getting worse.

Is there anything else we can do to help her sleep and reassure her?

TIA

Snap!! Mine too- he sees lions....I believe it all started when he saw lion king (minus the what I assume were scary bits) but I also don't know what to do. I normally turn the light on and take him for a wee to semi wake him up more than a cuddle. Then settle him back to sleep. It normally means he'll wake every hour till around 5, then he sleeps properly again!!

snap! with us its our 2yr 9months and he sees rats and bats - all 3 of mine have gone through this at a similar age, not sure if is just ours or a development thing - bigger 2 are brilliant sleepers now.

ds3 has night light and we tell him that he needs to tells rats to 'shoo away and go and bother someone else' he's not scared of them but they wake him with their 'playing'. We don't talk about them unless he mentions them.

Sorry to hear your dc are having similar thoughts poor little things. Dd has just been up for over an hour upset and restless about it. We have put a brighter lamp on in her room now and she seems to have settled (fingers crossed!) wonder if thats the answer?

Is it safe to have a normal bulb turned on all night though? Can anyone recommend a brighter child-safe night light?

We have been using a small disney one recently which only gives off a tiny bit of light in the immediate area around it!

DS went through a phase of this too and it was usually crocodiles under his toy chest, or I can't remember the other one now. He's 3.4 and we haven't had any animal visitors for months and months now. So they do grow out of it. I second the advice to get her to tell them to go home, it gives them a feeling of power to be able to tell the animals where to get off, and because they're only in her imagination, if she expects them to leave, they will!

Why would it be unsafe to have a lightbulb turned on all night? We regularly do it with ceiling lights here.

Thank you for your reply bertiebotts, i'll definitely try that and tell her to make them go away.
Don't know why it would be unsafe actually it does get hot but its on the top of her wardrobe so she wouldn't be able to get to it. She's still asleep now so it did seem to settle her.

Dd has this, she tells me what animals are there I have to tell them to go away before she goes to sleep. Not all the time it comes and goes. When she was very poorly recently a little boy turned up too.

Snap. My dd is 4 and she has had nightmares like this for a while. I spoke to the nursery staff about it and they said a lot of their songs have animals in. For dd its crocodiles and lions they havent gone away since she started nursery so im guessing its the songs they sing

Maybe you could try taking her to toys r us or somewhere and letting her choose a special bear to have in bed at night to make her feel safe? When we moved DS to a bed he had a few wobbles about being in his room at night but cuddle bear did the trick!