Toddler is scared of subtle noises - how do I reassure?

[jo0niper]

The 2-year-old appears to be scared of a lot of noises when we are in the house. Not loud noises, like the hoover/hair dryer. But quieter/unexpected noises like overhead airplanes, cars driving past, someone opening/knocking the door or just general house creaking. She has fairly good language skills, but I can't really get to the bottom of why she is scared. She will just say 'what that noise?' and 'I'm scared' and hold on to me. I try to tell her what the noise is and that there is nothing to be scared of - but I do wonder if there is more than I could be doing or saying. Not really a problem when we are out of the house.

My DD is also very sensitive to noise. Gets very jumpy.

Something that helped a lot was if I made a 'jokey' version of the noise. So I'd say something like, 'yes, noisy motorcycle, brrrrrrrom BRRRRRROM' (you have to be there ). It seemed to diffuse it and turn it into something she could be entertained by, if you see what I mean.

Oh sorry, forgot to say that that was phase 2. In phase 1, before I started making s joke out of it, I offered her lots of reassurance and physical closeness to try to help her to regulate her stress. That was quite specific to us though cos she was adopted and came with who knows what kind of ante natal stress loading, and had spent time in foster care before us, so we were sort of primed to help her calm down. But could still be useful for you. It was when I thought she was generally a bit less jumpy that I started playing around with it.