Help - 2.8 year old dd suddenly refusing to sleep in her room, hysterics at bedtime!!!

[liath]

Dd seems so have developed a phobia of her bed and is now absolutely refusing to go to sleep in her room. She's spent the last few nights in our bed which combined with still doing night feeds with 7 month old ds is leading to not a lot of sleep.

She has always been a fantastic sleeper, we've never had any major problems at all but last saturday the f*cking next-door neighbours let off a load of fireworks at 11pm and it was like World War 3 - dd got a hell of a fright and wouldn't settle afterwards. Now she just goes totally hysterical if we try and put her to bed so she's going to sleep on the sofa and coming to bed with us. If I do manage to put her into her bed asleep she always wakes up and comes screaming into our room, poor thing.

I've tried asking her why she doesn't want to sleep in her room and she just says she doesn't want to. Dh is doing night shifts next week so I'm going to be coping alone and ds is often up at 5.30am.

Anyone got any miracle solutions? Or sympathy??

Loads of sympathy - our dd is the same age and heading down that route - she suddenly doesn't want to go to bed and will try any excuse not to be there, drink of water, toilet, missing toy, load noises(Diwali was a nightmare!) but at least once she's there, she's there, iyswim (although she has started waking in the night at about 2am which we're not best pleased about!).

She was complaining of 'bad dreams', so what we did (not saying it'll work for your dd, mind) was to enlist her toy dragon, Mr Cinders, to sit at the end of her bed and scare away the bad dreams. So far, it seems to have worked. That and being VERY firm about bed-time. She has her story, she has her song, then it's bedtime. No bargaining.

We do a kind of milder Supernanny thang with her then, when she's creating - just keep going back to her at intervals of increasing 5 mins, (ie 5 mins, then 10 mins, then 15 mins) or thereabouts, not really talking other than to say 'night-night time' and putting her back to bed. The longest I've had to do it was 3/4 of an hour, and it was hell on wheels, but since then she's been a lot better.

I actually find that dd will go to bed much easier for me on my own than when DH is there - something about 'fun daddy', no doubt... So you may be pleasantly surprised!

Hope this helps and that you get a few more useful replies!

I agree with the toy thingy, or something. For a brief while DS wouldn't stay alone in the living room - scared - So then had Homer/Marge/Bart/Lisa/Maggie sit there. It didn't work straight away or for long, but it helped put him back to normal not long after. And the other one, (hmmn you dont realise how many of these events there are), was to explain where the noise was coming from, and show him, again not instant but helped.

Thanks! Lovecat, it's true that she does act up at bedtime far more when DH is around. I was wondering whether to wrap up a present, show her it and promise she can open it in the morning if she stays in bed all night. She tends to responds fairly well to bribery!

hi liath, can i just say u might be making a huggge mistake with the present thing, yeah it may work, but then she will be expecting presents every single day and it may be a bit difficult to get out of, can u buy some pretty fairy lights? they worked wonders with my dd, i got the pink fluffy ones from argos for about a tenner i think, ive strung them over the curtain pole thing and it looks beautiful, dd was very pleased with her "princess" lights, maybe u could try it? tell her they are magic lights?

Ooops - too late - she stayed in bed all night last night and got a wee present. I'm not planning on continuing it, mind you!!