Lions, tigers and spiders - 2.5 year old with nightmares

[mummydreamer]

My 2.5 year old dd has recently been quite unsettled at night and has been waking up screaming about lions, tigers etc in her room. We have recently had a new baby boy and these nightmares have intensified ever since. (We have done lots to ensure DD still feels special and she has never shown anything but positives for her new baby brother. )

We have tried talking / consoling / reassuring her about mummy and daddy always keeping her safe and how there are no lions / tigers etc in her room. I have removed most of the soft toys in case they were the problem. DD is clearly terrified and I would welcome any suggestions.

I don't know whether this is the right approach, but a friend insists that there is no point trying to convince a 2year old that the tigers/monsters ect. don't exist, as they do in their eyes. She believes it's better to tell them that "mummy chased them away" or something...

We have also just played along if DD (now just turned 3) has had nightmares. WE just chase them away, catch them and take them away, or whatever is appropriate. It is much simpler ad easier that long explanations of what is and isn't real. And for us, it does seem to settle her too.

Ds has had periods of abject terror because he thought there were wild animals trying to get him. We gave him lots of reassurance, I read a book about the specific animals (it's a general purpose reference book about wild animals ) so he was able to point to the ones he was scared of, and then we read about where they live, and discovered they don't actually live in his bedroom, we went to the zoo to 'see' the wild animals, and prove they can't get him.

Don't know if any of that worked, but he doesn't seem to be frightened anymore - he does have phobias about dogs etc, but only when he 'sees' a dog, he doesn't imagine them. He was totally unable to leave the house for a day or two after the worst nightmares, so I do understand how real these fears can be.

Hope things improve. If I remember anything else we did I'll post it.