SCARED OF THE DARK

[sezza]

Both my 5 and 3 year old are scared of the dark and "nasty things", as they call them (??!). I know it doesn't help that I am also scared of the dark, but hopefully they don't know that!!
What can I say to reassure them?

Sezza - I'm not too fond of the dark either and I think my ds (22mths) is going down that road too!! I've never let him sleep with the light off, so perhaps that is my fault. I don't sleep with the light off either...... I'm just a big baby!

Don't really have much advice I'm afraid, just that you're not alone!!

I have always been scared of the dark, and if DH is away I have to sleep with the bathroom light on. However, I am also night blind, which means that in dim light I find it hard to differentiate between up/down i.e steps and kerp stones etc. This makes me unsteady on my feet and I'm sure it was ther as a child because my 2 sons are fine but my daughter is night blind and it seems to be in the females in my family. Anyway, the point of all this is that I have made big efforts to help my children learn to cope in the dark, so I conciously taught them to navigate around rooms in the dark, climb upstairs with me and find the light when we were upstairs and so on. My two sons can do this easily, but my daughter still turns all the lights on given half a chance. I was told that if you let your children learn that they can see in the dark when they are young, that they will take this skill forwards and that it can even help maintain their visual skills. I do think that whatever our fears, we owe it to our children to hide them and to try and teach them ways of coping so that they don't turn out like us! Having said all that, fear of the dark is pretty primative, so maybe we can help some (like my DS's) but not all.....

Please excuse typos - Very tired>..!!!

Sezza

It may sound like a silly idea but have you considered giving your children a small torch each?

That way if they are scared they can turn them on and chase the monsters away.

I would also suggest getting rechargeable batteries.

Mum2Toby

Still scared of the dark? Better make sure there are lots of candles in the honeymoon suite then.