4yr DD has 'bad' dreams EVERY night

[SuperAmoo]

Hi all, my DD1 4.5 yrs has had nightmares or bad dreams 3-4 a week since she was around 2. During the past two months, she is having bad dreams EVERY night. Sometimes 2-3 times per night. I am exhausted because I have a 11month baby who wakes frequently as well. It is definitely not attention seeking. Sometimes she is not even properly awake when I go in. But she's always seems scared and every dream is different and menacing sounding. Like last night she dreamt about falling through cracks in the pavement and about fish with giant teeth.

She has a history of food intolerance which, I thought, she was growing out of but is it possible these bad dreams are symptoms of ongoing food intolerance? She is also a very emotional person who is prone to panic and anxiety. I simply don't know what to do to help her. I have bought her all the Christiane Kerr CDs which help her to get to sleep (which she often finds very hard because, understandably, she doesn't want to go to sleep!. Any thoughts?

A friend of mine has a little boy who was the same at that age. He also was very sensitive. If something was worrying him he'd have a nightmare, because nightmares are the brains way of coping with anxiety. Things that happened during his day often were mulled over in his head and turned into something a lot bigger and scarier than they actually were, leading to a nightmare. His also were very disturbing nightmares. She spoke to her little boy about his nightmares and his daily anxieties and this seemed to ease to problem. However, as your daughter seems to have had this problem for a prolonged time and it seems to be increasing in intensity, I'd go to your GP for some reassurance / further help and advice. See below a section I found on nightmares online :
When children's nightmares persist, when their content is consistently violent or disturbing, and when the upsetting conflicts in the dreams never seem to change or even achieve partial resolution, it may be time to seek further help from a pediatrician. Especially if there is no obvious stress in your child's life, repetitive nightmares could also be caused by a reaction to drugs or a physical condition, so it is advisable to consult a physician to rule out medical causes when nightmares do not appear to have a psychological origin.
I hope this helps. It must be very upsetting and tiring, but there will be an end to it I'm sure. Just lots of cuddles and reassurance when she has a nightmare.

A friend's child had a similar problem and she stopped giving her milk before bed and hey presto, the problem stopped. On that anecdotal evidence alone, I think that it could be food intolerance.

Dd went through a stage of bad dreams at about 4 as well. Instead of telling her that there are no monsters, we bought her a special fairy for her bedroom which is the "monster guarding fairy" and stops monsters getting her or anyone in the house. She may still see them in her dreams, but she is safe. We gave her her own mechanism to deal with her fears and it seemed to work for us.

dd also has nightmares i wasn't aware of a possible food intolerance but will ask paediatrician. how was your dd last night,SuperAmoo?

My DD1 was doing this until I started doing a magic spell (yes really) at bedtime to keep the bad dreams away. It seems to have done the trick, I think by making her feel a bit more secure so that maybe her imagination is less prone to producing scary things.
Might be worth a try - costs nothing and a 4 year old's belief that mummy is omnipotent seems to help!

My DD was having bad dreams each night as well. We bought a dream catcher and put it over her bed. Told her that her favorite bear would take the bad dreams and put it in the dream catcher. Then in the morning the bad dreams will fly out the window. It seems to be working.

The other thing a friend did was write a letter to the good dream fairy and ask her to stop the bad dream fairy from leaving any bad dreams. Put this under her pillow and make sure you remove it when she is asleep. When she wakes in the morning she will find the letter gone and you can say the bad dream fairy has been sent away.

As Haliborange says Mums seem to have the power to send bad dreams away!

Thank you for the wonderful suggestions everyone. I will start putting them into action and report back! aurorastargazer lastnight was particularly bad with three episodes of bad dreams - hence me asking for help today!

I also did the magic spell thing, really simple like 'ziggedy zag, ziggedy zoom, keep all monsters and witches out of babyreiki's room' She loved it and although she still has bad dreams, they are fairly infrequent. I also get dd1 to think of all the good things she wants to dream about that night (usually flying ponies etc!) instead.

Did the magic spell lastnight - she was very sceptical about it working which wasn't a good start but the 'bad' dream she did have lastnight didn't really sound so bad so maybe it did work a little! Will try again tonight. I am also cutting out chocolate and sweets completely for now to see if that helps too.

We made a dream catcher when ds had this.

Dead easy and fun to make.

I had bad dreams as a child, nightly, between the ages of about 4-8. They ranged from surreal or odd to full-on terrifying nightmares. Is your daughter aware that she is dreaming while she's having them? I was aware I was dreaming in mine and the only thing that helped was learning how to wake myself up - in my case, it was opening my eyes really wide in my dream, which of course opened my eyes in real life. I'd advocate the whole doctor/paediatrician route but also try and give her some sort of power over her nightmares. Also, do you let her come into your bed when she's had bad dreams? I appreciate this may not be easy with an 11 month old baby. My Mum always insisted on putting me back in my own bed which I don't think helped at the time although I'm hard as nails now .

I have been thinking of bringing her into my bed I have to admit but then she'll be woken up by DD2 waking up 3 times a night for feeds (greedy beggar!). Am going to see what a second night without any sugar does for her sleep.

Well there have been NO bad dreams since I cut out sugar, chocolate and dairy products from DD1's diet which is the longest she has gone for ....I don't know how long. So it obviously is intolerance-related in her. So glad to have sorted out the problem. She's sleeping so much better that on Saturday she announced she didn't need her dummies anymore and chucked them in the bin! YEAY!