4 year old DS - scared at night

[holidaysdistantmemory]

Since Christmas, my ds has been waking every few nights, scared - witches, noises, jesters, crabs in the bed (yes, as random as a 4 year old can be). Usually around 2am.

We have tried calming him, night lights, gro clock, sitting outside his room, lying on a mattress on his floor, sitting on a seat in his room, putting him on a mattress on the floor in our room and at last resort taking him into bed when all else fails (only the last guarantees sleep). We have also used star charts (with some small success) and cutting out any possibly scary books or TV programmes.

We are shattered, I am pregnant with twins and my dh works really hard. As you can imagine, its blinking miserable freezing on a mattress on a floor or sitting for hours on a hard seat at 2am when pregnant with twins.

Any tips, guidance? At wits end, esp as aware now going to be much sleep in our house in a couple of months when the babies come...also have a DD (2) who sleeps in a separate room. Thanks in advance, and sorry for ramble...

Ps. He is quite a sensitive little lad in the day but never had any problems sleeping before, and generally happy in life.

You poor thing you must be exhausted.
I have a DS te same age who goes through phases of being afraid at night - although it is not as bad as your DS and he shares a room with his brother, which helps. Although heart breaking to see them upset I always try and deal with it briskly and not be too indulgent (sounds so harsh) as I think that might make him think his fears are founded so I try to reassure and put him back in bed, sing his favourite song then get te hell out f there . I'm not always successful but it's not escalated into anything more and we are going through a good period at the moment.
Special toy / night light/ new duvet set to make good dreams (not to keep monsters away)?
I know he might be a bit old for it but the v-tech toy scout is lovely - programme it to say his name and play his favourite songs / lullabies and his collar lights up so like a little night light he could press for
a tune of he feels anxious?
If all fails the remember that it will pass. This may help to keep you on the right side of sane.
Good luck.

poor you, bad dreams are horrid for everyone. one thing that worked for my two at a similar age is 'magic' spray to keep the bad dreams/monsters/whatever, away. Just a water spray but you only bring it out for this purpose and spray it around the room/doors/windows etc. its obviously just water but the power of magic can be surprising...

also both my two have dream catchers hanging in their rooms which, even at 9 and 7, are still relied on and I often have to empty them out in the middle of the night!

good luck x

Also, is it worth checking he's warm enough? My DD had a phase of bad dreams until I realised she was cold, I put an extra blanket on her and hey presto, a solid nights sleep! just a thought.

Some good advice here.

DS has had the same...we did a big search of his room, gave it clean and changed the bedding in the day time. New fairy lights as a night light. Then we were brisk with the back to bedtime, no such things as monsters/witches etc.

We also talked alot about things that were real/not real in films and books.

We also paid attention to the noises the house makes in the daytime, and how at night the house makes the same noises, but it is just the wind/neighbours/cars/rain and so on.

Does he go to sleep on his own or do you have to sit with him ? We found ds stopped waking in the night once we got him to go to sleep by himself - took a few weeks of gradually being further away, from sitting near the bed to being at the door, to being just outside the door then in the next room etc...

He still has odd bad dream but v rarely ( also banned scooby doo watching before bedtime)

no advice but my ds1 (4.1) comes in to out bed every night and says he can't go back to his bed because he has bad dreams (monsters and bad people).

I have stopped him watching Ben ten and have put a night light in his room but it hasn't improved.

Ds1 often wakes up frightened too. he's the same age as your ds. We bought some worry dolls from eBay and ds likes to tell them if there's anything he's feeling anxious about. It's helped a bit, but hasn't solved the problem completely.

My dd went through a phase of the bad dreams at that age. She's stopped now. I used to let her get in bed with us because I felt sorry for her. It doesn't seem to happen now and she stays in her own bed.
Its a bit hard on you, could you tolerate him in your bed for the odd night until this passes?

Oh, just remembered something I did which helped. I wrote a note and put it under dd's pillow telling the dreams to go away otherwise they would have me to reckon with. Dd loved this and it made her feel safer having it under her pillow. This is the one thing that really helped a lot.