DS worried about being sick or dying

[PseudoBadger]

Every night DS (6 1/2) lies I. Bed and says he can't get the thoughts out of his head about either vomiting or 'being dead'. He says "do you think I will be sick tonight?" And "will I be dead tonight?"
I have tried getting him to focus on other thoughts and things that he loves but he says he can't think about anything else at bedtime. We've spoken about how unlikely both occurrences are. These thoughts don't seem to be a problem at other times of the day, but he is a sensitive soul.
How can I help him?

I used to get this, the "3am thoughts" my mum used to call them. It was a phase but I think playing story cassettes to fall asleep to helped the thoughts. I suppose it would be a download now though. My mum always used to ask what the best bit of my day was at bedtime too. Reassure reassure reassure is all you can do. You sound like a great Mum.

My 4yo has just been bequeathing his worldly goods to his friends in case he dies tonight. It is a phase. Perfectly normal in my experience.

He loves to listen to Paddington as he goes to sleep. I tell him to listen to him as he doesn't talk about death or being sick. But then he says things like "Paddington says that Queen Elizabeth died 400 years ago" so we talked tonight about how no one wants to be alive at 400 years old

Monster we have had the 'normal' worries about death a year or so ago. This seems different as it is all consuming, rather than matter of fact inappropriate questions like "when will you be dead granny

Death is a really weird concept though and fascinating to children... I also went through a phase of covering all the mirrors incase Mary Queen of Scots jumped out of one. I can remember my Dad banging on the back of them to show me no one was back there! Kids are strange - well I was.

If he is having intrusive thoughts then CBT might help, if it gone on for a while no harm in seeing the GP.

Thank you for taking the time to reply Mustard. I had many little things like that as a child, my parents didn't know the half of it!
I will see how he is in a couple of weeks after our holiday.

My 10 year old has been through several phases of lying awake worrying about vomiting. It's probably down to picking up in my irrational fears if them vomiting or having diarrhoea though.
It has passed for now though so hopefully your ds's will too.

I know exactly what the vomiting is about and I feel terrible about it. He dropped a sticky horrible half chewed haribo on the pavement a few weeks ago and instantly picked it up and put it back in his mouth. I told him he shouldn't eat off the floor, it might make him sick. He said "yeah yeah" - but that night he was sick! I was quietly pleased at the time as I thought it taught him an easy lesson, but now it has clearly become A Thing

My DS7 is the same. Worries about his family dying, always at bedtime and lots of tears. I do wonder if it sometimes to just stay up a bit longer!
Anyway I subscribed to Audible and bought a couple of audio books from my childhood (Magic Faraway Tree) and he listens to that before sleep. Seems to help.
He hasn't done it for a few weeks now so hopefully the phase has passed for a bit.

This could be a childhood phase of thinking about death- not uncommon, its big and hard to grasp and scary.As its taking the form of recurring and intrusive thoughts, about death and also vomiting, it could be a sign of OCD. This term is often used loosely, but it has a clinical meaning which is a bit different.
This may just wear off. Children go through phases, and then just grow out of things. If it doesn't, you might want to discuss it with your GP, possibly without your son there, in the first instance. He may gain from a referral for help with this.

I'm sorry, this maybe isn't what you hoped to hear, and I hesitated to write it. But if it turns out to be a continuing issue, your son deserves to get help and support to get over it. No panic now, just keep an eye on this for a month or two.