How do I help my 4 year old deal with bad dreams/thoughts?

[MetalMother]

I am after advice/reassurance!

My lovely 4 year old headstrong but happy girl has become clingy and upset at bedtime and during the night: "Don't leave me mummy/daddy", "I don't want to be alone". She wakes up shouting for us 2-3 times each night and won't let us leave the room until she's asleep.

She had a couple of bad dreams a month ago after a trip to London where we saw a guy get arrested in a small shop by two very tall police officers. Her dreams were about the "policemen catching the bad guy". We have talked about it, been realistic that bad dreams do happen, but talked a lot about good dreams too and how lovely they can be. Unfortunately I think the bad dreams have now become confused with "bad thoughts" - i.e. her using her imagination to think of things that she's scared of - which obviously can happen at any time 😞

Now it seems that every time she wakes up in the night she is automatically shouting for us and won't stop until we come. She just wants to know we are there. During the night we are staying, but I worry that it's creating future sleep habits that we've always worked to prevent (DH is not so worried and thinks we should give her what she wants). I don't know how to get back to the heady days of uninterrupted sleep, but the key before has been her going to sleep on her own so that when she wakes up alone she can get back to sleep. So staying with her until she falls asleep makes me panic - that I am making a fundamental choice which will lead to us all sharing one room until she's a teenager.

Please give me ideas for helping her deal with the "bad thoughts" and for helping her sleep alone!

Does she have a nightlight? I don't know any teenagers who sleep with their parents
At 4 my dd woke up with bad dreams, still does sometimes And she's now 5.
Sorry not much help but maybe you could take her out to get a teddy / dolly that is her special nighttime bear, make a big thing if it, how it is going to be looking after her all night and she can cuddle her if she's scared at night.
We got dd one when she went through something similar, however her nighttime teddy (big bill) is 5ft high so I wouldn't recommend something quite so big

When my dd started having bad dreams after a trauma her therapist encouraged her to draw out her dreams. It helps them file them away apparently, dealt with and on the way to being forgotten. .
Some weird as hell pics but it worked. Maybe you could try it?
Could you try and get her to chat to a policeman in town /wherever to encourage her to realise the police help keep us safe etc.

I encouraged mine to tell their nightmare and then add to it to change the ending so it was ok. E.g..the monster was chasing me and going to eat me.........but then the big friendly giant came and squashed the monster and then he picked me up and carried me to the shops and we had chocolate ice cream to celebrate and now we are best friends.
Sometimes we had to rewrite the dream together but sometimes they could do it themselves and just go back to sleep.

I got my DD a dream catcher to hang above her bed which we "empty" the bad dreams out of each weekend.
I als bought her a worry eater toy from Amazon, which you write down your worries before bed, zip its mouth shut and then parent empties overnight and the worry is gone.
She also has worry dolls to put under pillow.

Thanks so much everyone- I am feeling a bit more relaxed about it, although the night waking/don't leave me is still happening of course. I'll try the drawing thing this weekend, was thinking about doing some sort of role play with toys too. And funnily enough I did see a girl carrying a metre high stuffed dog today and wondered whether that would be good idea! I'll save that for later and hope I don't need it...