4 year old bedtime

[Sportymum28]

As a kid I was always terrified of the dark and spent a large part of every night staring at the ceiling waiting to fall asleep. Now I have a 4 year old son and I find it really hard to let him cry at night because he's scared. I've been lying with him until he falls asleep, which used to be fine as it was about a 10-15 minute thing. Now it's more like 1-2 hours while I wait for him to fall asleep. It's gotten ridiculous. We've tried just leaving him to it and he screams and cries for us. What do we do?

Night night? Fun kids light?
Story? What sort of routine does he have. My ds 4 has happily given to bed from 9 months. As a toddler he asked for bedtime!
Never cries or been upset. It can be done. Allowing him to rely on you lying with him isn't doing either of you any good imo.

Bath every other night. Night lights. Story time. And we leave on a Moshi sleep story (it's an app) for him to listen to.

Tell him you need to pop out for a minute to do [insert small chore here]. Pop out for a minute and come back. Over a few nights you can increase the amount of time you're out, making noise while you're out so he can hear you. Later, you can say you're just doing [insert larger chore here], and you'll stick your head in from time to time to check on him. Make noise while away. Should take less and less time for him to fall asleep, as he'll have the security that you're around without needing to see you next to him. Good luck!