Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Help/advice with a sleep problem with 3.10yrs who is genuinely scared of being alone upstairs

48 replies

frenchmumma · 29/12/2008 20:53

My ds will be 4 in Feb. When he goes to bed I have to sit in the room whilst he drops off. In the night he comes into our room.

I want to try and break the first part after Christmas has died down. Problem is he is genuinely very scared of being left alone.

I have tried all sorts - telling him that he is a big boy now, Mummy and Daddy are just downstairs having tea etc...but he goes balastic.

We had a chat about it and he said he is scared of being on his own.

He has a nightlight and we also leave the bathroom light on, the door is slightly open aswell.

Ive tried the moving nearer the door on the stool but he goes balistic again.

Any suggestions on how to sort this please?

OP posts:

PuzzleRocks · 29/12/2008 21:45

bumping for you

TheHopefullyAndTheIvy · 29/12/2008 22:14

Haven't experienced it myself, but a friend had something similar, and managed to persuade her DD (who I think was a little younger, just 3 if I remember correctly) that she would come back and check on her every 2 minutes - and did so. After a couple of nights, she told DD she would check ever 3 mins, and did so, then ever 5 mins. I think eventually they got to every 10 mins, and she left it at that for a while, and her DD eventually grew out of being worried and they could stop checking.

That solved her early evening problem, but I think for the middle of the night she used to just go in and sleep in her DD's room until she grew out of it!

Friendlypizzaeater · 29/12/2008 22:16

Could you put a ticking alarm clock in there ? My LO thinks his smoke alarm in there is making sure he is OK

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting

Original poster

frenchmumma · 29/12/2008 22:16

yes I think I may try that - I did start to do this one night but after the 3rd Check he got scared and said stay now mummy

OP posts:

MmeLindt · 29/12/2008 22:20

He goes to sleep ok but gets up in the night. He does not want to go upstairs on his own, even during the day.

I am torn between being stern and being affectionate/coddling. If I go along with it will he at some point just become more confident and brave?

CurlyhairedAssassin · 29/12/2008 22:31

I suspect my DS1 (just 5) wouuld be a bit like this if we hadn't decided on using a 2-way baby monitor still! Some of our friends think we're mad for still using a baby monitor, thinking that we use it to check he's still breathing, as you would a young baby! WE use it purely as an intercom. Very helpful for reassuring him when he went through the same stage as your DS, frenchmumma. Has also meant that he has never once got out of his bed to come to ours as we can just speak to him on monitor and tell him it's not time to get up yet when we want a weekend lie-in!

I know the time will be right to stop using it when I hear the rustle of bedcovers, tissues and magazines when he's a teenager!

kitbit · 29/12/2008 22:36

Can he be more specific about why being alone scares him? Is it shadows he can't explain? Is is noises? Does he have a really active imagination? Scary TV shows firing his ideas? Could there be spooks about?

Would a monitor help, so that he can call you?

ds (now 4) is just coming out of a clingy night time phase. For a while just so that he could get some sleep (and us!) we moved his bed into our room, making the excuse that his room was too hot (it was) and ours had aircon (it does) so we'd do it for the summer. He started to feel more secure again and is now back in his room with only the occasional waking, but when he does wake he's not upset any more.

kitbit · 29/12/2008 22:37

MmeLindt, we've found with ds that "going with it" makes his more secure and settled more quickly whereas trying to "be firm" makes it worse. Right from separation anxiety when he was about a year old, to the latest sleeping alone thing, both (and other patches in between) pass quickly if we offer reassurances rather than trying to fight it.

Acinonyx · 29/12/2008 22:38

I will try the checking routine. Dd (3.5) has started this since the summer. It's becoming increasingly difficult to leave her.

She has a night light (two in fact, one overhead on dimmer and one on her bedhead that she can switch on and off herself). She can have music. We put 'friends' at key points to guard the shadows.

Like MmeL she won't go up or down stairs alone - and she won't let me either - she must come with me.

I struggle with how firm to be with this as I was terrified of the dark myself and didn't start to grow out of it until my late teens.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 29/12/2008 22:41

I'd second kitbit. There is no forcing it. They just grow out of it eventually. Use whatever you have to to make it easier for them.

Miaou · 29/12/2008 22:42

Ds1 did this - as kitbit says, going with it (though totally against my instincts) actually worked better than telling him there was nothing to be scared of! I told him last night that if he felt a bit scared, then he should "raaaar" at the scareyness (he and dh "raaar" at each other and he finds it great fun). His face lit up and he said "yes! Then I die it!" (ie kill it ). It worked! First time he has slept through without calling me in a while. This morning I praised him for not calling for me in the night (usually about 4am ). He said, "yes mummy, I raaared and it OK!"

Hopefully it will continue to work; he's not woken so far anyway

Miaou · 29/12/2008 22:44

Acinonyx, I'm still scared of the dark. I was staying in a B&B with my parents when I was 26 - I got my dad out of bed to walk me down a dark corridor to my room because I was too scared to go down it by myself

kitbit · 29/12/2008 22:45

oh, wonder if this gem from dh will help!!!
I overheard dh and ds a few months ago getting ready for bed:

ds: aargghh ARRGHHH can't go in my room daddy, there's monsters! MONSTERS! AARGH!
dh: hmm. Well I can't see how there can be any monsters, they haven't been delivered yet.
ds: AARGGHHH....WAHHH....eh?
dh: well we ordered them, but the shop rang to say we'd forgotten to choose which colour we wanted to they haven't sent them. Do you think they sent them by mistake?
ds: errr..... ??
dh: c'mon, let's check. If they're here we'll have to send them back if we don't like them.
ds: OK Daddy. Can we have dinosaur stories?

and now the current one we use is to tell him that monsters/baddies/scaries are just pretend. So if he can pretend they're there, he can pretend they're gone again, and they have to be gone because he's in charge of the pretending. That one's doing well at the moment!

katch · 29/12/2008 22:46

Erm...what's wrong with sitting with your babies until they go to sleep? I'd like mine to have good memories.

jollyholly · 29/12/2008 22:46

We had a couple of things with our dd's - The Bravest Teddy in the World who would sit awake all night to guard dd1, and an anti-monster spray (a plant bottle!) to spray at any darkness to kill monsters.

MatNanPlusAbroad · 29/12/2008 22:47

2 way monitor and lots of together time and this will pass.

MmeLindt · 29/12/2008 23:03

LOL at the monsters not being delivered.

There is nothing wrong with sitting with babies until they go to sleep but he is 4.6yo so not a baby and, tbh, by 8pm I just want to flop on the couch. He is quite difficult at the moment.

Thanks for the advice on not being strict, I do understand that he is just unsettled at the moment (new house, new country, new language) and he needs reassurance. He went into DD's bed last night.

We have a teddy guard post at his door.

Friendlypizzaeater · 29/12/2008 23:32

We have vertigo at the mo in this house so LO had "room spinning medicine" he rubs on his tummy to stop it spinning (empty roll on deoderant) that he applies when he wakes up !

Acinonyx · 30/12/2008 09:49

Miaou - I still need the hall light on if dh is away..

MmeLindt - I'm with you there. NOT having to stay until dc is actually asleep was a definite parenting goal for us.

Dd has a monster who lives in her clock...

juuule · 30/12/2008 09:55

If he's genuinely very scared then apart from trying to reassure him that there is nothing to be afraid of, then there's not much more you can do until he grows out of it.

We have sat with ours until they fell asleep.
Let them stay downstairs until we went up.
Let them sleep at the side of our bed if they wake frightened in the night.
Eventually, we've found, they grow out of it.

Very unkind to shout, be stern, etc if he is very scared.

juuule · 30/12/2008 09:57

I've just read that he has a lot of new things going on. Hardly surprising he feels insecure, is it?
If you want to flop on the settee couldn't he flop at the other end? He'd probably nod off anyway.

MissisBoot · 30/12/2008 10:00

DD is like this so I go and mumsnet tidy up in my bedroom/bathroom until I think she's fallen asleep - seems to work most nights. She just likes the sound of someone else being close by.

RumMum · 30/12/2008 10:13

well... my son is 10 now and earlier in the year MIL gave him some dvd's... one on space.. one on sharks and one on supernatural.. well the supernatural ghost one freaked him out big time, to the extent that he needed to sleep with the light on, door open.. wouldn't go upstairs on his own...wouldn't go to sleep... woke up at night having night mares, you get the picture.
we treated it with sympathy, after all it was just a phase he was going through.. right! He does go throught phases of being fine for a month.. then it comes back for a month... my H and I have just decided to seperate, so I'm not sure if this has exastibated the problem for ds at the moment... or maybe it was because H let DS watch most haunted!

I was given some good ideas on here... a torch did help us..

pantomimEDAMe · 30/12/2008 10:24

I've always told ds that monsters are NOT allowed in the house and used to make a big performance of shooing them down the stairs and out of the front door if they had managed to creep in before bedtime.

Dh bought ds something called a 'night guardian' for Christmas - he's dry at night but needs to get up to have a wee sometimes. It's a soft toy - you press his tummy and he says something reassuring, then lights up a series of crystals we've put at various points on his journey downstairs. He's taking himself down to the loo without calling us now.

lizandlulu · 30/12/2008 10:26

i am in the same boat, i have to sit with dd 3.2 still she goes to sleep then she wakes in the night and gets into our bed. i used to take her back and have to sit with her again, but now its winter our old house is so cold i dont want to get out of bed to return her to her bed
when it first started i came on here for advice and tried a few different things.
getting a fish for her room to keep her safe, leaving the night light on, and we bought a foam dora the explorer for her door to keep her safe too.

and it worked for a while, but she started waking again and slipping into our bed.
now it doesnt bother me too much as i am now used to sleeping with her and not having any duvet or bed but we are supposed to be trying for another baby in april next year and would want to get it sorted before then.

so will be watching this thread for tips

i hope you get this sorted out too

Flip

1 2