DD (21 months) upset by builders in the house and sleep gone to pot!

[Wigeon]

Anyone got any good tips? My DD is 21 months and usually a cheery, confident little soul. But we are having some building work done in the house (bathroom entirely re-done and some walls knocked down). We have been without a bath for a week and a half and the whole house is a bit topsy turvey (and filthy!). She is really upset by it all. Eg:

*clinging to us whenever the builders are around (very unusual for her to cling to us). In fact being a lot more limpet-like even when they aren't here.

*saying "men" in a worried voice at various times (eg first thing when she wakes up)

*crying when she hears the doorbell in case it's the builders

*not going to sleep in the evening after having previously been going down really well

*waking up once or twice every night for between 30 mins and 1 1/2 hours when previously she'd been sleeping through. Think she is sometimes having a bad dream as she sometimes screams in the night and is inconsolable for a while. Exhausting for us all!

We have tried:

*telling her the builders are nice men who are here to help

*introducing her to the builders and referring to them by name

*talking about what they are doing and why

*taking her out during the day a lot so that she's not here when they are making lots of noise

They are very nice men by the way (the main one is a dad of 3) and very kind and gentle with her. I should add that she is cared for at home by a rota of me, DH and my mum.

Any other ideas about what we can do to make her less anxious and sleep better?

Oh, also we are giving her as much attention as possible / cuddles / playing with her etc in order to reassure her.

Help - anyone? She has been yelling for an hour now as we are refusing to cuddle her to sleep! (we do keep going in to reassure her - we haven't left her for the whole hour)

We are going through this at the moment with DS1 aged 3 - we've had builders in since November and he's had phases of being clingy, not able to get to sleep for 1-2hrs, wanting to hold my hand while he drifts off to sleep and nightmares. We've just decided to do what he needs - so for about a month he slept either in our bed or on a readybed in our bedroom. He then just started sleeping through again by himself. We've just had to accept the clingyness, but warned nursery etc so they knew what to expect. We also tried to get him involved by buying him a toolbox and builder costume, which helped to a certain extent. It seems to go in waves - at the moment he is coping with it, but I'm sure that when the next major change occurs in the house we will have another issue to deal with. But I really feel for you because it is exhausting, especially when you've also got so much else to cope with from the build

Gosh - our bathroom is only scheduled to last 3 weeks, so that's pretty knackering for you all. When is your building likely to end?

I don't mind the clinginess so much as the rubbish sleeping (going to sleep and then staying asleep).

The odd thing is that we moved house to a new town only 3 months ago, which you might imagine would be pretty unsettling to a toddler, and she didn't bat an eyelid.

Like the idea of a builder costume and tools!

Anyone else sympathise or can offer tips?