Give me your top tips for helping my 3 yo who is frightened at night!

[SpeedyGonzalez]

Poor darling. Apparently it's a key age where their visual imagination takes hold and it creates fearful imagery at night. I certainly remember it well from my own childhood.

So DS is in bed with me every night at the moment, which means I am flanked by him on one side and co-sleeping baby DD on t'other. And poor DH in the spare room .

Any tips on how to help DS through this phase so he'll happily go back to his own bed...before Xmas?!

I would just let him stay in with you until he chooses to go back to his own bed - particularly if you're co sleeping with the baby. He won'd still be there when he's 6!

My ds1 recently hit the stage where there were/are monsters everywhere, so we have a small water pump/spray bottle thing which is our monster killer.
When ds1 tells us there is a monster in his room, one of us go in with this bottle and squirt it around a bit to get rid ofmonsters!

But like seeker says, I'd be tempted to just go with the flow. Ds1 spends alopt of time in my bed when dp is working noghts and when dp is here, i spend time sitting with ds1 if he is upset

I have tried the same approach as silverymoon, monster repellant spray and it generally works. Can't resist a cuddle with DS though

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I knew you'd all say that.

However, monster killer spray I like. To date he hasn't been able to specify the cause of his anxiety, so I'll have to think of some fitting way to market it to him. Maybe put some lavender oil in it, to send him back to sleep!

I was going to say, magic ghostie spray.

Get a spray bottle, and make a REALLY AWESOME label for it. Fill it with water, add a couple of drops of lavender oil. Make another, tiny, one, from a travel pack sized spray bottle (Superdrug?) and fill this from the big one.

Spray it around the room, and tell him if he thinks anything scary might be starting, he has the right to squirt his room with Ghostie spray. This ghostie spray is PROVEN to stop scary things coming into his room - you use it in your room too, and he KNOWS there are no scary things in your room.

Also, get him a night light.