2.8yr old sleep prob - did nightlight help you?

[lovelymama]

DS 2.8yrs has been a good sleeper but has recently declared that there are monsters in his room and he needs me to look after him and is refusing to go to sleep without me there. He's also waking in the night saying he needs us to sleep with him. We're very much 'everyone sleeps in their own bed' kind of people and don't want to get in the habit of sleeping with him.

We've always done the blackout thing so he's used to sleeping in the dark but now I'm wondering if a nightlight or similar would help. My main concern is that if it lights up the room he'll end up getting out of his bed and just playing with his toys. He's just dropped his nap so he's knackered anyway and playing with toys instead of sleeping isn't ideal.

Any ideas?

we have the go glow light for dd and ds and it isnt too bright. It can also be used as a torch which ds brings through with him in the night if he gets up for the toilet. Have never had a problem with him getting out of bed and playing with toys (and didnt with dd either)

Argos has a selsction

We use a nightlight with DS now. He's 2.7 and was like you describe.

We took the bulb out , told him it was broken and let him test it. Then he switches on his own light and its job done. Worth a go.

DD is 2.5 and has started talking about seeing tigers, monsters, etc in the dark.

We got her one of the nightlight/torch things and I did find her one morning recently using it to check that there were "no tigers" next to her bed. Something we emphasise at bed time.

Another thing we've used is the iPhone app called "MonsterMeter" which pretend to scan a room for monsters (you can change the settings so it finds none or some) and then reports its findings on the screen by showing cartoon pictures of the monsters found or no pictures if none found. DD can use the scanner by herself and seems convinced that it's real. Might be worth a try if all else fails?

Thanks all. I think I will get one and just see how it goes - can't be worse than last night when, for the first (and hopefully last time), he woke up screaming at 10pm and refused to go to sleep without me there - he screamed for 1.5 hours even though I kept going in and cuddling him, telling him that I love him etc. It wasn't about the monsters this time, just didn't want to be alone

Aaargh! Trying to get my DD who is 5 months to sleep better at night, didn't expect the toddler to be worse than the baby!