My dd has suddenly become very scared of going to bed. She is scared of other things during the day and I've looked it up and found this is normal age related fear, which I can deal with but this night time fear is starting to do my head in.
Basically, she is ok going to bed unless she is not very tired and has to lie awake. For example last night she was hysterical for about an hour, she wanted me to lie with her or to come in my bed because she is scared of the ceiling. She used to sleep well with just a night light on but now she insists on a lamp on too.
Then she wakes screaming in the night. I normally put her back to bed and sometimes lie with her, occassionally if I'm very tired (have 5mo ds who sleeps in our room) I let her in our bed, but she usually then tries to kick her dad out of bed which never goes down well. Last night she just would not settle down in our bed so after 2 hrs of dozing I took her back to her bed and she did go back to sleep but was up 1.5 hrs later and nagged and nagged me until I got up to give her breakfast.
I am just after advice on how to deal with this, how to reassure her about being scared. I am reluctant to sleep with her or let her in our bed as she was really difficult as a baby to get her to settle and we put in a lot of work to get a good sleep routine going on. I hate to hear her so upset, but part of me is thinking that she may be playing up more than she is actually scared because of how she is when she gets into our bed.
Any help greatly received thanks