Waking up Screaming the Monsters are in his bed/coming through walls

[Notgrownupinmyhead]

He's only 4 and every night he wakes up about 2-3 hours after he has gone to sleep crying/screaming that the monsters are coming to get him/coming in through the window/in his bed. He'll not go to sleep til gone 10.30/11pm each night no matter what we try and he's getting worse the poor sod. Last night he jumped out of his bed and on me shaking like a don't know what and ended up in with me with DH in his bed and he was still shaking an hour after and wouldn't even leave me to go to the toilet. We've told him that the magic blinds he has up are to keep out any monsters and that Daddy has told them all to jog on and to go and bother someone else. He's woken up crying in the night for way over a year and its only just the last couple of months he's gotten worse. I've stopped Scooby Doo, Ben 10 and anything with monsters in and its not made any difference at all.

What can I do to help him?

Mine started this too. We manged, after a while to stop it. I say that I am sucking the bad dreams out of his head, and then I ask him what nice dream he would like to have, and then I put that into his head (with lots of sucking sounds etc)
Seemed to work for us!

Oh we've tried stuff like that. Making signs, potions, spells, opening the window so they can leave. When he was in with me he was almost climbing up the wall. It was bloody horrible. I think its related to him refusing to go to sleep til really late and severe lack of food but that is a different issue!

I think in the middle of the night it's much harder to do this, as they are not fully awake. Might not be widely accepted but the only way we could get him to sleep was in with us too
I think the key is to pre empt it at bedtime. It may be a phase he will eventually grow out of, but stoping scary tv is a good start. Only seeing gentle telly and an optimistic bedtime story may bring him around
Good luck!

My dd used to believe there was a toad(no idea why)hiding under her bed and was scared silly and had nightmares. Sounds weird but 2things helped monsters inc(guess because they are friendly) and for the nightmares we talked about dreamcatchers but couldn't find one suitable. She built a dream castle out of a bucket of lego. It had bows and old star wars lasers to shoot the bad dreams and it only ever let nice dreams into her head it also protected her from the toad. She's now 12 and the bad dreams stopped a while ago but she only got rid of the dream castle about 2 years ago so be prepared

We used to do the booting out of the bedroom cos the monsters were too scared of mummy and too scared of dc. We used to physically kick their behinds out of the window, out of our road, out of the town and out of the country and a 'don't come back'

And then the message 'you always know where I am if you want me'

Maybe you could do things to break the cycle? Is he predictable in his nightmares? Could you wake him before hand and get him fully awake and then let him back to sleep (they do this with night terrors) or what about letting him sleep in your bedroom for a month and see what happens? (not ideal but if you're sleep is getting disturbed anyway..)

Could you say more about his food issues? Do you think they are interconnected?

Thanks for all your replies

His wakings vary from 2-3 hours after he goes to sleep and occasionally later, most of the time now he is awake, last year he was asleep when having a turn. He was grinding his teeth earlier on in the night which ive never known him to do. I dont even read fairy tales its Thomas the Tank or Fireman Sam so gawd knows where its come from. He loves lego and I like the idea of a dream catcher so shall give them a try.

He can only get in with me when DH is on nights unfortunately (if it was just me I'd have both boys in with me) as DS is the human equivalent of a Catharine Wheel and me and DH toss and turn (me pg and dh sciatica and lower lumbar degeneration) and snore so he'd never get any sleep! and theres no room on the floor either for his pull out bed so will be trying new suggestions! 12yrs, is she OK now? Thats quite some time to be going through that!

He eats like a Sparrow so am thinking maybe his body is trying to tell him something. A few nibbles of each meal if we're lucky and today he's eaten a small bowl if cereal, half a cheeseburger (Trafford Centre getting him some shoes) a yogurt and half a choc ice. Some days its less.

Aren't kids a bloody worry?

Ha. So I'll trot down off my 'sucking monsters from head' horse
DS1 just came down with a major monster nightmare
No magic scenario's after all
Ho hum, my bed again

Typical! They know we're talking about them! Poor sausage

Also ive noticed if its not one having ishoos its the other!

She stopped having nightmares rapidly after she built the castle but it can become like a safety blanket and when we moved her room around and decorated we took the your growing up thing to get rid of the castle and use a hannah montana night light

Bless her is she ok now? Weve had 2 monster free nights. He got one of those door hanger things and weve said its to tell them to go away. Mad how something so small seems to work.

She's now into vampires, werewolves, crime programs etc oh and biology (btw these have never given her nightmares just teddies toads and basic generalised monsters)and hasn't had a nightmare since the castle came apart.in fact her fav dreams now consist of holding a human brain operating on them or finding out how the dead body got that way. She is an unusual child

That sounds cool. Sounds like me as a teenager!!