DD aged 8, terrified at bed time or wakes up sobbing.

[BearsDontDigOnDancing]

My dd, aged 8 has generally always been a good sleeper.

But the last 6 weeks ago this has all changed.

She either struggles get to sleep, and is terrified, sobbing and scared, buy says she "doesn't know why" when you ask her, or she wakes up absolutely sobbing and terrified.

She was at one point too scared to sleep alone so for a bit was sleeping on the floor on a pull out chair bed, in her older brothers bedroom, he is 9. This is something they do on weekends, as they love having "sleepovers" but for a few nights we were doing it mid week just so she felt better. But one night she woke up terrified and sobbing, so I fetched her and brought her in with me. And it is not something I feel is fair on DS to continue.

We have tried encouraging her to sleep in her own room, but she just breaks my heart by how terrified she is. She has her usual teddies, a night light, a cushion thing that lights up. And if we do manage to get her to sleep in her room, she without fail wakes up sobbing and I have to go fetch her as she just lies in bed sobbing away.

When I try and discuss with her what is getting her so terrified, she denies having nightmares, and says her brain is just filled up with thousands of things, so many that she cannot say what is actually scaring her.

It is getting to the point we are all just so tired, even Ds aged 9 as her crying wakes him up and he gets upset and wants to comfort her also. We bring her in with us, and she will fall asleep once settled, and calmed down when with us, but then of course myself and DH do not really sleep.

In the day she is her usual chirpy self. I am thinking to ask her teacher tomorrow if anything has changed at school, although DD says no one at school has said or done anything to upset her.

Tbh, we are just stuck as to how to go on from here. I hate seeing her so upset but we cannot go on with so little sleep for much longer.

Does she have access to YouTube on an iPad or similar? This could be that she's seen something scary and thinks she will be told off if she is 'found out', so is hiding the reason she is scared from you.

Years ago I watched Nightmare On Elm Street at a mates house at around aged 12, directly going against my parents instruction. I knew I'd get a massive bollocking if I was truthful about watching it when I had been directly told not to. But I was shit scared at night for a long, long time. I had to cope with being frightened without owning up though.

If it's not something scary that she has watched, is something happening at school? Could well be friendship issues, falling out with the others in her class, bullying or generally feeling unhappy and weary about something.

I think the reason for this will come from her opening up to you, or someone.

She has a kindle fire, but she only uses it downstairs and plays minecraft and roblox on it.

They both also like to watch You tube videos, such as DanTDM, but again, we put it on the TV, in the living room only, so myself or DH are also watching or keeping an eye on it.

I am just lost tbh, right now, she is perfectly fine and her normal happy self. But she will be scared and breaking her heart later on.

Reason doesn't always work with fears that come out of the night.

My child did this too - and for no obvious reason. He had seen a picture in a poetry book - and this had fed his imagination. We tried to show him that there was no wolf-dragon under the bed or in the shadows and that these were not real.

However he slept very well at his grandparents' house. When he questioned my Dad about dragons in the town my Dad said 'no' but observing the worry, he added: ' but shall we build a dragon trap, just in case?' They created a thing of rope and branches in the garden. Every morning they would go and check it at breakfast - and feel a little disappointed that there was nothing in it.

She is adamant that there is nothing specific, she was getting rather rolley eyed, when trying to chat to her last night, she just says there is thousands of things in her head changing every second that she cannot pin point a particular one. Just that she is scared.

Anyway, she managed to fall asleep in her bed last night, then around half one, came into our room upset and crying so was with us the rest of the night.