ds 2.8 yrs old scared of sleeping in own room- wants to sleep with mummy

[littlemucky]

Until a week ago my ds slept almost perfectly - 7.30 to 7ish nearly every night hardly ever waking up. After xmas he had 3 nights at inlaws house with h and slept very badly there (as he usually does). H had to take ds to bed with him eventually every night. This has continued since he got back and he gets hysterical when left in his room (says he's scared of the dark so i leave the landing light on - makes no difference) so he ends up coming to bed with me and there i don't sleep much either. I just don't know what to do - i've tried sitting with him, ignoring him but nothing works. Anyone have any ideas?

bump

Perhaps all the moving about you have been doing has upset him.

littlemucky i feel your pain. we're going through something similar with our elder daughter, aged 3 yrs and 8 months.

she used to sleep like a dream but a couple of weeks ago had a nightmare and since then is terrified of the dark. we got a night light, which now keeps her awake, but to turn it off means tears about being scared which i can't cope with - i can't leave her if she's frightened, i can if she's just shouting cos she doean't feel like sleeping! she barely slept last night and is complaining of being dizzy this morning; i'm so worried she's going to make herself ill.

one thing that seemed to work for a couple of days (although it's v tough when you're hugely tired yourself) was to put her to bed and when she screamed to get down etc, i just kept repeating shhhh, time for sleep now and not really looking directly at her. she got down (bunk beds) a few times and i just manhandled her back into her bed - hard work with a kicking and shouting 3 yr old! She screamed for about 2 hours, but i knew she was ok as i was standing there so just let her until eventually she went off to sleep.

actually i think reading that i'm gonna have to do something similar again, and maybe unplug the night light and have a small light on further away from her.

i do feel for you though - i'm finding it more difficult to deal with now she's 3 than i did when she and her sister were babies. good luck

Went through something similar with dd when she was 2.5 it seemed to be triggered when she got a fright on fireworks night.

We took the path of leaST resistance and moved her bed into our room. She stayed there for 6 months then agreed to go back into her room (by then ds was sleeping well enough to put his cot through with her - I think she just wanted the comfort of someone being in the room with her).