4 Yr. Old Night Mares

My oldest went through this and we used "bad dream go away spray". We also told him that when he did have bad dreams, that he was to look at whatever was scaring him and say, "Monster (whatever it is) GO AWAY!!! I don't believe in you! You aren't real!" We had him practice saying it with us and had him keep doing it until he was very forcefully saying it with belief. It got to the point where he would almost giggle when we were "practicing". Maybe it was the sheer repetition of saying it, but the dreams calmed down pretty quickly. Of course he still has one once in a while...he's 9 1/2 now. But they are not anywhere near as often as they were when he was 4. ;)

Personally, my husband used to have them all the time as a kid too. He was more afraid of his mother than anything so he would lay in bed too petrified to move. We didn't want our kids to feel that way. We want them to know we are always there for them. So we let them come in and sleep with us when they have had a bad dream. I can tell you that at 9 1/2, he isn't in our bed every night. In fact, I would say if he still comes in our room once a month we are lucky. I would say even more time than that passes in between, especially since now that he is older, there are more times when we can sit with him for a few minutes, calm/reassure him, and he will go back to sleep in his own bed.

Good luck!!

My daughter has nightmares (and used to have night seizures that looked like nightmares). She was a longtime co-sleeper, the only thing that helped. What we just did about 2 months ago was put a sleeping bag/air mattress (Thomas the Tank Engine, her favorite!) on the floor in our room. If she comes in during the night, we hug, comfort, and direct her to the air mattress. She took us up on it for about a week, and after that, prefers to go back to sleep in her room. She seems to be reassured by the idea that she can come and be with us if she's scared. I'm sorry your little guy is going through this, I hope it resolves soon! (For all your sakes!)

My brother and I each at nightmares as a kid and I was a bit of an insomniac too. I was older than your son, but what ended up really helping me, was my dad started saying "Sweet Dreams" every night when he kissed me good night or looked in on me. When I couldn't fall asleep, I just repeated over and over again in my mind "sweet dreams, A., or no dreams at all" - like I said, I was older than your son, but it significantly reduced the bad dreams. I do remember being a little panicky on nights where my dad had a meeting and was out later than my bedtime.

My brother was always one to go into my parents room, and this was at about your son's age. They let him keep a sleeping bag in there, and he could come in and get in the sleeping bag if he needed to be in their room. My daughter has one of those inflatable mattress/kid sleeping bags. I don't feel she sleeps well when she sleeps in it. I like the real sleeping bags much better - even on a hard wood floor. He can probably just bring his pillow into your room, unroll the sleeping bag and crawl in.

Good luck!

I don't have any personal experience with this yet, but my mom said my brother had terrible nightmares for about a year & a half, when he was 3 or 4. He was terrible to sleep with (kicking, rolling around, etc., even w/o nightmares), so they set up a sleeping bag on the floor next to my mom's side of the bed. He knew he could come in any time to sleep there if he was scared, and my said that many nights, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again unless he was holding her hand.

There is a section in the Solving your Child's Sleep Problems book by Dr. Ferber that talks about night terrors/night mares, and it might be helpful. It talks about the causes, ways to help the child, and things to do to try to mitigate it.

I know that this is not a joke but as a child I went through the same thing...But put in alarm inside his room, Slomin Shields, or a camera...This may help him to sleep worry free...just a suggestion, funny but anything is better than nothing...happy dreams for him...take him seriously though...work on it...you will find something...Let him know that you have the above protections installed and let him see you set it up just for him...