I have a seven year old girl who hates to be alone. She must have another person in the room with her at all times. She also won't sleep alone. She ends up falling asleep in our bed and then we move her to hers. I know she is afraid of the dark so we have several night lights in her room already. Any suggestions for helping her be more comfortable about being alone in a room and sleeping alone too? Thanks.
Give her a flashlight for night time.
Leave her door open.
Good luck!
LBC
A.
A large body pillow will help her comforted and try a story on tape/cd to listen to before bed. Will she hang in her room at all by herself during the day? My kids have very few toys in their rooms however they each have a cd player/radio reading lamp and few toys. I would put the night shirt/night gown you slept in the night before as her pillow case. Also if you have enough room in your room how about a sleeping bag on the floor for her? Good luck!
J.
My 13 year old went through a fear-of-fire stage at age 7. We had to buy her a fire extinguisher for her room and practiced an evacuation plan.
My 10 year old is exactly like you describe your daughter. She does not like being upstairs alone, has a hard time falling asleep, and wakes up at 4 AM a lot of nights and comes to tell me she is scared.
She is very petite, and still very child-like, so we hopes she will grow out of this fear.
What works for us: she has 2 night lights, we added window alarms on her windows that she can turn on herself (battery powered stick-on type, about $10 each from the Ace), I read to her at night and then sit in the chair in the room and read my own book until she drifts off. For a while I had an extra bed in her room so I could fall asleep there and then move to my own bed around midnight.
She was recently diagnosed with ADD inattentive type and dyslexia, and the difficulty falling asleep seems to happen a lot with ADD.
For the ADD we have medication but we were going to wait until school to try it. She also has a sleep medication since the ADD meds are a stimulant and might make falling asleep even worse. I think your daughter's fear is probably a phase since they are becoming more aware of the world around them at that age, but it could never hurt to discuss this problem with her pediatrician. Good luck.
I second the flashlight idea. Worked like a charm for our daughter. I try to stay away from nightlights; the body needs full darkness for restful sleep and light at night may lead to breast cancer later on in life.
fyi:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008...
