I'm am sooo confused. I just called the babysitter to check on my daughter and the sitter told me that she had an "episode" this morning. She was sitting in her favorite spot (the bottom of the stairs" playing and all of the sudden, she started screaming that she saw a rabbit and was scared....crying and everything. The sitter thought she was playing pretend and brushed it off until real tears started to come and she didn't even want to pass the imaginary rabbit. I have nooooo idea what this is about but I am very concerned. She has a f/u doctor appt. tomorrow and of course, I will bring this up but does anyone else have any experience with something like this? She's only 2 years old.
My daughter is 3 1/2 and she still has a very vivid imagination like that. She imagines that there are tigers, dragons, dinosaurs, and monsters all over the house and she cries real tears over it too. She "knows" they aren't real but kids that young can't really distinguish between real and imaginary yet. She's not hallucinating, just has a good imagination.
Do you think maybe it was a field mouse she saw and thought it was a rabbit? I live in a wooded area and once in a while I will get a field mouse YUK!!! It freaks me out as well. The only other time I have heard of children hallucinating is with a high fever. I would of course talk to your doctor and see what he thinks. Good luck and keep us posted.
Testing for PANDAS might be a good idea. Some doctors aren't on to this yet, so you might want to google it first, so you can have some info in case your doctor looks at you like you have two heads.
Also, yeast overgrowth, other pathogens, or chemicals can cause things like this. Our son used to have what we used to call "The scaries." What you describe sounds very familiar. For absolutely no reason he would come running to me screaming and clinging onto me like he saw a ghost. When we cleaned up his diet those went away. We still don't know what it was all about, but eliminating processed foods and household toxins is what we did. We actually have him on the GAPS diet, but you could look at www.westonaprice.org for info on foods or go to GAPS diet.com. If your daughter does not have any develpmental delays, then you probably wouldn't have to go on the diet, but just "cleaning-up" the diet would probably be helpful.
Blessings,
T. E.
My son's is "the big sheep". I have chalked it up to an active imagination of probably a dream he once had. Run it by your dr since you're going anyway but I would bet it is nothing to worry about! Good luck!
Not sure if you have already been to the dr. but you may want to ask them to have her tested for strep. There's a strep variation called PANDAS (you can google it) that can cause this type of thing to happen. If that is it they'll give her antibiotics and she'll be fine.
Well, a rabbit is better than a monster. But whatever she sees is irrelevant (to a point) because the fear is what u need to address. Ask her where the rabbit is going, make up a silly story that its hungry and wants dessert but has to wait till after dinner...incorporate a lesson she can relate to.
I did this when my daughter became scared of a monster behins the curtain of the dark living room. Now she makes up funny stories of the monster wanting chocolate...
Its good to have an active imagination. She's pretending not really hallucinating--hope yours is too.
Good luck!
Yes, talk to your doc. But don't get too worried yet. My friend's son wakes up every morning talking about "the snake." And 2 year olds are notoriously imaginative, as well as scared of weird things!
I think your little one is totally fine. She imagined something that scared her (could be from a book, tv show, or even a dream she had), and of course the waterworks followed. This is the age of drama! :)
My daughter went through something very similiar around the time she turned 2. She swore there were monsters in the bathtub and wouldn't take a bath for over 2 months. I gave her spongebaths or even bathed her in the sink during this time! Eventually I was able to assure her that I would not leave her alone in the tub and would keep the monsters away and when she was ready to trust me with that, she took a bath in the tub. I'm not sure what causes children to see things, I actually have vague memories myself of "seeing" my invisible friends. Who knows what it really is. All I can say is, just be there for her, reassure her, let her see she can trust you and you'll protect her. It worked for us anyway. Children need that reassurance that they're protected. You'll be fine and I'm sure you'll do a good job because you're concerned and want to do the right thing. Don't expect to ever fully figure it out, though. I don't know anyone that has!
