We are having a problem with our almost 4 year old son. He has his own bed but shares a room with his almost 1 year old brother. My oldest has always been a good sleeper and was doing great with the bedtime rountine up until about a week ago. Now when we take him into his room, he gets up out of bed many times and tells us that there are monsters in his room. We take him back to his bed and but he gets up again with the complaint about monsters. We have checked the room first, left a lamp on, which I hate to do, put some soothing music on, given him a flashlight etc. I tell him that once he is in bed, he has to stay there and that usually works but then he just starts to cry until we go in. I can't just let him cry as he wakes up the baby, who is a very light sleeper. He also has been coming into our bed in the middle of the night to sleep with us because of the monsters. I am at a loss, I don't know what to do to get him to stay in his bed and go to sleep and not be afraid of monsters. I would love to hear any and all ideas. Thanks
Well so far, so good. We got a spray bottle and made "monster spray". We mixed water with a couple of drops of lavender oil, to sooth and calm him down. We spray the whole room before bed and tell him that no monsters can come in after we spray the room. We also got him some stickers and made a sticker chart, one for each night that he goes to bed well and stays in his bed to sleep throughout the night. After a week of stickers we will take him to get a new spiderman action figure, his favorite. Thanks for all of your thoughts, I love this site!
I like the movie Monsters Inc. It shows that the monsters don't have to be bad things. I also made a quilt with good monsters on it to protect against bad monsters. The nightmares went away after that.
Good luck
My daughter went through the monster stage, somehow I think she was realizing it got her the attention she wanted too. Go get an empty spray bottle and fill it with water, before bedtime spray some under the bed, around the closet and tell him it is monster rid spray. Then he cannot get out of bed again as they are all gone and cannot bother him. Soon he will be old enough that you can just tell him there isn't monsters at all and that be that, but right now just pretend you are spraying to get rid of any. Just continue to put him back into bed and tell him to please not wake his brother.
Another option too is to use a chart and every night he stays put and is quiet he gets a sticker in the morning. After a few weeks of stickers he gets to do something or go get something fun he likes. Empower him with being the big brother and the big boy.
Try to figure out where the fear is coming from. Kids don't start being afraid of things until they have a reason to. My daughter started being afraid or having occasional bad dreams when she started realizing the difference between fantasy and reality. She used to prefer movies like Jurassic Park and Spiderman (still does) but was never really afraid of them until she realized that the people in the movie might really get hurt. She didn't understand the cause and effect of a dinosaur stepping on someone or spiderman smashing into the sidewalk. Don't think we're horrible for letting our 3 year old watch those kind of movies. She really actually prefers more mature movies. Some of her favorites are Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and other classics. She just has this thing for dinosaurs, and she's not really all that into cartoons. Anyway, if you can figure out what is really making him afraid and show him that it's not really that scary, that should help. Good luck!
My friend had this problem also. She use a room spray and told her son that the monsters don't like the smell and they stay away, kind of like bug repellent only for monsters. So before bed they would spray his room and under the bed. Of course he could smell it also and knew that it was there and it worked. As to coming to your room in the night my kids do that too, but I try and go back to their room with them and lay on the end of the bed or the floor until they are back to sleep, that way they don't get use too being in my bed.
Our monster chaser is the dog. We tell our 3 1/2 yr old that when we let our dog Bear out for the last bathroom trip of the night that he is chasing all the monsters away. We have told her that it is his job to do that and they are afraid of coming to our house because of Bear. Otherwise just be consistant with whatever that you do, because the more consistant that you are the sooner he is going to learn the "rules" of going to bed. Good luck
J.
