Someone's Sleeping in My Bed!

M. --

Just wanted to comment on Julies advice. She seems harsh - I got a nice reply from her that was totally misinformed and not researched at all. I wanted to reach out to you incase you may have felt harshness from her....I did. Good luck with your daughter. Everything goes in stages. You are the ultimate judge on what she needs and follow your instincts. I think walking her back to her bed is good. I saw the super nanny advise the mother to sit on the floor with her head down not interacting with the child and just keep putting the child back in bed. It was the concept of letting the child know you're there but that it's not play time or talk time, it is sleeping time. Good luck! "this too shall pass" as my mom always says to me. :)

ATHENA IS SUCH A PRECIOUS NAME!! AS FAR AS EXPLAINING A DREAM TO HER.....ASK WHAT SHE SAW AS IF SHE WERE AWAKE. MY 3 YEAR OLD WILL TELL ME DREAMS AFTER SHE HAD THEM AND I THINK SHE BELIEVES IT WAS WHILE SHE WAS AWAKE. SHE ONCE DREAMT THAT SHE AND HER SIBLINGS BUILT A CASTLE AND WERE GOING ON A TREASURE HUNT WITH PIRATES AND WHEN SHE COULDNT FIND THAT CASTLE ONCE SHE WAS AWAKE I TRIED EXPLAINING TO HER THAT IT WAS A DREAM. BUT IF YOUR CHILD IS HAVING NIGHTMARES, BEAR WITH HER FOR A LITTLE WHILE BUT WHY NOT GO INTO HER ROOM INSTEAD...LET HER FALL ASLEEP IN THERE WITH YOU CLOSE BY FOR A LITTLE WHILE. NEVER TOO LONG. OR PLAY A NICE SOOTHING CD FOR HER. OLD SCHOOL LOVE SONGS WORK JUST AS WELL AS ANY CHILD CD TOO. TELL HER WHAT A WONDERFUL BIG GIRL SHE IS FOR SLEEPING IN HER BED AND RESSURE HER YOU ARE ALWAYS THERE TO KEEP HER SAFE.

You have to just stop letting her get into your bed. It's not anyone's fault, it's that guilt that every mother has, coming in the way of putting our feet down. It's totally understandable because those times in the middle of the night are so hard! It's easier to just let her crawl in bed with you, but it's better for everyone involved to not allow it. Just pick her up when she comes in your room and walk her back into her bed. Try not to talk to her, because she may not be fully awake, and lay her down in her bed, give her a kiss, and walk back into your room. If she comes back in, do the same thing, keep doing it without talking to her, and trust me....she will figure out that she's not going to get anywhere by trying to get into your bed. She'll give up!

As for the dreams go, at this point, I'd not even try to talk about them. I never brought them up to my little girl and it wasn't until she was about 3 1/2 that I realized she had a dream. She tells me about her dreams sometimes. If she has a bad dream, she'll tell me when I've come in. When they're as young as yours though, you have to assume that she's just wanting to sleep with you. It's the mother's guilt that is making you question whether or not she may be having bad dreams. As mothers, we always have the "what if's" running through our heads. "What if she's having a bad dream" is a typical guilt thought in the middle of the night when you're feeling bad about them crying, but a child absolutely needs structure, and they need to be independent, and that means that they need to sleep in their own bed, and when their mommy places them back in their own bed, they need to learn how to calm down on their own, and fall back asleep on their own. If their mommy is sitting there trying to get them to fall back asleep, then they'll learn to fall asleep when mommy's there, and won't be able to calm down on their own. You have to give kids space to develop. Even if that means listening to them cry themselves back to sleep at night.

I'll tell you what my sister told me. You have to hug them and let them know everything is alright, but then put them back in bed. Most people think that is cruel but if you think about it, you don't want to give her a crutch of "I had a bad dream" to use on you everytime she gets upset and wants to insist on sleeping with you. Being consistant is the true key to everything in parenting, including this. If she is having bad dreams, she will eventually learn to vocalize what she is thinking. Turning three, you'll soon see, changes everything for them. It seems like they turn into little adults within days of that magic number. As soon as she starts to learn more conversation type techniques, she'll be able to tell you what she's feeling (then you get to hear about monsters) :)

Been there! is your daughter a flopper? she may need a bigger bed. we started off with a toddler bed in our room she still ended up in bed with us we moved the toddler bed to her room.... nope... so we gave her an extra full size mattress that we had and she hasnt been in our room since!

The same thing happened with my 3 year old, they all go through the typical phases. We started telling him that when he goes to sleep he can be anything he wants, he can fly or run as fast as he can or he can be a super hero. This made him pretty excited to sleep. If your daughter keeps waking up I like the advice of laying in her bed with her instead of yours so she knows that this is where she needs to sleep. When she falls asleep quietly go back into your own room and when she wakes in the morning she will realize that she was safe all night. Maybe try giving her a neat toy to hold that lights up and tell her that nothing can hurt her, especially when she has her special light. Good luck with everything and just know that almost every mother goes through the same thing, it will pass in due time.

She should know what a picture is by now. Ask her if she sees pictures when she's sleeping. If she says yes then ask her if the pictures scare her. If she says yes then ask her what she sees and maybe there will be a way counteract it. I had a son that had nightmares and he loved the power rangers, so I got him a big stuffed power ranger and told him that if he wakes up scared in the night to tell his power ranger and go back to sleep and his power ranger will protect him. I never had problems with him waking up scared and climbing into my bed again. It could also just be a phase that she's going through. At this age, they go back through separation anxiety although some toddlers are better at hiding it than others and almost all of them are just posative that there's monsters under the bed...they may not know what a monster is, but it's there anyway. Just talk to her, make her go back to her own bed and maybe see if you can give her some kind of security self pacifying type of thing...or maybe a nightlight.

I'm not sure how to explain dreams to a 3 year old either, but one thing that worked for us was to lay out a sleeping bag in your room. Let Athena know that if she gets scared, she can come sleep there, but not in your bed. She can be close to you, and you get a good nights sleep too! (No sharing your bed and no sleeping on her floor either!)

are you sure it is dreams or something else. You need to ask her whats wrong and determine it from there.