Three Year Will Not Sleep Alone!

First of all do not poo-poo the existence of the monsters. They are very real to him. My son has seen a LOT of monsters in his room and the best thing we have done is to go along with his reality and create "Monster go away dust" It is not real dust, just pretend, but I fill his pockets and my pockets and then we go all around his room and he points out the monsters and we throw the dust at them and watch them run away. Then we tuck him in nice and snug with his stuffed animals as the guards.

Occasionally my DS has a night where he really feels the need to sleep in our room. Generally we will let him fall asleep there and then I carry him to his room when I come up to bed. I know it is frustrating when he does not sleep through the night but making him feel secure and safe will be the quickest way to resolve it. Let him sleep on the floor in your room once in awhile (maybe he could pick one day each week). Kids this age go through periods of regression where their behavior seems to slide back to a younger age. It is because they are growing up so fast and sometimes the world seems a bit too big and scary, they need extra comfort and reassurance.

Also, how verbal is he? Is he having bad dreams that are waking him in the middle of the night? Can he talk about them. When kids start becoming aware of their dreams but don't understand they are not real life, they can get a bit freaked.

My brother had the same problem with his 3 year old. She thought there was a bear in her closet. He devised a "trap" to catch the bear. Before he put his daughter to bed he would go get the trap, reassure his daughter the bear was inside and release the bear outside in the woods next to the house. Good Luck!

I also had children that said that there ar monsters under there bed or in the closet. I use to get a air frensher and take off the lable and stick on a new one that say" no more monster or bye bye monster. You get the idea and have him go get it from the vloset and made up a stiry on how I bought this at a special store and they said it would make all the monster go away. And I would spray it all over the room, under the bed and told them that monster don't like the sweet smell and that they would not come then. I had to do it for at least a week but eventually it worked and they were sleeping in there room agaon and I got to go to sleep. Try it. Good Luck

I am in the same situation. I have a 2 1/2 year that has had lots of up and downs. She will go through spurts and that is the one thing that my husband and I have struggled with her. She has been sleeping on our floor for the past 3 months because of her room being scary. She will also scream for hours we tried that too. Any good advice you get or something that works for you please pass it along. I will do the same.

Thanks and good luck.

I haven't personally had to deal with this but I've heard you can fill a spray bottle with water and say that it's "Monster spray". Have your son spray it around the room and it will keep the monsters away.

My daughter is 6 and has been paranoid to go upstairs to use the bathroom or get something at night since she was about 2 because of monsters. I have been ready to pull my hair out and finally just got blunt with her. I was like if there was monsters that were going to get you don't you think they would have gotten you by now. Then I told her if monsters got kids wouldn't there be stories on the local news about it and wouldnt' we hear about parents missing their kids from that? That kinda works but I'm in your shoes too and for a good night sleep she's in my bed, a bad habit I suppose but were getting our sleep.

My (now almost 7yo) son never had this issue, but my youngest son (almost 5) has his days/nights. It's a tactic for him to stay up a little later and not go to sleep when he's supposed to. I started out with "Where's the monster?" and when he said it was in the closet, I told him I didn't see it and that if he saw his clothes hanging there, the monster couldn't be there. (Courtesy of Monsters, Inc.) I also told both of them that I was right downstairs and any monster or bad guy would have to get through me to get to them and I gave them my scary face and that satisfied them for the most part. LOL. On very rare occasions, they will still try the being scared thing, but we gave them the little squeeze flashlights so if they get scared, they can shine a light and see there's nothing to be scared of. I've asked where they've seen monsters, etc, and they say on tv, which prompts the reinforcement speech that "what you see on tv isn't real", and that nothing comes out of the tv. :)

Now, bad dreams are another animal altogether. There are times they will have a nightmare and we talk about it right then so it's all sorted out, have a happy story, and they're back in (their) bed within 10 - 15 minutes.

Hope this helps...good luck!

We had the same problem except my daughter insisted that the hallway light be on and she sleep i n the hallway. She got the idea of monsters from her cousin at Christmas. Anyways, we bought this bear that lights up and told her she could have it if she slept in her room and it lights up and it would scare the monsters away. It worked really well and soon she didn't even need the bear to sleep with. I hope it all works out for you!

Like a lot of other moms have posted we use the "Monster Spray" for my granddaughter. I bought one of those automatic spraying air freshner. It goes off every 35 mins and also has a button that you can push to make it go off. We spray it twice before she goes to bed and then remind her that it's working all night long. Since we started that we haven't had monster problems. Good luck...

Renee