HELP! My 2 year old is scared and won't sleep!!!!

[smapple]

Our younger son will turn 2 in a couple of weeks. He used to sleep great in his own room in a twin bed. When we went away for Christmas, he got scared of a door that led to an unfinished basement. When we got back home, he was scared of the closet door in his room. Since we only have 3 bedrooms and needed to move the two boys together before the new baby arrives, we decided to go ahead and move them in together already... Our older son's room has bi-fold doors so it does not look like the door that led to the "scary" unfinished basement, and his closet is full of toys... so nothing scary about it.

Our younger son did great the first few nights. Then he woke up in the night one night and saw his shadow and freaked out! He has been scared to go to sleep ever since! This is night four, and it is not getting any easier. We are rocking him to sleep because we don't want to have him cry when he is legitimately scared, but he is very resistant to falling asleep. It is taking an hour or more to even get him to sleep, and then he still sometimes wakes up when we lay him down! He is also waking up during the night and is very hard to calm down.

We have turned off all sources of light in the back of the house so there won't be any shadows but its as though he thinks the shadows will come back. We don't know what to do! None of us are getting enough sleep...

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!

[jls~Kain~Drake]

We had a thread one time...I don't know if it was the old board or the new...but it was about what people do to 'de-scarify' their dc's bedroom. I remember one had a bottle of water and would spray the room....and they had a picture on the bottle or just told the dc that it was bug/ghost/bad guy spray and that it'd keep the offending creature away. One was they vaccuumed or swept every night to..again, keep the offending creature away. I think someone gave their dc a flashlight so that they could check anything out that scared them. If it's shadows, the flashlight would identify that it's not something that'll hurt him.

Good luck mama

[Shaysbabygirls]

I am going through the SAME exact thing! Robynne is almost 17 months old, and slept great before vacation, and now won't go to bed AT ALL! She does the same thing, screaming as though she's terrified when we put her in her crib! we're not getting any sleep here, either!

HUGS!!!

[fawnlovesjasper]

Originally Posted by jls~Kain~Drake We had a thread one time...I don't know if it was the old board or the new...but it was about what people do to 'de-scarify' their dc's bedroom. I remember one had a bottle of water and would spray the room....and they had a picture on the bottle or just told the dc that it was bug/ghost/bad guy spray and that it'd keep the offending creature away. One was they vaccuumed or swept every night to..again, keep the offending creature away. I think someone gave their dc a flashlight so that they could check anything out that scared them. If it's shadows, the flashlight would identify that it's not something that'll hurt him. Good luck mama

MONSTER SPRAY!!! I was just gonna suggest it! put a bit of like febreeze in it so it has a nice smell! Tell DS that his smells nice and monsters don't like it so they stay away... or make up your own story!