I must ask…what is frightful about ballet?
Right, and I’ll hook the bed up to a pulley system to shake it around at night too. Nope, no lifetime traumatizing there! 
It’s tutu scary.
I did that to my sister growing up. Trust me, the hilarity more than outweighs the trauma! 
Regarding the fright/monster issues: There are NO monsters allowed in my house.
Ever.
At All.
That’s Daddy’s Rules, and the monsters have to obey too.
They have to stay outside and eat the grass clippings.
We were staying at my sister’s – and we went to my brother-in-law, and I said, “You don’t ALLOW MONSTERS IN YOUR HOUSE do you”. He took one look at my little girl’s wide eyes and said, “No, of course not.”
The world is yours to administer. Use your authority.
My kids went to bed at 7:30. When they had nightmares I would make them go to the bathroom and bring them in the kitchen for a glass of milk and put then back to bed. This usually lets them forget the nightmare. Be consistant about her going back to her bed.
Kids are very smart about trying to get their own way. I think she likes sleeping with you. I never allowed it so I guess it was never an issue.
This. It may be unpleasant for the first night or two, but it needs to be done.
This is an awesome way to handle the monster issue. We did something similar, only we had a formal banishing. We walked around the house yelling at the monsters to go away and never come back. They haven’t come back since and that was a year and a half ago.
I really have to reiterate the reduction of TV, though. I know I’m beating a dead horse and that my experience doesn’t mean yours will be the same, but TV can have a huge impact on kids, especially right before bed. We’ve tried to do something special for our son by letting him watch part of a movie before bedtime and it backfires every single time - there’s resistance to turning it off, then screaming during the get-ready-for-bed process, more screaming when the lights are turned out and then he stays up for freaking ever afterward. So we’ve just stopped allowing TV anywhere near bedtime.
If possible, I would eliminate it entirely or at least cut back on how long the TV is on and have some other relaxing, quiet activity between the television and bedtime.
We taught our 3 year old to turn over her pillow, because the other side of the pillow is cold and magic and helps you sleep. Going to bed is never a problem, we read stories and then I stay with her til she falls asleep, 5 minutes maximum once the light is off.
She would wake up several times a night and want me to go back to bed with her. Mostly I would and then I began telling her “Mummy is tired, you need to go back by yourself, turn your pillow to the magic side and go to sleep.” and “I have been with you once I can’t come again, Mummy needs to sleep.” There were a few tears at first but now she’s much better. She does come in, now once a night, wakes me gives me a kiss and a hug and then goes back to bed by herself.
I can’t imagine leaving her to cry or be frightened alone. It took some patience but it is paying off, she has just begun sleeping through the night, 3 and a half years old.
Now we wait for her little sister to do the same thing…
In addition to some good suggestions above, you should check if any external factors changed during the move. for example, maybe you changed the sheets or the blankets, and the new ones are irritating.
You’ve got my sympathies. I have a special needs child that wakes up wide awake for a few hours in the middle of the night 1-5 times a week. She’s outgrowing it but it sure does get old after the first 5 years.
You mention you are concerned that she might be “scared”? Do you have any reasons for this concern other than her talking about “bad dreams”?
I guess I wonder if this focus on having “happy dreams” and such is maybe putting ideas into her head.
She sounds normal - she wants more attention from you - we go through bouts of this with our daughter too - not usually RIGHT after a change, but a little while afterwards, when the honeymoon period is over. For example, when we first moved into our new house she was fine, but then a few weeks later, I noticed that it was getting harder and harder to get her to sleep (she is 4).
I personally wouldn’t make a big deal about it with her - don’t change anything that you’re doing - just quickly and quietly put her back to bed. Repeat as often as needed. Soon she will get so bored with that that she just might settle down. I don’t agree with ignoring her, because if she’s anything like my daughter, she will just get herself more and more worked up. Just make getting up or calling for you as BORING as possible. Kids don’t like boring. 
Also re: the monsters, I have to respectfully disagree with the previous posters. By pretending monsters are REAL, you are reinforcing any fears. Just say “there is no such things as monsters. Period.” No “monster spray” or “monster rules” … Just MHO.
Is there an actual fear? Or does she simply not like it.
Having her get used to something may help. For instance, if you have an 8pm bedtime than enforce it, BUT say she has to be in bed by 8pm. Once she’s in bed, she can color, look at books or whatever, but she’s not to leave the bed. Kids like to feel important so you may want to “invent” some reasons why it’s important that she stay in the room with her sister, and that way she’ll feel like she is doing something and less focused on herself.
Finally did you actually check for monsters under the bed? There could actually be monsters under the bed
There were monsters under my bed! I would never dangle my legs off of the bed for that reason.
I had some nightmares as a child I can still remember today. One was a tv on wheels with Vincent Price as Dracula on the screen. The tv was chasing me down the street and I woke up screaming. My kids couldn’t watch Unsolved Mysteries without having nightmares.
This. I know it’s an unpopular thing to admit to doing, but it really worked for us with no lasting issues.
My now-almost-four-year-old was generally always a terrific sleeper - we would tuck her in, read a story, then say goodnight and leave, and not hear from her til morning.
Then around Halloween she started to outgrow the toddler bed and we started getting the excuse parade that you describe - bad-dreams-need-water-where’s-teddy etc. It continued when we moved her into her new full-sized bed, and many nights would go on for up to 4 hours, despite our trying everything suggested to you here. We were exhausted as not only were we spending our entire evenings dealing with this but she was actually starting to be up past when WE wanted to be asleep.
So we started staying with her until she fell asleep. Exact same routine as always - bath, book, light out - but instead of leaving, we just sat on the floor beside her bed, and from the very first day of trying this she was out cold within 5 minutes and stayed asleep until morning. Gradually we moved to sitting in the chair in her room instead of on the floor, then to standing at the door, then to standing outside the door, and finally now we leave, saying we’ll be back to check on her in a few minutes. Without fail, she is asleep when we go back in 5-10 minutes later.
When my son was about this age, maybe a little older, he went through a period where he would wake up every single night, in the middle of the night, and want to come into our bed.
We got to the point where we put some old sofa pillows, a bed pillow and a blanket on the floor next to the bed, and if he came in at night, we’d tell him he couldn’t get into bed with us, be he could “bunk down” on the floor. He did that for some time, and then it eventually stopped.
The pun police are on their way. You shall be punished.
Hehe. I don’t have any real life experience, but from my basic knowledge of human psychology, I say both the night-tickets and the reward chart are both excellent ideas. The night-tickets are probably more effective due to the relative strength of loss aversion, but I think the reward chart promotes better ethics.
Tell her to go back to bed and stay there. If she refuses, ask her “who is in charge here?” If she says “me,” tell her “You are a child. Children are not in charge.”
This sounds like a power play and if you let her win it, you are in for some very bad stuff in the future.
You’ve got lots of good advice upthread, but I also want to respond specifically to this bit:
When our oldest daughter was 2 1/2, we moved house. For the first month, everything went smoothly. Almost exactly at the one month mark, she suddenly took to wandering round the house plaintively saing “I want to go home” about fifty times a day. For us, that was the only symptom, and it lasted a few weeks and then stopped. But based on that, I don’t think it’s that unlikely that she’s still having effects from the move, and trying to process that.
Which is another way of saying don’t worry too much, she’ll get past it.
Lots of good advice in here. I only have a few things to add.
- Is it possible that you’re simply putting her to bed before she’s tired? Different children of the same age have different sleep needs; one toddler may need 12 hours at night and a 2-hour nap, while another may only sleep 12 hours total.
I realize you’ve already moved her bedtime back, but it was 7-7:30 before, which (at least to me) seems pretty early for a 3 year old. The Firebug’s lights-out time is 8:30pm these days, and he bounces out of bed pretty easily at 6:30am. (He also gets a 2-hour nap each day at day care.) He’ll be 3 in July.
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Speaking of her being tired, have you tried taking her on a short walk after dinner? Now that there’s daylight well into the evening, this would be a good time to try that for a few evenings, to see how it works. You’d want it to be long enough to be real exercise, but not too much longer: for a 3 year old, a few blocks would suffice. And a walk doesn’t take very long to settle down from, once you come back in. Maybe substitute a walk for the TV-watching in the evening, and before your bedtime routine.
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Speaking of your bedtime routine, what’s it like? We kinda wind the Firebug down by degrees: first bring him upstairs (and away from the DVD player) and change him into PJs, then ~15 minutes to play with his upstairs toys before the toys get put away. Then ~15 minutes where we read to him before lights-out. After lights-out, some quiet talk and lullabies while he falls asleep. Again, every kid is different, but I think there’s a lot to be said for a gradual transition from doing daytime stuff to going to bed.
Gotta say, I love all these toddler threads. As an older parent, most of my friends have kids in college rather than day care, so I don’t have a whole lot of people in meatspace that I can talk kid stuff with. We’re only starting to get to know parents of kids at day care, since everybody’s typically only there for a couple of minutes while dropping off and picking up their kids. So these threads are a great source of ideas about how other parents of toddlers are handling similar situations to the ones we’re going through.
I still vote for scaring her. If monsters can make her stay up, then monsters can make her go to bed