Three weeks ago my almost-three-year-old decided he was terrified of being alone, and being alone to sleep. Frightened hysterics every time we tried to leave him in his room alone (and we can tell the difference between terror and just being two and having tantrums. He was scared. Really scared).
So my husband slept with him in his room, with the lights on, and took apart the crib. Problem: Nat is entering the Stalling Olympics, and getting someone to fall asleep through sheer force of will is impossible. So my husband was being woken up all the time, and was getting tired and cranky. As Nat’s sleep deprivation increased he got more hyper and irritating.
So after a particularly bad night with Nat we put the crib back up and stuck him in it, reassured him every twenty minutes, and left him. He went to sleep in forty minutes. We had four good nights. Last night he went ballistic again, cried for an hour until he threw up all over his crib.
So we put up the air mattress again and Mr. Lissar slept with him.
We can’t put a mattress on our floor because we’d have to go to bed at eight, the six month old baby sleeps in our room, and the toddler lacks the obedience or willpower to stay put after being placed in bed. And he’s very loud. I think he needs either to be in his room and unable to get out, or be in a crib. Confined, anyway.
We do not want him to be scared out of his mind. We also don’t want him to get the idea that if he’s scared or throws up then he gets his own way i.e. staying up late every night. I’m wondering if there’s some kind of middle ground between Puking Hysterics and Fun Nighttime Party that I’m missing.
Yes, I’m sure he’ll grow out of it on his own eventually, but I’d like us all to get good-ish sleep as fast as possible.
Is it the darkness he’s scared of? Does being alone in a well-lit room scare him?
Does he identify some toys of his as people? If so, you might use that.
You could let him become sleep deprived and only allow him to sleep when alone. After enough sleep deprivation, he won’t care.
Can he articulate what is scaring him? Is it the dark? Does he have stuffed animals that sleep with him? Has anything changed in his room? We had a few issues when we transitioned our 23 month old from the crib to the toddler bed but those were resolved within the week.
Do you have a dog? If so, can you convince it to sleep with him? If not, can you get one?? I always found my dog very comforting when I was little and scared.
We have two cats that excite him beyond belief, although they are not so enthusiastic about him. They wouldn’t be comforting at night.
He can’t articulate what’s scaring him beyond, “Don’t leave! Come back! I’m scared!”. For the four days he was sleeping well he had a soft light on. He sleeps with the stuffed frog that is his best friend. We made a sign that says, “No Scary Things Allowed!” and he’s talked to me about how nothing scary is allowed in our house because of the sign.
We weren’t transitioning him, he just decided he was freaked out. No developmental leaps, as far as I can see. His little brother is almost seven months old now, so it’s not new-baby problems.
Your baby is 7 months; is he by any chance starting to crawl? I ask because our son went through two periods of massive adjustment and very serious negativity (including refusal to sleep) that seemed to coincide with the baby being born, then the baby getting mobile. The issues related to the baby becoming more mobile, which included drastically increased back talk, resistance to doing anything we asked, sleep included, are just dying down. It’s taken about a month or so and peaked when she firmly mastered crawling. I think because it was so new and she was curious about his stuff, it just blew our son away. Plus, we had to pay more attention to her since we couldn’t just sit her down and expect her not to be all over the place.
Even though she’s learning to walk, it isn’t as bad, probably because he’s used to her being able to move about. We also taught him how to take things away from her gently and to tell us if she’s getting into his things.
Our parent educator with Parents as Teachers predicted it and, jeez, was she right. As soon as that baby can crawl, it becomes all about the stuff with the older one, depending on their age. And that can manifest itself just about any which way.
Of course, for all I know, the stuff could have nothing to do with it and it could just be a phase, but still - something to consider.
Another thing you might try is a monster-banishing each night before bed. When my son was that age, I’d stand up in the dark room and do a speech to any lingering monsters telling them they weren’t welcome and they had to leave because no monsters are allowed in the house. Luckily, I was omnipotent at the time, so that worked well. You could also get your son a spray bottle - it could be his magic anti-monster spray for use whenever he feels the need to fight monsters.
Can you try another way to help him feel secure by himself? The “No Scary Things” sign is great but you may want to get a small spray bottle and fill it with water and make a label that says “Scary Thing Repellant” or something. Put it where he can reach it and tell him if he squirts it once and yells, “Scary things go away!” all scary things immediately run away. That way he controls the scary things all by himself and he doesn’t need someone else to rescue him.
My almost 3 year old (3 in December) went through a similar thing recently. “Daddy, I scared” he’d say with all sincerity when the lights went out. I think this was more of a stall tactic thought. He’s grown out of this though and often will ask to go to bed before it’s time so though it’s hard he’ll grow out of it.
We’ve fallen back into a routine where he lays down and waits for me to put his 3 blankets on him in the proper order and all is well.
My daughter had a hard time falling asleep by herself when she was little, so I spent about six months laying on the floor of her bedroom when it was bedtime until she dropped off. Then I’d tiptoe out.
The important thing was I made it very clear that it was BEDTIME. I wasn’t going to talk to her or engage with her. If she asked me anything, the only answer she got was “Go to sleep, Rose.” The only reason I was there was so she would feel safe.
After a while she didn’t need me there any more, so I stopped doing it.
Your son is honestly scared. If you can’t get to the source of what’s scaring him, then just treat the symptoms. After a few months of “Daddy’s here and you’re safe” he’ll probably forget what all the fuss was about and you can stop doing it.
At about two and a half my daughter started deciding that there were ghost and dragons in the house. She’s a really easy kid, so all we had to do was convince her that ghosts and dragons are afraid of dogs - therefore they wouldn’t come near the house since our two dogs were in there.
He’s afraid - you need to find out what he’s afraid of so you can kill that thing, one way or another. Anything else is going to be flailing that just leads to frustration.
IMHO There is something wrong, though I don’t know if you can do anything about it, unfortunately you may have to let him suffer till his mind buries it, to be revealed in his adult life. This is how I feel. There is a loss of connection he is having to his parents on a spiritual level, feeling alone, somewhat abandoned. the physical reassurance of your husband is only temporally masking the feeling of spiritually isolation. The solution would be to reverse ween him, get him back to a infant state where he is one with his parents, particularly his mother.
[shudder]Opération Beurre de Pinottes (The Peanut Butter Solution)[/shudder]. Yeah, every other kid remembers that movie fondly, but it scared the crap out of me. Oddly enough, the only other person I’ve ever met who agrees that it was terrifying is my husband!
He might not be able to articulate why he’s scared, but asking him to point, act/imitate or otherwise give you clues could help. Try and do this during the day; get him to pretend it’s nighttime and show you what scares him. Maybe give him a toy sword or Scary Thing Repellent and get him to attack the scary thing “while it’s sleeping”. If it’s something odd like a nightstand, then consider the shadows it might cast at night - I’m 29 and occasionally get momentarily freaked out by the towel my husband hangs on the bedroom door, since it sometimes looks like a person (yeah, I’m weird!). A night light, a toy flashlight, or maybe even moving a piece of furniture might be enough to make the Scary Thing go away.
And how is it that kid is almost three? I seem to recall your first pregnancy threads, and they weren’t that long ago?!
I vote for putting the baby in the room with him. Then he won’t feel alone, and he’ll get used to sharing a room if they are going to be doing that later anyhow. Plus he’ll know you’ll be coming in once or twice a night, and that will reassure him.
I think too many people want to try sudden changes. You need to go gradual. Try putting him in bed, and leaving for a short period of time, and then coming back. Gradually increase the amount of time you are away, until the child has fallen asleep before you get there.
That’s just off the top of my head. There may be better solutions. The point is that the child likely didn’t go from not scared to scared all at once, and you can do that the other way, too. you needn’t stick with all-or-nothing solutions.
Do you think the diabetes might be related to his fear? Does he worry about needles/pin pricks/etc which he can’t explain? Are you and his father apprehensive/stressed about it, and he’s picking up on that? I can see how something like that could stress out a kid, and being alone in the dark at night with memories of doctors and blood sugar tests and so on could be freaking him out.
Does he understand what’s happening, why it’s happening and what it means? Though I’m not really sure what you could tell him to help, but it could be part of why he’s so scared.
