Bad Dream Baby
Every single night, without fail, for as long as I can remember, my 5-year-old daughter wakes up, shuffles down the hall, climbs into our bed, and mumbles, "I had a bad dream."
It's a family joke now. But it's continuing to interfere with my sleep. We've tried everything except putting a lock on her door, which I'm not going to do. So we wait for her to outgrow these "bad dreams."
I don't believe for a minute that she's actually having a bad dream. She just got it into her head that this excuse would result in automatic entry into mommy and daddy's bed. It's like the boy who cried wolf. My daughter is the girl who cried nightmare.
If I'm still awake, I escort her back to her room. But she always makes her way back. We've talked with her endlessly about being a big girl and staying in her own bed, but nothing yet has put a stop to her nightly travels.
Anyone else have the "bad dream" experience with their kids?
It's a family joke now. But it's continuing to interfere with my sleep. We've tried everything except putting a lock on her door, which I'm not going to do. So we wait for her to outgrow these "bad dreams."
I don't believe for a minute that she's actually having a bad dream. She just got it into her head that this excuse would result in automatic entry into mommy and daddy's bed. It's like the boy who cried wolf. My daughter is the girl who cried nightmare.
If I'm still awake, I escort her back to her room. But she always makes her way back. We've talked with her endlessly about being a big girl and staying in her own bed, but nothing yet has put a stop to her nightly travels.
Anyone else have the "bad dream" experience with their kids?
Permalink posted by Phil at 10:46 PM
18 Comments:
It's very rare that a morning arrives without us waking up to fin our daughter in with us. our solution - we bought a bigger bed (maybe not the childcare experts solution, but it works for us)
Not so much bad dreams as "I'm thirsty", "I've lost my dummy" (whole other case there), "Where's bunny?", "I'm cold", "I want the light on", "I want the light off".....ad infinitum.
And he doesn't get up (he's three) - we're summoned to trudge down the chilly hallway and sort it out two or three times a night. Or rather, I am. Supermum's becoming a suspiciously sound sleeper these days...
It's Not all Mary Poppins talks about this problem. Her remedy was to make up a little mattress on the floor of her bedroom for he daughter to sleep in. Eventually she decided to just stay in her bed. In the meantime everybody sleeps
Anyone else have the "bad dream" experience with their kids?
Yeah...my wife finally told me I had to stop wearing the clown mask in the middle of the night and prowling around the house.
I feel for ya Phil. My girl is still in a crib (for another month) so she does not walk into our room in the middle of the night, but rather screams out for us from time to time (I think I may prefer the wandering in to the screaming for me). We have a healthy dose of the "I want my blanket", "I want a friend (stuffed animal)", I don't want a pillow", etc.
Not sure what to do. We try talking about "being a big girl" and stuff but it doesn't seem to stick. It may just be a family-lives-through-it phase.
My son came up with a number of tricks: one was to say he was hungry. Another was to scream for us in the middle of the night. For some reason, he always stayed in his bed.
Being nice dad failed to work. I know we're supposed to love our kids through their problems, but I felt uncomfortable letting him manipulate us.
So I called him on his behavior over and over until finally he stopped. Since about 3.5 years old, he's slept through the night without waking up more than a handful of times -- and those for legitimate reasons.
One of my methods is the notion of "choice." I told Seth that if he chose to wake up at night, everyone would be grumpy all day and we wouldn't go out to do anything fun. That worked pretty well, because I really WAS grumpy on nights he'd wake us up.
It worked even better with food. I would say, "Your choice is to eat a snack or read books before bed, not both." Once he realized I meant it, the trying to trick me stopped.
My third child (girl)would SCREAM at night, then DEMAND for example an apple when I'd go in her room. After enough of this I gave her a cold shower (two times did the trick) never again did she have another night-time-tantrum-meltdown-wild-eyed-wake-up-the whole-neighborhood-meltdown. A good night's sleep: priceless :) My youngest (10) still gets me up for the water, covers off, need tucked in gig. He's got a colon disorder and needs to occasionally be changed too. Sounds like you're not alone in your mommy/daddy sleep deprivation.
My Becca (4) used to do that a lot, still once in a while... saying she had a bad dream. We always ask what the dream was about and see if we can "fix" it for her... explain something about it or offer a happier ending.
If she's saying she has had a bad dream but didn't, then it's become a question of lying at that point, so you may need to have a conversation about that. When our daughter comes in, we talk about the dream, then send her back to bed once the initial fear of the dream is over. If there wasn't really a bad dream, then we try to determine and assuage whatever is bothering her and send her back to her bed.
But she definitely goes back to her own bed, regardless... If there isn't a compelling reason for her to get up or something that in her mind makes it worthwhile for doing so (the extra attention, sleeping with you), then she's less likely to continue the behavior, for the most part, at least.
Ha ha..my son pretends he's sleep-walking all the time..without uttering a word, he'll just pop in and lie next to me..and straight away snore after that!
LA Toddler has been climbing into bed and kicking me in the gnads for a month or so. But we're lucky - once we take her back, if we're not too tired, she usually stays there.
But I have a feeling it's going to get worse. Let me know how it works out...
Usually, we can convince the kids to go back to bed if they wake up in the middle of the night. Last week, though, my daughter came in to ask me to tuck her back in (after she got up to use the bathroom), and I (still asleep) told her to just get in with us. Then I ended up sleeping on the couch at 4 a.m. Because a seven-year-old? Takes up a LOT of room.
We put Liam on a small bed at 11 months because he started bitting the cot's wood. He kept out every day every time, but we kept taking him back. We said it's nite nite time to him and later refuse to talk to him, the minute he show up we pick him up and took him back, off course he screamed but we persisted. At 17 months he moved over to a normal single bed and kept doing it and I just one day pulled his door shut. He cried for 3 minutes and went quiet and slept.
The next night he didn't cry at all, I check up on him and he goes "helooooo", I tell him he is a good boy and wave and blow kisses and smile to him, walk out and close the door again. When he is finally asleep I open his door half way so if need be he can come out in the morning with out having to cry. If he wakes at night he calls out to me, I give him a sip of water, say again it's nite nite time, cover him up and walk out.
Don't know if I did anything right but we stayed persistant and refused to do the tuck him in in our bed thing and it payed off.
Do what works for you, every parent knows what they can put up with or not, even thought we have a king size bed we don't let them sleep with us. We bought night lights and put teddies with them in bed and a water bottle by the side, all sorted.
Good luck on the big-girl-bed, it might just work.
The Boo had this problem and we got him a dreamcatcher, which we have to check EVERY night to make sure there are no bad dreams stuck in there. The Goo was also waking in the night screaming and we're not sure what that was about. Our slacker solution has been to have the kids sleep together. Although I know they can't bunk together forever, it works for now and everyone wakes up more rested and happy.
I asked the kids last year if they wanted to be in one room, with bunk beds, like the Berenstain Bears. They both said, "NO WAY!"
My friend's dad had a before-bedtime monster banishment ritual for her little brother. He had a special decorated envelope with the anti-monster powder (salt), and he would wave the envelope over a candle, do a little chant, and sprinkle the salt around all the edges of the room. He made a really big production of it.
Then, if the kid got up in the middle of the night he could say "Nope, can't be real monsters, they can't get past the magic powder. Must be those imaginary monsters, and they can't hurt you. But mommy and daddy's bedroom isn't protected by the magic, you'd better go back to bed where it's safe." Might not work for every kid, but worked like a charm for him.
Don't worry too much about it. My daughter came in to our bed until she was about six. Nothing we could say or do would keep her away. Kids will make up their own mind to stop coming in to their parents' bed when they are ready. She is now eight and very happy and secure. My daugher and I now laugh about the times she would sneak in our bedroom and quietly slip under the covers. Once I even found her sleeping on the floor in our closet just to be near us!
3-4 nites a week our 5 yr old son does the same thing arrives into our bed and ive tried da whole light on remedy,ill stay till you sleep,and no use each time i remove my son to his own bed he will still arrive back to our bed any tips welcome
3-4 nites a week our 5 yr old son does the same thing arrives into our bed and ive tried da whole light on remedy,ill stay till you sleep,and no use each time i remove my son to his own bed he will still arrive back to our bed any tips welcome
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