My 5 Year Old Keeps Waking Me Up!

I have a 3 year old that's going through the scared phase also but mentions Monsters along with it. I put water in a spray bottle for "monster spray" and she has only said it once since then. She walked through the house and sprayed all her "scary" places" and it seems to have helped.

Good luck.

Have you tried staying in her room to see what might be scaring her so you can fix, help the situation? My kids have a rainbow nightlight in their room, and, it really helps. You've got to figure out the cause, before you can figure out the solution.

Your 5 year old needs some "Dream Coins". These are Half dollars or Gold dollar coins. We call them "dream coins". They have "magic powers". When you place them under your pillow, they keep bad dreams away. Give them a try, they are amazing..

One time I was changing my daughters bed linens and I found a small pile of coins under her pillow. I asked her "Why is all of this money under your pillow?". She said "I had a REALLY bad dream one night, so I put a lot os dream coins under my pillow so it would go away." I asked her if it had worked and she said "yes, it worked great"..

S., I understand your exhaustion and frustration. I too recommend that you try to find the cause, although it may not be apparent. Three of my four children have gone through this-- we discovered that Scooby Doo cartoons seemed to be the cause for one child; another was a sudden (unknown cause) fear of the dark which just required an additional nightlight and his door open; my youngest went through this shortly after starting Kindergarten and it lasted into 1st grade. His nightmares were nearly every night, sometimes even twice in a night. He was truly frightened and also exhausted. Just as we were thinking we needed professional help, they began to decrease in frequency during 1st grade. Perhaps it was something about school? a bully? stress with learning to read? a lack of maturity? We never figured the actual cause for him or what had caused it to stop, but he is now in 2nd grade and we are all sleeping through the night.
Please don't punish your little guy, he is also exhausted and frightened by something (which he may not be aware of). The mattress on the floor of your room idea is probably the best solution at this time. It won't last forever, but sure does make for a grouchy family.

Hi S.. I do not really have any advice, but just to say that we to are going through this with my 4-almost 5 year old son. Since I feel he is genuinely scared, we are somewhat at a loss as what to do, besides just provide the comfort that he needs. He does have nightmares almost daily. We do let him into bed with us because that seems to be the only thing that will calm him down-he really likes to be holding our hand in order to go back to sleep! So...we are also hoping that this will be a phase that he will outgrow. I think we might also try some of the suggestions of the other moms! Thanks!

Your child is afraid of something. It sounds like you aren't doing anything to alleviate those fears. Negative reinforcement is most likely compounding the problem. I'm not really sure why you are so opposed to laying down with her or having her sleep in your room for awhile. Is there something you are afraid of? If you are afraid that your child will want to sleep in your room forever, let me just point out that you don't typcially see an 18 year old that is afraid to leave Mom and Dad's house because they can't sleep anywhere else other than Mom and Dad's room. Your child is exhibiting completely normal behavior for a 5 year old. I would suggest trying some of the creative suggestions posted here or comforting your child instead of taking things away. I'm willing to bet you'll see positive results and everyone will get a good night's sleep.

Let her sleep in your bed so both of you get a good nights rest. She is not bothering you, there must be something else.......
Our children are only kids for a very short time.....let them be kids.....and we got them because we wanted them in the first place.
I did that with my kids and they sleep in their own bed now and are perfectly healthy!!

Hope that make some sense,
M.

I'm going to be harsh here for a moment, but this is my initial reaction to what you have just said. I cannot believe you are taking things away from a child that could possibly help soothe her just because you don't want her to disturb you by waking you up. Hello, you are a parent, you are suppose to be there for your child 24 hours a day. If you're tired so what, you are a parent, that's the way we live our lives! Did you not ever have a bad dream when you were a kid? What did you do, stay in your bed or go to your parents? So what if your child wants to sleep with you. Obviously something is wrong that she wants that comfort from her mother. And what is her mother doing, taking things away from her (such as a night light or your comfort) that might help soothe her.

You say she is 5, has she just started kindergarten or pre-k this year? Maybe she is having trouble adjusting to that. School is tough on kids these days. They are expected to know and learn so much in pre-k and K that it can be overwhelming. Maybe all of that is staying with her and causing her to have these bad dreams. There are times when my mind gets so overloaded that I'll have crazy dreams or wake in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.

I think you need to talk soothingly to your daughter to try to understand why and what kind of dreams she is having that make her scared. What is she eating at night, what time is she eating in relation to the time she goes to bed, what is she watching? This could have something to do with it. Has something recently happened that would give her separation anxiety?

Explain to her that dreams are just that, dreams. They are not reality, just like most everything on TV is not reality.

Please do not keep the room in the dark, your child is afraid of something,let her check the closets,under the bed and get her one of those pop it bed side lights. Have a radio going with music. All of these will help ground her and help her sleep. The monster under the bed and closet have been one of the biggest things for kids for years. If it is not that something may have happened to your child that she has not told you about, check this out also....there are people out there that can hurt a child in more than one way.

I had a similar problem and it turned out my son just needed more "mommy time". Once I was able to have special time with him on a regular basis, the problem went away. Good luck!

let her bring her blanket and pillow into your room and sleep on the floor. if she wakes you up she is not allowed to sleep in your room. also telling her to pray for angels to watch over her while she is sleeping and to know exactly what the bible says about fear not the Lord is with you. it brought/brings me alot of comfort. when i am stressed or overly tired i cant sleep because i am scared! you know that feeling that some one is staring at you...i get that alot when trying to sleep...its not fun, not rational either. nothing bad has happened and you should remind her of this. its really uncomfortable to sleep on the floor and pretty soon she should get use to her own bed. * with all of the halloween shows airing all day its hard to find tv that wont scare our kid...watch for comericals as well as tv.

I know how hard this is, and you have my sympathies.

This is normal at this age. Imagination kicks in late at night and kids do get scared. Her fear is very real, and you cannot punish the fear out of her, nor does your getting enough sleep make her fear go away (though if you're like me, sleep = much nicer mama!). IMHO, this is just one of the hard things about parenting that we suck up. I know that it is hard, and she's your oldest, but it is our job to care for our kids' needs, not their job to look out for ours. She's frightened.

In our home, I just told my daugther to crawl quietly into bed with us if she felt scared. It wasn't what I wanted, and I had a brand new baby to boot, but it did seem like the easiest solution. My little girl is 7 now and she's over wanting to sleep with me.

S., my best friend went through this with her son. It was really excessive (every night). She ultimately ended up putting a twin bed mattress in her room. You could always get an old crib mattress, if you don't want something so large. She said he may come into their room to sleep on the mattress as long as he didn't wake them up. If he woke them up, they would take the mattress away. It worked. He would come into their room every night for about a year. ...then he matured and just got over it. Good luck!

my son went through about a year of this, eventually i put him and his sister in the same room, now he sleeps through. he was just lonely, you could try that

Dear S.,
I'm not here to be mean or anything but why are you taking the night light away? Your child is afraid of something. At this age it could just be stress related especially if she's adjusting to new changes (move or school related) My sister used to have night terrors really bad at this age. She'd litterally wake up screaming and crying and my mom would rush down the hall to check on her. We found that she'd been nervous about an upcoming test or that someone had been picking on her at school. I would set aside some time for her and just talk to her. Ask her about random things. Also, what does she watch on television? If you watch alot of these newer cartoons there are alot of ghosts and monsters and stuff, nothing too scary for a kid, but at this age the imagination is really blossoming and that may also be a reason for her being afraid at night. There is nothing wrong with her being afraid. It's just something that she is going through. Try not letting her watch tv at least 2 hours before bedtime, no caffenated drinks, no candies or sweets. Pay attention to what she is watching, reading, learning at school (it's october, so alot of times they start taking about ghosts and scary stories) is there a big test coming up? Have y'all made a big move lately or someone pass away recently? These are just some ideas. Give her back her night light, I seriously doubt her being in complete darkness is by any means necessary. If anything, it's probably just making things worse (think of it this way, we have our senses, see, taste, feel, hear...if one sense is taken away..in this case the ability for her to see clearly, another sense will perk up to accomodiate, *my aunt had brain surgery and has lost her sense of taste, smell and almost 90% of her sight ..this is something I learned by going to therapy with her* so if she can't see, her sense of sound may perk up and then her imagination will run wild..what was that? who is there? where's my mom?...) YOU are her source of security and comfort. If anything, you can do the "monster spray" or the "magic coins" as previous posts have suggested. These are very creative ways, also if you are religious, teach her prayers! The guardian angel prayer worked really well for us as children. I wish you the best of luck, I know it's not easy, but remember, this too shall pass, just another phrase we all have to go through..

God bless you.

I have a 6 year old that has spurts of this. She wakes me sometimes, wide awake at 2 a.m. and wants to talk about what we are going to do the next day.
If she is scared, then comfort her. We have a night light and the hallway bathroom light stays on. Keep her in her bed and tuck her back in reassuring her that everything is safe.
If she is getting up just to get up, my only suggestion is to start taking away key toys that are in her room. The toys are removed one at a time with every night that she wakes and a toy for each time she wakes. (Three times in a night=3 toys in time out) She must earn them back one at a time for staying in her bed. She will either start to see bare spots in her room from toys missing or miss her toys and stay in her bed and be glad to earn them back. This works with my daughter, hope it helps.

My almost 5-year-old sometimes has nightmares. I don't want it to disturb my sleep either, but I know she is scared. I told her that if she sneaks into my bed and doesn't wake me up, then I won't try to put her back in her own bed. She's gotten very good at it. She sneaks very quietly into bed and nestles herself between me and her daddy and we don't even know there was a problem, and haven't lost any sleep. It helps her to feel independent too. She ONLY relies on us when she really is scared, because we only wake up with her about once a week.

We are currently waiting to adopt our next child. When there are two, we may have to change the rule to bringing a sleeping bag into our room, just because we'll be out of space. My cousins slept in their parents' room in a sleeping bag often when they were younger, and everyone got a good night's sleep.

We gave my daughter our almost-queen-size futon for her bed when she was 3. So, at that age, when she was too young to be in our bed without being a jumping bean, there was enough room for one of us to go and sleep with her and just stay there comfortably the rest of the night. It was only necessary during thunderstorms. I think it has helped to give our daughter the comfort of knowing that if things get really bad, she doesn't HAVE to sleep alone. She has not taken advantage of it. I think she's more comfortable sleeping alone because she knows that she has options if she gets really scared.