My Three Year Old If Afriad to Sleep in His Room

Create a spray bottle of monster spray. AKA water in a spray bottle add some essential oil or linen spray if he's especially hard to convince. :)

I really dont know what to tell you cause I am having the same problem with my 3 yr old daughter. She tells me that there are ghosts in her room. She has told me that they come out of her bed. The other day she went up to get a toy and came running down the stairs, pure white. That is when she told me the ghost came out of her bed. This started last year when she told me that a ghost came out of her wall and went through the door into the hallway. Since then she has not slept in her room. Unfortunately she has been sleeping on the couch. I think in the last year she has only slept in her room maybe 5 times. Right now her little brother who is 2 months old has to share a room with her. I thought that maybe when he was born that she would want to sleep in there with him, but no such luck. I have noticed that he stares at one wall and just smiles away. When this first started happening I made a post on here. One woman sent my post to a paranormal investigator and they told me that there is activity in that room by what I discribed. We have heard strange things from the room. Blowing in the baby monitor, things sound like they are crashing down, we go to investigate and there is nothing. The cats are consistantly looking towards the room. All I did was tell my daughter that when she goes into her room to say "Get out of my room! This is MY room" She was fine for a little while and then it started all over again. She down right refuses to stay in there unless one of us stays with her. And even then she won't stay and asks to go downstairs. On one hand I really want to find out if there is something or someone in the room and then on the other I don't want to know. Cause if I know for sure there is activity in the room I won't want to stay here anymore. There is a night light in there so its not completely dark. We tried the flashlight, we tried all kinds of things but she will not stay in there. When she does go in her room, she doesn't stay in there long. She gets what she wants and right back out.
So I really don't know what to tell you, but wanted to let you know that I feel for you and understand what you are going through. I hope the best for you and your family and hope that things work out.

I would go up there with him and clean out his room, spray for "monsters with monster removal spray", put the things back. Make it a nice, clean, place that no monster would hide in. Put some glade plug-in's so it smells nice and plant yourself in the hallway, outside his door reading a book while he falls asleep so you are near enough to comfort him but he is still falling asleep alone. You need to break this cycle. I went through something similar myself and this worked for me. Good luck!

Kim,
Save your child anxiety, yourself sleep, and let him sleep in your room.

It doesn't last forever. No matter WHAT anyone says.

Attachment parenting international . org has a lot of information for further reading. Bed sharing or co-sleeping, your child will only benefit from your closeness. Less anxiety means your baby's body can concentrate on growing.

Good luck,
M.

This is very typical at this age and you need to make him feel really secure and let him know you take him very seriously. Please don't say "There's no such thing as monsters" or anything along those lines; in his mind it's really there. (But it sounds like you're already treating him seriously if you asked him to show you where it is.) He likely won't show you because he's afraid the monster will jump out if he goes to where it is or if you go there.

As others posted, make "monster spray." It can just be water but you could add some essential oil for nice scent. Don't let him see that it's water from the tap, though. I would get a new, clean bottle (don't reuse a spray bottle that had any chemicals in it) and then let him decorate it -- he can label it with his name with your help, or put on lots of stickers of his favorite "good things" that he likes "because they'll make you think happy thoughts and monsters won't stay where there are happy thoughts" etc. This gives him some sense of control over the monster -- he needs to feel he has the power to banish it.

Ensure the closet door stays closed tightly at night. Check the room, when his lights are out, for anything that may throw shadows -- even a beloved nightlight can suddenly seem sinister if a child takes that notion, and a blanket that innocently is tossed over the back of a chair all day suddenly casts weird shadow in the nightlight glow. Has any furniture in his room been moved lately, or has any new furniture, even something small, come into his room? Any changes can become weird and upsetting to a child this age once it's nighttime, so assess if that could be a part of this.

Also think hard about what if anything he watches on TV or sees on the computer or even on your cell phone if he plays games on that. Games and shows that seem slow and kid-like to adults can spook a kid when they are thinking about them later, in the night, even games or shows they claim they like and think are fun. Try limiting or even just eliminating any screen time for a while (if he even has any) and replacing it with more books, especially super-gentle things like Winnie the Pooh.

If you must stay in his room to get him to sleep, do it. That does not throw him backwards in his development or spoil him! It teaches him he can depend on you when he feels insecure. He cannot yet fully identify many of his fears so it makes him feel he can depend on you and his dad to be there no matter what. You will not be sleeping with him when he's a teenager and has a nightmare, I guarantee it. But there is no harm, and possibly a lot of benefit, to helping him get to sleep while he is in this phase.

Be sure he has a good, very set bedtime ritual to banish the monster (story, kisses, he gets to spray monster spray wherever HE feels he needs it and shout if he wants, "Monster be gone" or whatever works for him.

Well, I'm torn on how to answer this. I love all the ideas about monster spray and protective animals ... especially the animals. These are wonderful totems that actually help develop a child's inner courage. I know it is a very common thing for children to go through. I must say though that if I was experiencing this my first thought would be, what if there really is something that is frightening them? I do believe in spirits and the like, and while I personally am not afraid of them, I believe that children are vulnerable to certain types of energy. Maybe I've seen too many episodes of The Haunted, but then reading Candy's post reiterated exactly what my concern is. Not saying I think this is the case with your son, but as an overprotective mom I would just want to be sure everything is fine. Maybe sleep in there with him for a while, get him to talk more about it. I've yet to let my son leave my bed, and he's almost three, so I suppose you could say that I like being able to keep my eye on my little fella when he's asleep. If you try some if these creative ideas and still not working, I'd consider some other sleeping arrangements. But do what seems right, your gut will tell you if it is a serious problem. Good luck

It's something that comes with this age. My daughter tried to convince me that when I left, something crawls across the floor. Hubby was away on business at the time. She also told me she was having nightmares. We had a few chats about it, I reassured her, and she seems to a have gotten over it.

I think I told her nothing could get her because her giant panda was protecting her, or something like that, and then when she said "but mommy, he's not real," I think I may have just said, "that's true, but mommy and daddy are right next door, nothing is going to get you."

She drove me nuts for a while too about the noises outside. This is a normal fear stage. Wish I had something more helpful to say, but it does pass!

get can of spray decorate it to say mon ster spray and then with him spray room and in closet and under bed

Hi I have been through this with a niece, friend's daughter and then my daughter went through this as well. I found unicorns that were white at a local toy store for 5 dollars . I wrote hand printed notes in pencil that looked like a kid wrote them on plain paper that introduced the unicorn as a new friend to protect them from any monsters or bad dreams. I named them example Lulu, Coco. JoJo. The letter says they were sent from Dream Come True Town.
I made sure to mention they couldn't wait to meet the kid because they heard the kid is alot of fun and has a really cool room to sleep in. The kids sleep with these unicorns and take them to sleepovers which they keep very private as to where they came from except that they were waiting on their doorstep one day when they came home from school. I have over heard some conversations and it is cute how they protect these new pals.
Make it believable that they were specially sent to the child to be their new best pal while sleeping.