My daughter is 5 1/2 and has never suffered much from nightmares. However, since starting kindergarten, she has had repeated nightmares about her classmates. Things like little girls turning into cyclops-aliens, boys dancing around in blood, etc....YES!...scary stuff for a little one. She doesn't watch any inappropriate TV and there is nothing I can link these very graphic dreams to other than being in a new environment and being exposed to new kids. Does anyone have advice as to how to help a) calm her after the dream b) to keep the dreams from re-occurring c) clever ways to "banish" the nightmare?
Hi Stephanie,
Try talking to her and find out of any of the kids in her class tell her of any movies or tv shows they watch and are scary. When my oldest son was in kinder, there was a little boy that would watch rated R movies with his oldest brothers, there was no adult supervision in the house because the parents worked at night time. He would always tell the other kids about bloody movies and stuff, so my son's interaction with him was limited. But stuff like that could happen. I pray with my children since they started with the "nightmare" stages and confess "Angels encamp around you, guard you and protect you and NO nightmares in Jesus' name"
That always seems to help :) I would hold them tight after a nightmare and pray for them, comfort them and assured them that it would be okay. Sometimes I would have to lay down with them for a little while until they would fall asleep, then I would go back to my room.
Blessings
maybe invite some kids over to go to the park... some boys and some girls.. give the note to the parents.. maybe if she sees them in a good light.. things will work out better. ask the parents to get together one day after school... for just a get together... it could be a good thing.
If she hasn't been exposed to that stuff at your house, she's probably hearing about it/seeing it somewhere, but not necessarily. Kids can come up with all kinds of crazy stuff on their own, sometimes scaring the crud out of us with the things they say without meaning too. I had one little boy who told his mom that a man was going to lock him in a closet and pinch his penis with pliers. No abuse/exposure of any kind, just kid imagination. I would just talk to her about the dreams and reassure her they are just dreams when they occur. In the daytime, you can talk more about the actual dreams, if she remembers them and ask her why she thinks she's dreaming about this stuff. As for banishing the nightmares, try a bottle of "monster spray" (my friend uses very watered down Febreeze) and spray her room before bed and after nightmares.
You can lay down for a few minutes, talk about the dream, then discuss a good way for the dream to end. Encourage her to go back to sleep and change it. She can also have a spray bottle for dream monsters, or a flashlight.
My daughter had bad dreams about school too. When it happens I ask her what she saw, and she normally will tell me then ask for her dream bear. When she started having bad dreams I took her to Build a Bear and asked her to pick out a dream bear. In my family we would get a bear that was our favorite, and if we had a bad dream we would tell the bear all about it and hold him tight. My mom always told us that by holding on to our dream bears that bad dreams cant hurt us. To this day, I know it sounds silly, but when I have a bad dream I still turn to my dream bear when I was a little girl. Maybe let your little girl do the same. I know that some times my little girl wont tell me about her dreams but she tells her dream bear and I hear all about the dream that way. She feels better after holding her bear and falls back to sleep. :)
My daughter used to have nightmares all the time. I gave her a dream catcher, a goodnight care bear adn other bear and so did her grandmother but it didn't help. I explained how nightmares are afraid of bears but it didn't work. I bought a Sweet Dreams Care Bear that I was going to give it to her for her birthday which was just a couple days away. I decided to give it to her and tell her that with the Care Bear she would only have sweet dreams. It works. She had only had one or two bad dreams since then and that was 4 years ago. When my youngest starting getting bad dreams, she decided on her own that one bear she'd recieved for her birthday would chase away bad dreams. When we say our prayers at night, we all ask for "only good dreams and no bad ones" at the insistance of our youngest. Monster and bad dream spray didn't work for us, but lavender is supposed to be a relaxing scent so you could try that too.
They look like quarters to me and you but they catch and keep away bad dreams for children. Place this magic talisman under her pillows and the dreams will stay away..
Also my mother once told me, when you have a bad dream, roll to your other side and they will go away.. She was right..
Hi so sorry bout the bad dreams!!! You can try some monster spray, simply fill a cute lil water bottle with water aka monsterspray and just spray around her bed or let her control the lil sprayer or maybe a cool flashlight?! Anywho I just know you guys will be feeling better in no time!!
For my oldest daughter, we invented an imaginary horse named Sophie (the name has changed a few times) who would need adventures, and so we'd ask her to make up an adventure to dream about to take the place of bad dreams. Sophie kept her company and kept her safe in her dreams. We always reassured her she was safe at home. I hope this is just a phase.
Everyone had such great ideas, thank you so much! I liked the idea of “monster spray” but didn’t want to give her the impression that monsters were actually real. So, we did this: I told her that I called in a favor and received a recipe for a Magic Dream Potion…our potion consisted of the following:
2 cups of water
1 blown kiss from each family member
1 strand of her hair
1 pinch lavender
1 pinch chamomile
2 drops lavender essential oil
2 drops jasmine essential oil
After we (she) made the “potion” we strained it and poured it into a squirt bottle while she repeated the words “I banish you, bad dreams!”
She sprays around and under her bed and on her pillows just before bed and, guess what??!! No more bad dreams! (and a very yummy smelling room)
