Halloween isn’t far away. Children may soon be exposed to the spooky pretend play that we associate with this time of year. Monsters and scary creatures are everywhere! Some people, young and old, love having fun with these ideas. Others hate the feeling of fear and struggle with bedtime as a side effect. Children may develop fears and anxieties that have nothing to do with Halloween, another time of year, or a specific trigger. Let’s talk about how bedtime fears can affect your child’s sleep, and what you can do to help your little one get through them.
NORMAL BEDTIME FEARS
Usually, bedtime fears crop up between the ages of two and four years, when kids are in the middle of a cognitive development explosion. They can’t quite tell the difference yet between imaginary and real, and fears at this age often can’t be rationalized away with a “monsters aren’t real, silly!”
Another trigger of new fears can be a major life change, whether positive or negative, such as a family move to a new house, or even a death in the family. Older children can be especially vulnerable to anxieties cropping up around new social stresses, new environments, and new understandings of mortality.
Bedtime fears can take a great variety of forms. Children may be scared of nightmares, monsters, separation from other family members (not just Mom or Dad, but sometimes siblings, too!), the dark, death, abandonment, barking dogs, thunderstorms, shadows, especially rumbly trucks.
SURVIVAL STRATEGIES
Communicate
Bedtime anxieties that crop up at any age should be addressed openly and honestly through parent-child communication that is never shaming, and always empathetic. Using age-appropriate language, talk to your child about what it is that’s scaring them. See if you can drill down in a gentle way to determine whether there was any specific thing or event that triggered the fear.
Sometimes the child truly cannot identify this, but other times, you may find that your child’s imagination made something they saw or heard much worse than it actually is, and you may be able to address it directly by talking about it more.. For example, maybe a grandparent passed away and now your child is afraid everyone in his or her life could die at any moment. It will be a difficult discussion, but you can talk about how likely it is that you will all live long and healthy lives – that most often, these things do not happen suddenly to young and healthy people like (hopefully) your child and yourself.
Other Strategies
Empathy:
Besides talking openly about your child’s fears to help you both understand them, try one or more of these concrete strategies:Be empathetic, but honest:
‘Oh, I understand. Sometimes the dark can be unsettling because we can’t see what’s there. Let’s look at your bedroom with the lights on and the lights off. Does it change at all? Look, your bed is still there…there are your toys…I see your stuffed animals are the same. No! Nothing changed! It’s all the same, whether it’s dark or it’s light! Let’s check Mommy and Daddy’s room, too!”
Making a fun and light-hearted investigation (maybe during the day to start with) can help your child by grounding them in reality, while validating their emotions. We don’t pretend to chase the monsters away because we know that monsters aren’t real, and we want our children to understand that, too.
Leave the bedroom door open. Sometimes all children need is just a little reassurance that they’re not alone. Over time, you can slowly wean them off this by having the door shut one-quarter of the way, half-way, etc., over several nights until they are past this fear. Or keep it open permanently, if noise and light disturbance are not an issue in your home.
A nightlight can sometimes be a quick fix, but make sure it’s the right light temperature. The wattage and volts and size of the bulb don’t matter. Light temperature refers to the color of the light (measured in Kelvin or K, if you see it on the package). A low temperature produces and amber or pink light that does not interfere with circadian rhythms and sleep. Other light temperatures (think of what you’ve heard about device screens casting a blueish light that makes it hard to sleep) will actually keep your child awake, making the anxiety even worse. This is one of our favorite night lights.
You don’t need to spend money to address bedtime fears, but some families have great luck with gifting their child with a new stuffed animal friend. What kind is a very personal decision (sometimes a stuffed monster feels protective, other situations call for a reassuring stuffed dog), but both Lori and I have had great results with our kiddos using Worry Eaters, a stuffed friend who loves to eat worries or problems that you or your child write down on a slip of paper and feed into its zippered mouth. Yes, it’s okay to buy one for yourself, too.
Other comfort objects can work, too! Dreamcatchers, a lucky rock, or maybe a special way you tuck them in, a mantra of blessing and protection you say over them, the sky’s the limit with creative solutions you might find.
Back to Independent Sleep
Most families will find that employing one or more of these strategies will have them past the bedtime fear phase in a matter of a week or less. If your child’s bedtime struggles are dragging on and you don’t see the end in sight, how do you break a cycle lying in bed with them until they fall asleep?
- Reassure Less. A Time Timer can be great for this (and a host of other behavior-shaping needs). Bring the Timer in the bedroom with you and tell your child you will spend X number of minutes with them. When the Timer goes off, it will be time for you to leave, and them to fall asleep. The trick is being consistent with this: you can’t give in and stay longer, or the boundaries you’re setting become meaningless and you’ve given up your exit strategy.
- Limit the number of call backs each night. For example, start with a number you know your child can be successful with, so you have room to wean them off: Maybe you let your child know they can call you back to reassure them three times tonight. Each time, you bring back the Time Timer with you so there is a cap on how long you are there.
- Over the following nights, slowly wean them off the number of call-backs and how much time is on the Time Timer. Eventually, you will get down to one call back of a one-minute extra cuddle, then no call-backs and five minutes of cuddling before saying good night, etc. Most children will progress through this faster than parents expect.
IT LOOKS LIKE A FEAR, SOUNDS LIKE A FEAR, BUT IT’S NOT A FEAR
Sometimes, parents use the word nightmare or night terror interchangeably, or without understanding what they really mean. What are some of the crazy things our brains do while we’re asleep? How do you know if it’s a problem?
Nightmares
We aren’t certain at what age nightmares or bad dreams begin. We know infants and toddlers have some common, normal sleep behaviors that can look like nightmares to parents. (see night terrors and confusional arousals below). Occasional nightmares are normal, particularly in a time of big changes in the child’s life (positive or negative). They also occur during growth spurts and illnesses, and when not getting enough sleep.
If nightmares become recur over a week or two, they may be related to an ongoing daytime anxiety. Consider consulting a psychologist for strategies to help your child resolve this. Repeatedly acting out a nightmare with lots of talking and movement could be a sign of another sleep disorder. Normally, the brain tells the body not to move during dreams this should be reported to the pediatrician.
Night terrors
Night terrors are also developmentally normal, though not every child has them. They usually start between three and eight years of age. They can also happen even earlier and can start any time before puberty. The defining characteristic of these episodes is that the child starts screaming out of what looked like a peaceful sleep.
You will think something is horribly wrong and will go racing to your child’s side. When you get there, your child will be unreactive to you. He may seem to be wild-eyed, sweating, inconsolable, or appear terrified. Some children look as if they have been possessed by a demon. These episodes mostly occur in the first few hours of night sleep. Mom and Day may not even be in bed yet.
Believe it or not, this is traumatic for you to witness, but your child won’t remember it even happened. Stick around to make sure they don’t hurt themselves, but don’t try to wake them up. The episode may last seconds to 20 minutes or so. The child will work through it and go back to a peaceful sleep. Night terrors can happen more than once in the same night, or they can happen once and never happen again. It’s less common for them to happen more than once a night. They may occur semi-regularly for years, usually with weeks or months in between episodes.
Night terrors that occur before puberty are not associated with any emotional problems in children. They are not seizures or convulsions, not a sign of epilepsy. They may be triggered by a fever. Often it’s a positive change in the child’s life that is the cause. Having out of town visitors, holidays, travel, school vacations, and learning new skills can all be reasons.
Confusional arousals
Confusional arousals are less common and are usually not quite as dramatic for the witnessing parent. This usually appears as intense crying in an infant or toddler that lasts roughly 5-15 minutes. Parents describe their baby doesn’t appear awake. They can’t wake their child, and the baby seems to go back to a normal sleep again.
There is some evidence that confusional arousals may be hereditary, but they are more often caused by insufficient sleep. An earlier bedtime of even just 15-30 minutes may be enough to stop these episodes. Like night terrors, these also usually occur within the first few hours of sleep of the night. They are not bad dreams – children don’t remember them.
If it happens rarely, confusional arousals are nothing to be concerned about. If you begin to notice a pattern of this behavior, consider mentioning it to your pediatrician. It can sometimes be a sign of other sleep disorders that may need treatment.
CONSULT A PROFESSIONAL
As with anything regarding your child’s health and well-being, don’t hesitate to consult your pediatrician with your concerns. Most bedtime fears can be overcome quickly with a healthy dose of empathy, honesty, consistency, and a slightly earlier bedtime. If that doesn’t help, bring it up to a doctor or a psychologist. Bedtime fears will not always go away on their own (although they might). Interrupting a cycle of bad sleep habits early can get you and your child sleeping again sooner. With time, you may even able to happily enjoy some seasonal spooks and treats.