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Hi
My DS4 for the last couple of months had been having a lot of bad dreams. He also sometimes has trouble falling asleep, he says his brain won't turn off. Tonight he said he is usually being chased by knights on horseback or by t-rexs, they don't usually catch him but sometimes they do. Obviously this is from what he is reading. He actually said, his dreams are always bad. Is this unusual? It seemed to go alongside the upswing in his reading, seemed to go from 1st to 6th grade comprehension in 2 months but we've tried to keep it emotionally appropriate, he gets frightened easily. We've told him not all his dreams are bad and that he can come get us if they are, but he doesn't so it's hard to know what to think or to do. Any suggestions?

DeHe

http://www.amazon.com/What-When-You-Dread-Your/dp/1433803186/ref=pd_sim_b_5 He's on the young side but this is a helpful book. What worked best for us was to encourage a calm/boring evening routine and talk about keeping the safest calmest books for before bed. Also, since he's telling you about the dreams you may want to encourage him to think of it as a story that could be changed. So when he wakes up he can think I know I'd have Superman help me, or I'd give the trex some cookies, or whatever. It is just a way to shift over to feeling in more contorl.

That's a terrific idea! Very empowering!

Hi DeHe,

My LO also has nightmares, and I did as a child too. A few weeks ago he had one that his brother died That was a really hard one.

I second the whole idea of trying to turn the nightmare around. That helped me.

I have a hypnotherapy CD that really helped my LO. It talkled about strategies for dealing with nightmares and things. DS listened to it as he went to sleep and it really helped him.

http://www.mindmotivations.com/shop/products/overcoming-fears-amp-nightmares

Along the same line - Dream catchers.

Basically antything that he believes will help keep nightmares away will.

Playing very soft music, like a sleep CD, while he is sleeping sometimes helps - and gives him something to focus on while he is trying to get to sleep. (I still do that today to help me sleep.)

Lavender essential oil.

My LO and I also seem to get more nightmares when we get overheated? No idea why that is?!?! But I have really noticed it.

And not quite on the same thing, but I found that the effects of a nightmare can last for days, making me feel 'weird' and unsettled. Just so you know, if the same thing happens to your LO.

Hang in there :P

I still get nightmares a little bit. I like the sound of a box fan. I don't know why, it's silly to run one when I already have the a/c going. But it's the perfect white noise for me.

DS6.5 is STILL like this (though not as frequent when he was 3-4). We run his ceiling fan all night (well we run all of ours), and it makes just the right amount of noise. It's helpful but doesn't always keep the dreams away. We try to talk about happy things before bed and try not to read "scary" stories (DS was terrified of Nemo up until he was 5.5, so scary to him doesn't mean scary to "us"). DS has an AMAZING imagination, which carries his thought process way away from just the words he reads on paper, and I imagine this is exactly what is happening to your DS.

I have no real advice, but just wanted to say you are definitely not alone.

Wow, my DS was terrified of Nemo too. He likes to watch scary to him things now but then he says he gets the scary things/images stuck in his head at bed time so I'm pretty careful with what he watches. He is a little more careful with books and he even skipped a whole book in his beloved Tashi collection because the troll scared him.

I agree that it can come from an active imagination. My DD7.5 has 'bad dreams' at least twice a week.

We had a huge problem with this when DS was 3-5. Every night, 2-3x a night. Interestingly enough the thing that helped him the most was giving him instant breakfast before bed. A full belly made the nightmares almost go away entirely. When he doesn't get filled up before bed, they come right back. I don't know why it works, but it's worth a try.

Hell, when your kids not sleeping, anything is worth a try!

And, the thing we've determined that is most likely to trigger nightmares for our child is eating too much too close to bed!