So....Zachery sometimes has issues with fear at night. I remember when I was his age I did to. I cant remember what I did to get over it, but somehow I did. Last night it happened again. It always does when he is not sleeping in the room with his brother, who is away on a field trip. We give him hugs and kisses, tell him we love him, tuck him in, read a story, pray with him, rub his back, everything you can think of to make him feel safe and secure. It does not work. When he comes is scared of the different sounds we tell him exactly what the sounds are. So after a couple times of him coming into our room last night, I finally told him at 4am to go watch cartoons in the living room. When I got up this morning, this is what we found. He is zonked out on the couch with the TV on. So here is my question: Have you had to deal with this with your kids and if you did what did you do? Thanks for the advise.Sunday, December 7, 2008
Night scares
So....Zachery sometimes has issues with fear at night. I remember when I was his age I did to. I cant remember what I did to get over it, but somehow I did. Last night it happened again. It always does when he is not sleeping in the room with his brother, who is away on a field trip. We give him hugs and kisses, tell him we love him, tuck him in, read a story, pray with him, rub his back, everything you can think of to make him feel safe and secure. It does not work. When he comes is scared of the different sounds we tell him exactly what the sounds are. So after a couple times of him coming into our room last night, I finally told him at 4am to go watch cartoons in the living room. When I got up this morning, this is what we found. He is zonked out on the couch with the TV on. So here is my question: Have you had to deal with this with your kids and if you did what did you do? Thanks for the advise.
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We (at various times in our kids lives) have set up pallets on the floor in our room. They are not allowed to wake us up, they are not allowed to sleep in our beds...but they ARE allowed to come upstairs, or wherever you sleep and lay down on the floor to feel "secure". Just a thought...not sure it's right but that is what we do.
Hey, My name is molly. I'm 18 and I totally had the same problem when I was a kid (a younger kid lol). I would be scared all night until I got the "okay" from my mom and dad to go watch TV in the living room. What ended up happening to me was that my parents put a TV in my room and I fell asleep to it every night. Probably not the best choice but it did solve the problem. No severe brain damage from all that TV was caused, but I did end up studying film at colleg lol.
Anyways now when I go to sleep I can't go to sleep without some sort of sound in the room. So my advice to you is to get your son a white noise machine. It's very soothing and it covers up the scary creaking noises in the middle of the night. I think it could be very helpful. If he has a problem with the dark in general, a night light could help too. But the noise machine always makes me happy.
I hope you can make some sense of my rambling! Good luck and God bless!
--Molly
Hi Angie, found you through Heather's blog. 19 years ago we had a little one like your Zach.
It's good to ask for advice from others because God does give us new ideas, and He will help you weed through what is right for little Zach. For our daughter music was "THE ANSWER". We played soothing Christ centered music.
Now she has several instrumental CD's that she plays when she first lays down. Music indeed can sooth. I don't know how old he is but teaching him a simple little pray to repeat out loud if he wakes and is scared or how to quietly turn on the music himself and to picture Jesus in his favorite way as the music starts.
We LIVED it, it's so exhausting and hard on the entire family. It is an excellent teachable moment about perseverance and God hearing our prayers, even it's "Jesus hug me" when scared.
Oh I could go on for ever. We're at the empty nest stage---19 & 23 year olds. But I do remember. There are so many wonderfully calming CD's out there now--even Target has those wonderful gentle instrumental kind.
More than anything remember that God gave Zach to you and your husband specifically. Oh how we as parents can feel so inadequate, but that just gives us more opportunity to cry out to God.
I agree with the pallet in your room! I also think having a sound machine may help. I have problems turning off my brain at night, I sleep very sound with the hum of my sound machine to drowned out any extra noise. Give it a shot- that or music could definately help!
we use a night light and a sound machine (or fan) that provides white noise to block out all those other sounds. It helps with mine since they are light sleepers and every noise scares them.
Hey !! Visiting you from Whittaker Woman. My name is Jen and I have three sons and a little princess :) My middle guy is 6 and has bad sleep issues that last for a week at a time...he will stay up all night due to fear of falling asleep. I finally figured out after he was truthful with me that he was scared from a mean guy off of home alone :) Seems silly to us adults but little ones can dream up some pretty freaky stuff. Here are some things we do to help..
fast forward through any villian type character in movies, or just dont watch it. have night light on, put on a story tape, read books, let him sleep on his floor sometimes just to get him out of the "bad dreams" in his bunkbed, and the best thing that works is for him to be honest with me about what might freak him out! now he can tell me and we can avoid it. Hang in there...
Jen
I let my son bring his sleeping back in our room and he has a little area that's just his. He wakes me up and I make sure he's okay.
The other thing I have scaled way back on what he watches. Some of the most benign cartoons and shows cause his little brain to work overtime.
Hang in there, it will pass and yes a white noise machine helps:)
Hi, visiting from Heather's blog. I'm dad of a 14 yr old and 12 yr old. Nothing is perfect but here is what worked for us. When our kids were younger...we did some parent training that instructed us to do "couch time" during the day. That's when dad comes home and the kids really want dad's attention...he sits on the couch with mom and they have a face to face conversation. Not getting distracted by the kids coming up but focusing on the conversation between mom & dad. 5 minutes...8 minutes...no big deal. Talk about your day....talk about whatever you want...doesn't matter. When the kids see mom & dad doing good..it gives them security and they sleep through the night. Again, not one thing is perfect for all....yet....this worked for us. We'd stop for a while...and if we felt the kids having problems sleeping or some other behavior issues...we'd bring back couch time and it was amazing how well it worked. If the kids feel safe...they will sleep. This works great with toddlers especially. I like all the other stuff commented on your question.
The study we did was from Growing Kids International. I don't subscribe to everything they suggest...but by reading this stuff with an open mind...it really helped us in our time of need.
I have a child who struggles with the same thing as well as just simply falling asleep issues. I'm not crazy on the tv to fall asleep although have resorted to it myself, so here are some other ways we have found helpful. Adventurs in Odyssey on audio as well as the Chronicles of Narnia on audio theatre from Focus on Family. A box fan. I liked what Molly said about the noise machine.I also will do my best to stay up until after he falls asleep making noise now and then- kind of an "I'm here" thing.
The Adv. in Odyssey have scripture at the end and positive themes, he'll often put them on repeat and when I wake up they're still running. Narnia can be scary in itself but he chooses it sometimes.
I also posted scripture cards with "fear not" themes around his bed and encouraged him to read them outloud. I also will use that time, if I'm up wth him, to pray for others around the world and I encourage him to do the same if I'm not there.
He's 12 and these nights are less and less, be encouraged, persevere- parenting is tough but worth it!
Hey I am visiting from Whittaker Woman's blog and my daughter who is almost 4 does the same thing. She always has. She even talks in her sleep and starts screaming and pointing. It's really creepy. We tried praying with her and singing to her but none of that worked. Then we switched rooms with her brother and for some reason it stopped. I think it was something with the shadows from her nightlight.
I guess just stay strong til he grows out of it. :)
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