Sleep issues with 8 year old

So for the past 2-3 weeks my 8 year old son has been waking up at random times throughout the night saying he's scared or had a nightmare. His bedtime is 9pm and sometimes he is still up hours later just laying in bed. I have tried to calm him down and get him back in his bed but when its 3am and I need to get up in 2 hours it gets tiring. Read below for more details.My wife's parents use to watch our children while were worked. she worked 7-3pm and I am 7-4pm. Her parents are now moving hours away and we had to change our schedule. I now work basically 6-3pm and my wife is 5-12am. In the past she would work 10-6am and I would work at 9. this would totally drain her as our 2 year old would be up at 8am and I’m leaving for work. But we found a healthy middle were someone is always home and my wife gets enough sleep that she needs. we have been on the current schedule for about 2 months now and it’s been working great for our marriage and no more back and forth with the kids. I bring this up because it was a household change and could affect some things.My son will wake up at random times throughout the night and say he had a bad dream. I sit down with him and basically ask him what it was about or if he is still scared. He can't tell me what it’s about just that he’s scared. We recently bought our house about 2 years ago and we have both the kids bedrooms on the first floor. Our house is a 1 1/2 story house so our bedroom is the whole upstairs. it’s still pretty close as the stairs leading upstairs are right next to his bedroom door. Since we moved in he hasn't had much or a problem sleeping in his room and our 2 year old daughter is soo easy right now. basically put her in her bed and she’s out for 9 hours after 5-10 mins. We have asked him if being on a different floor is making him feel alone and unsafe. He said kind of but I was able to calm him with showing that we have an alarm system on the house and how it works. and also that if anything happens I’m still only seconds away as if I was on the first floor. I don’t think that is the issue now.He will be starting in a new school as before he went to the school across the street from where my in-laws would watch him. With no day care now we have him enrolled in his home school. He seems really interested in meeting new people and making new friends. Also the larger playground at the new school excites him.He has been through a lot of changes at home with everything listed above. I ask him if any of it bothers him and he says no. I don’t know what to do. I understand that he has an irrational fear and know that you can't just say "man up" to him or what scares him might sound like nonsense to me. I've tried sleeping on the couch some nights so im literally down the hall from him on the same floor, but he still has been having nightmares or just too scared to sleep. I've talked to him when it happens and am able to make him see that there is nothing to be scared of, but it all seems to come back when I get him back into his room and in his bed. He does have a nightlight in his room, a lizard cage that has a light and at his request I leave the living room light on that shines down the hallway into his room. This cannot be the norm. My daughter sleeps in pitch black and wants her door open at night. With the lights on I noticed she wakes up during the night and it’s a bit of a fight to get her to sleep with the light on.What he watches on TV is limited to age appropriate shows and only for short time each day. He does have a computer in his room but I have it so locked down that he can't access the internet and basically can only play minecraft. He does read a lot and he is to read at least 30 mins every night. Maybe some of the books that he picks out could be causing some fear but I would hope not as they are age appropriate.I’m looking for ideas or something that I may not be seeing as the issue for his fear and nightmares. With our schedule change I see less of my wife than normal but she’s not sleep deprived and is in a better mood now. We both look at it as having quality time over quantity. It’s been working and we feel more connected than before when she was getting 2-3 hours sleep every weekday. But his fears are cutting into our time. Hopefully it’s just a quick phase but I’m wondering what I can do to maybe help settle his little 8 year old mind and sleep peacefully throughout the night. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2xy34Jw