Preschooler is suddenly convinced his room is “spooky”

My son will be 4 in the next couple of months. He has always enjoyed “spooky” (as he calls it) shows. Really they are Halloween episodes of some of his favorite shows (bubble guppies, etc) and he hasn’t had any issues. He likes to play monster, both pretending to be a monster and hiding from one.The last couple of weeks though, he’s starting having bad dreams at night and waking up. He wouldn’t go back to sleep in his room for anything, so would end up in the bed with us at 3/4 am after trying to get him to go back to sleep for an hour or more. We decided to not let him watch the “spooky” shows anymore and if he wanted to play monster, I would turn it around and say “oh monster, you just want to play? Okay, let’s play together. You’re a nice monster.” And he goes along with that.But now it’s advanced to him not wanting to go to sleep in his room at all. He won’t even go in there by himself. He’ll fall asleep if one of us sits in the floor, but he otherwise will not go to sleep in his room by himself like he used to. Last night we were determined. We offered a reward if he went to sleep on his own, told him he was so brave that nothing spooky would dare come in his room. It didn’t work. He was crying saying he didn’t want to be alone, he didn’t want to go to sleep. We thought, he’ll just tire himself out, but he didn’t. He cried for 45 minutes and when he started getting to upset that he was hitting himself, we gave in and sat with him. And by the way, the whole time we’re both in the living room right outside of his room and the door was open. We were maybe 10 feet away.Does anyone have any suggestions? I think this is just a phase and I think we should comfort him and sit with him until he’s ready for us not to, but my husband says he doesn’t want to create bad sleep habits by giving in.Any suggestions welcome for our now nightmarish bedtime routine. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2MvyLim