I'm sorry this is long.. I've already googled it and can't find anything similar...This literally just started out of the blue about 3 days ago. My son is now refusing to even TRY to go to sleep. He will say he is scared and can’t sleep. The first day he would say he was scared and “had a bad dream” but he would say this literally a minute after we left his room for putting him down, so obviously he wasn’t sleeping and there was no bad dream. The first night, we were in there about 5 times each, consoling him, comforting him.. we took out everything in his room that he said scared him. He sleeps with his door open, so we turned on literally every single light in the hallway. Still scared. When asking him what is scary, then he starts sitting and thinking.. then he will say random things like his poster scares him because it moved. He says his jacket in his closet moved (even though the closet door is shut). He even started saying that the vacuum cleaner was scaring him, but there is no vacuum cleaner in his room or in his sight at all!That first night we were the nice parents and did everything we could to comfort him. He fell asleep after exhaustion from screaming and crying so much because he just kept doing it the second we left. And then he woke up 4 hours later, and guess what we were doing from 3-5 in the morning?Next day we talked with him, tried to understand what happened. That night.. Same. Exact. Thing. By this time though, we are starting to be tired and lose our patience. Now we are trying the “cry it out” approach. My husband and I both had bad night terrors growing up, and I remember my parents not always coming in when I was screaming and crying ( I also remember screaming for my mom for no reason other than just to test to see if she would come in and prove she cared- which is what I was wondering if my son is doing), and I just had to sit and learn how to cope and conquer my fears enough to fall asleep on my own. We let him cry it out at 3 months and he’s been sleep trained every since, so let’s try with this, right?But a new development.. now he is getting up, running out of his room, and running up to our bedroom door- putting his face in the crack where it is open and screaming INTO our room. He continued to run back and forth from his room to our door screaming and crying bloody murder saying “he’s scared” and “can’t sleep”. He doesn’t actually come IN our room even though the door is open.. he screams INTO THE CRACK into our room and then runs back to his. His room is directly across from our room- our doors face each other, only about 5 feet apart. We literally could not be any more closer to him.We started reading up on what the hell to do. To give some info, I am pregnant with his new sibling, and still have like 3 months to go. I am also a teacher, so I have been home with him all summer, trying to make the most of our last summer where he is the only one. I read about how kids can sense the change coming, and it gives them anxiety, and they don’t know how to handle the emotion so they blame it on scary monsters and such.. it said the most important thing is to make him feel safe. Tell him you understand and have him talk about how he feels.. I even got books on being brave at night, and one of his favorite books is the little critters “new baby” book. We started leaving his light on at night, and I bought him a flash light. We have talked endlessly about what he is afraid of, how to be brave, how to cope, how mommy and daddy are always listening and watching over him (we still use a one way monitor), and that he is safe. He has a bedtime routine, and gets books, ABCs, songs, tucking in, good dream “spells”, and we talk. I haven’t been giving him naps during the summer unless he had a lot of activity in the morning or if he’s going to be up late because of a family get together or something. But I tried to give him “quiet time” so I can get some time to myself since I am literally with him every second every day, and he acts the SAME way for a nap, with the sun blazing into his room! If I tell him he doesn’t have to sleep, and he can just play quietly, then no tears, he is fine! The second I mention he needs to try to sleep, he turns into this anxious mess.He has not had any bad dreams lately.. all of this behavior is while he is awake and we just need him to TRY to sleep. He says “he can’t try”. We do not want to let him sleep in our bed with us for a few reasons. He goes to bed at 7:30 and since he refuses to try, we would have him in our bed starting at 7:30? My husband and I don’t hunker down for bed until around 10:30. That is our only time to spend together during the week and catch up on the day. Also, if we start doing that, our son will do this every night UNTIL he gets to sleep in our bed, and I swear that would be a habit we would never be able to break. My husband and I agreed when he went through bad sleep stages, that we would not co-sleep as we would never want to have to go through breaking that habit. My husband and I also never co-slept with our parents. If I got scared at night, I would bring in a pillow and I slept on the floor next to my parent’s bed. Some of the advice online I read said “let them sleep in your bed if it makes them feel safe” and my husband and I are trying to keep boundaries and limits in place. When this all started.. we honored every little request of his that led to him being scared. It was never enough.. there was always something else. So we draw the line at having him sleep in bed with us. To put it into perspective: once when my son had a bad fever, I laid on the floor next to his bed so I could be there each time we woke up crying. One night I did this. It took almost 2 months to break him of the habit of screaming his head off every night because he still expected mom and dad to lay on the floor next to him and hold his hand until he fell asleep. This is when he was around 3.Here is the confounding thing that throws me off from separation anxiety: he has no problem being dropped off anywhere by me or dad. He started up a 1 week summer camp last week, and even on the first day, where I am dropping him off with strangers in a place he has never been, he’s all smiles, gives hugs and kisses and says goodbye no problem. He has no problem when I take him to a drop off day care so I can get a few hours (he actually loves this day care and requests to go every day).. no tears, no nothing. No problem getting picked up by grandma or going places without me.Other info: I used to be a smoker before I got pregnant. I told my husband it would be easier to quit, if I could still steal 10 minute moments to myself outside just to get a break. I just sit on my phone, read reddit, respond to texts. Just a moment where nobody is asking me for anything. This has worked great and even when I was home alone with my son, he doesn’t care if mom sits outside for 10 minutes- our house is small so he can see me through the glass door from the living room couch. But Now (within the last 3 days), I am not allowed to do this. Those 10 minutes I would steal away for myself was often the only time I had by myself for days (aside from when the husband and child were asleep), until my husband was home with us on the weekend. Now if I try to sit outside, my son runs up to the door and screams and cries at me that “he’s scared”. No matter what I do to console him.. he refuses to let me sit outside by myself for even 1 minute. Just in these last 3 days, same as the bedtime issues, he jumps up the second I go. He wants to come sit outside with me, and when I say no, he starts up. Every time I stand up, he asks where I am going. I am getting so angry not being able to have 1 minute by myself. Going pee is the only time to myself I have now, and even then he asks me if I am going to the bathroom, and will try to talk through the door if I am in there too long.My husband and I are losing our minds with this nightmare of a bedtime routine going on the 4th night in a row. I know my son loves me, he’s a little momma’s boy. I know we are close and that he has gotten to spend a lot of time with me given my career, we get summers together and I am the one who drops and picks him up from preschool. But just thinking about tonight is already making me anxious. I’m mad at my son and trying to not show it. I understand he is anxious and I am doing all I can within reason to make him happy and feel safe, same as my husband. But we CANT do this for 3 hours tonight at bedtime, and then another 2 hours in the middle of the night when he wakes up. We get upset at him, and then feel horrible for losing our patience. I feel terrible now just for feeling mad. I know he is just a kid, but I have no idea what else I am supposed to do other than bow dow to everything he wants. Where do we draw the line?Please, for the love of God, what the hell can we do. We cannot go through this every single night. I almost want to lock my son in his room but I'm not trying to traumatize my son... if it were up to him, I would sleep in his bed with him every single night. Even if I woke up and came back to my own bed, he would wake up and scream just the same. And then what is he learning? That he can scream bloody murder and get mom to stay with him all night, ON TOP OF IT ALREADY BEING ALL DAY! What are we doing wrong?! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/32JNrhU
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