For the last 2 weeks William has been afraid of the dark.
It breaks my heart because I remember being little and being terrified of the dark… so much so that my parents used to leave our bathroom light on (which was right next to my bedroom) all night.
So here I am, about 25 years later, dealing with the same thing – but for my son.
As much as my husband thinks it’s a bit over-the-top (sorry honey!), I have been leaving our hall light, bathroom light and one little light in his bedroom on until he falls asleep.
Unfortunately, it’s been taking him 4 hours to fall asleep at night, the poor little man!
But last night he was upstairs for awhile, and I still hadn’t heard the, “MOMMY, CAN YOU COME UP HERE PLEASE!?” demand/frantic call (I have been getting that about 20 times a night).
So I was convinced he had fallen asleep a little earlier than usual, which I thought was fantastic – Maybe the “lights on” thing is working?? I thought.
I head upstairs about 20 minutes later to check on him… and he’s in the corner of his bed with 2 stuffed animals over his face.
“William, what’s wrong honey?”
“There’s gorillas in my room, Mommy!”
GREAT… and I was just worried about dealing with the dark!
LOL! I use to collect stuffed gorillas when I was a teen and my boys have now inherited them, so they really do have gorilla’s in their room. Luckily they’re not afraid of them, or the dark, yet.
My daughter had this really bad fear phase and we would tell her to say (in a loud voice) ‘Fear, go away in Jesus name! Amen!’ After a few times doing this with her, one day she came up and told us she told fear to go away and it did. It was a big victory for her! She was VERY excited that she overcame fear on her own! She said, ‘I’m so brave aren’t I Mommy?’ I told her she definitely was brave!
Her fear trigger was unexpected noises. Since we’ve recently moved she wants her bedroom door open and we do leave it open for her.
I think all children go through a fear of the dark…I remember my mom having to leave a lamp on in my bedroom for me to fall asleep. Both my boys went through the same thing but thank goodness it didn’t last TOO long! Then it was time for the monsters to be under the bed or in the closet….lol xox
Awwww, poor guy! I hope he gets over his fear soon!
Also, you guys have been awarded an award on my blog, head on over for details http://raisingjoey.com/?p=1181 đŸ™‚
Poor guy!
I saw this monster repellent spray recently that they sell to psychologically help the kids believe they’re safe. I have no idea if something like that would work. Or casting a safety spell on his room or something. Just an idea.
I hope things get easier for him soon!
The poor little fella. My son use to be afraid of the dark when he was little. I had to leave the lights on too. I use to tell him he had a secret weapon. When he was afraid he just had to remember that Jesus was always with him and He is bigger than any monsters. Just ask Jesus to tell it to leave. He did. Now at 21 he has to sleep in complete darkness or he can’t fall asleep.
This will get better. It sounds like you are doing all that you can to create an environment for him to feel safe in. What a good mom.
awwww…. the poor thing! Starlet’s nightlight is oh so bright it might as well be a regular light! But hey, if it works, right??
Poor little guy! My girls are ok as long as they have nightlights on but they freak out if it’s completely dark. I try to keep extra nightlight bulbs around just in case one burns out on us.
We watch Veggie Tales “God is Bigger than the Boogey Man” and that helps so much. We just sing the song and go through how nothing is bigger than God, and God loves us and will protect us.
Poor fella! Tell him that Miss Stacey will be right over there to fight off all the gorillas in his room if necessary! Okay, better not tell him that, but maybe grandpa will do it, lol.
Bless your heart, you’re a patient momma! xoxo
PS–thanks for the Tupperware link–I think I need to look deeper. I forget about Tupperware. I ADORE Tupperware!
When our daughter was afraid of the dark we put a digital clock-radio in her room and played soft music. The light was just enough and she loved the music! We never did have gorillas though!
A has been going through the same thing. Ulgh. Good luck…and if you find a solution let me know :-).
Wow! Luke(5) just started telling me he is scared at bedtime but wont give me any specifics of what he is scared of. This crap is hard, huh? Good luck.
I am very eloquent!
You’ve won an award! Please visit my blog!
awwwwww Poor guy. I haven’t had to deal with the fear of the dark, my oldest when she was little said she was afraid of the dark, but it didn’t bug her at night because we always leave the bathroom light on at night and her room was next to the bathroom. We didn’t leave the light on for her because of fear of the dark we left it on because I was worried about her walking in the dark to get to the bathroom at night.. She is 11 now and I still make sure the bathroom light is on when I head to bed. I also keep the kids and our bedroom doors open so I can hear if anyone is in need of mommy at night, I also want them to know they can come into my room whenever they need me.
My 2nd child Mr Man who will be 8 in Nov. Use to be afraid of monsters at night.. We would just pray with him and ask for God to help with his fears and let him only have pleasent thoughts and no bad dreams once he was asleep. and he would pray also. We also got the veggie tail movie I can’t remember the name of the movie but the song that was in it was “God is bigger then the boogieman” and I let him watch that though the day sort of as a reminder to him that God is bigger then the fear he might have at night. and his moster phase didn’t last too long. I also let him take a flashlight to bed with him at night so if he thought he saw or heard something he could shine somelight on it and see there was nothing there. The other thing I did was before leaving his room after turning off the light and tucking him in was to look around the room and try to think like a kid did I see any shadows, or was some toys making a dark figure that could scare him.. if it was I would move them and put them some place that wasn’t scary and it was was a shadow form a light I couldn’t control I would point it out to him before I left and say something like “hey look at that, do you know what that is, that is the light coming from the windown and hitting your dresser, isn’t that cool” This way he would know what it was and wouldn’t let his thoughts run away from him.
I hope your little guys fears pass quickly.
I am SO thankful I haven’t had to deal with fears like that. My kids are very afraid of criminals breaking in (very real here of course) but then I show them all the alarms, the burglar bars and their big daddy and they calm down.
You should try ‘gorilla spray’. I’m sure you have heard of the water in a spray bottle that get’s rid of scary things
My 4 year old son has been sleeping in the same bed with his sister for months and we don’t know how to get him to go back to his own. They are best friends, and the sister’s mattress IS much better than his own… He rufuses to sleep in his bed, he says he is afraid in his own room etc etc. I don’t really know how to get him to sleep in his room again, so I hear you.
I just try wearing the kids out during the evening, so they will pass out… But playground at 8 o’clock won’t work once the school starts, so I know I’m going to be in trouble with my little guy too.
I was totally afraid of the dark as a child too. So, to me it is completely normal. I think small children are so vunerable to fears. My babies always sleep in the dark, but they seem to reach that age where they need a light. My older two now sleep with the hall light on and I leave it on all night. If I don’t, they end up in my bed. I have changed it to a fluorescent lightbulb(even though I hate them inside) to conserve energy. Both my older ones are have bad dreams as too, so in their prayers every night there favorite thing to pray about(besides no consequences:) is that they won’t have bad dreams. I am sorry that your sweet William is so scared. You asked me if I was planning on having more kids and I have a long answer. I feel like 3 kids wouldn’t be enough in the long run, but right now I feel like I have enough. So, I am keeping my options open. Maybe we will have one more in a couple of years to finish with 4. I don’t ever want to regret not having more children. My mom always says that she has never heard anyone say, “oh, I wish I hadn’t of had so many children”, but I have personally heard people say, “I wish I would have had more children”. This is one department that I definitely want no regrets.
Ugghh. Nothing like a night of interrupted sleep. I hope the phase ends soon. In ten or twelve years the worries at night will be bigger, you’ll be waiting up for a teen!
Poor cute William. Hugs William.
Lol, about the gorillas stuffed animals. =)
instead of monsters it’s gorillas. Poor guy. Did he watch something with gorillas in it? King Kong perhaps? My kids have to have bathroom light on or they will cry. You should get monster spray and see if it works for him.
*knocking on wood* we haven’t had that problem *yet* with 2 of them.. Who knows what the 3rd will bring LOL
[…] have blogged about William being terrified of the dark […]