I have 2 children who have bad dreams quite regularly. Almost every night!(not at the same time though) They will come into my room crying and scared and tell me they had a bad dream again. My response is "Go get a drink, go to the bathroom and say your prayers. If that doesn't work come back and get in bed with me." Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't.I remember as a kid always having bad dreams. They were usually the same two dreams:
being chased by Indians who wanted to steal all us kids from our family (I have nothing against Indian people, they were just so wild and scarey in my dreams) or climbing the black pipe in the basement that went to the toilet upstairs and then falling and falling and falling...and waking up before I hit the bare cement floor. I would go into my mom's room and she would say basically the same thing to me, "Get a drink, go to the bathroom, and say your prayers." Only she wouldn't let me sleep with her so I spent many nights sleeping on the floor next to her bed on the fuzzy animal skin-looking rug. I finally decided that I was getting too old to go to my mom's bed each night when I had a bad dream so I came up with a plan...If I kept my feet covered at night then I wouldn't have bad dreams. I know, it sounds nutty, but it worked! Even today, I am obsessed with 
having my feet covered with blankets at nights no matter what the temperature is because then I don't have bad dreams.Anyways.....My question is this:
-Do your children have bad dreams?
-WHY do they have bad dreams?
-And, What do you do to help them through it?
(I guess I actually had 3 questions...Oops!)
8 comments:
I know they make monster spray that your kids can spray under their beds and in their closets to get rid of the monsters. It really is just air freshener, but the label says monster spray. Maybe this would work for bad dreams as well. Call it Bad Dream Spray Away or something! You can also talk with your kids about what they are dreaming about and then turn it into something funny. You can also have them draw their dream on paper and then make it funny as well. Then whenever they dream the certain image, they will associate it with the funny image and not be so scared. The indians in your bad dream are really monkeys in search of bananas, or midgets looking for the circus (not PC, I know, but still funny!), fat ladies chasing down a stolen pint of ice cream, etc.--you get the idea! Have fun with it--make up a story about their bad dream. Hope this helps.
I have one who screams out in her sleep. I run in her room and she is still in a deep sleep. I am sure it is nightmares. I am careful not to wake her up anymore, she is mean when she wakes up during one of these episodes.
My other daughter helps herself to our bed EVERY night. I am not sure what her deal is. I am a deep sleeper so I just back her back and roll over. Great parenting, I know.
I don't know why they have bad dreams. My 6 year old is the only one who does and his are still night terror-type dreams. He'll come into our room and won't even be awake, but will be whimpering and crying. If he's coherent I tell him to go back to bed and turn his pillow over, which will make the bad dreams go away. If he's not coherent, I'm almost ashamed to say it, but we let him come in with us. As soon as he hits the pillow he's asleep and doesn't remember anything. If his room wasn't upstairs and ours downstairs, I'd be more likely to haul him back to his bed each night.
I have no idea why he has bad dreams, but he does have sensory processing issues and I think that might be part of it. We know that his brain processes things differently and I'm sure my doctor husband could give a better explanation than I can. My older son had a few night terrors as a toddler, but rarely ever has any sort of bad dream. At least if he does, they're not enough to need to wake us up.
I have sleep issues and sometimes wake up sure I'm seeing things. I freaked my husband out about a week after we'd been married, by suddenly waking up and pointing and grunting and then falling back to sleep. At least he says I did that. I don't remember it!
That probably doesn't help you.
Sorry L, the Corrine and Kristofer post was me! I was using my sisters computer.
My kids tend to have bad dreams in spurts. If one of them has one, they will have a few nights in a given week where they end up at our bedside. I give them the same advice as you and it usually works. I totally remember being so scared as a kid. I hated our basement (unfinished) and used to imagine Darth Vader chasing me up the stairs. Now I go back to my parent's house and I am surprised at how small and un-scary the basement is. You're doing the right thing.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and for your kind words! Great to "meet" you!
My kids have bad dreams too and right now I am not being proactive about it and I just let them sleep with us and then Dave moves them back to their bed in the night. I do think it's great to tell them to pray that they won't have them! That always worked for me!
I read an article once that said solving the problem in the will make it go away. So if they're getting attacked by snakes I'd say, "Did you know Lambies (fill in the child's favorite animal here) kill snakes? So when you dream make sure that Lambie comes and kills all the snakes."
It's worked well for my kids...and me too! I often re-enter my dreams on purpose and work out better endings.
Hey, thanks for commenting on my blog. It was fun to read your comment and then come see your blog.
I have four kids, and two of them wake up each night with bad dreams. My okdest only occasionally, and it's always about spiders in her room. She will not go back to sleep until I show her that the "spiders" are actually just shadows, etc...
The other two are impossible. They cry boody murder and wake up the whole house. But my husband will not let any kids in our bed. It's his throne, or something. Anyway, I usually rub their legs and put on their make-up (imaginary...) and they fall back asleep in minutes. When they are older I will be more stern. But for now, they are little (2 and 4).
Good luck!
PS... your family is gorgeous!
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