What Worked for Us….Bad Dreams

This little guy looks happy here, but there were times when he had  “bad dreams.”  For many nights in a row, I would wake up, with a feeling that someone was staring at me….and sure enough, Ben would be standing there, in the wee hours of the morning, staring right at me and telling me that he had a bad dream.  Now, we were pretty strict about not allowing kids in our bed at night, because, well, we like to actually SLEEP!!!  Usually we tried to walk the child back to his bed, re-tuck him in, say a little prayer for him and then we could get back to our own warm, cozy bed.  But more often than not, that little rascal would be back in our room, standing over our bed again.

Call us selfish, but we NEED to have our 8 hours of sleep to be able to think straight and be coherent the next day, and  there were many nights that were majorly interrupted by little people with bad dreams.  By the time we had our third child, we finally got smart!!  Because these “bad dream nights” were becoming a habit, we decided to move a sleeping bag into our bedroom and put it right next to my husbands side of the bed…right between the bed and the wall.  It worked out great because from the bedroom doorway, you couldn’t see the sleeping bag, but it was there in case a little visitor wandered into our room at night.  It got to the point where Ben would wander in, tell me he had a bad dream and then just hop into the sleeping bag and stay there until morning or until he wasn’t afraid anymore!  A word of caution though….do NOT make the sleeping bag all cozy and padded– I guarantee you will have a permanent resident in your room for a LONG time.  As this phase (and it is a phase) plays out, the child will come into your room and eventually just get into the sleeping bag, get the security that they need, and you will get the sleep you need….it’s a WIN-WIN situation!!   That’s what worked for us!!!