Like we know - sleep is important and a time when we regain energy and help bodies heal. It’s the time in which our brain downloads and processes all the information it has collected throughout the day and a time for us to dream. If we lack sleep we 
become tired and irritable and feel full of energy when we have enough. It’s an important process for parent and child. Unfortunately, night time can create many illusions and emphasise even the slightest creeks and groans found in most homes. Combine this with a child’s imagination and you have a recipe for a long sleepless night, something that I had experienced with my son and at different stages of his life.
Luke went stages where he would wake during the night screaming but yet not remember what he had dreamt. This began when he was about 4 and there were not obvious reasons for why he was going through this. He had not experienced anything traumatic and was not, at this stage, frightened of anyone. I was with him 24 hours a day. I did not use baby a sitter, I just did not leave either of my children for any period of time with anyone. Where ever I was, my children were.
I would spend hours with Luke after he woke and this included getting him up out of bed and sitting with him in the lounge room to calm him down. No matter what I did, the dreams would wake him up. I didn’t have any problems getting him to bed; it was just during the late hours of the night when he would wake up distressed from dreams the problems started. I spent a week or so monitoring him. I kept a dream journal and noted everything that he would say, and do that I thought was a key to that particular night. Things such as what he ate, drank, watched and did prior to putting him to bed and when he woke up. I spent hours on top of hours jotting things down, re-reading what I had previously written and making notes about the things I did which clamed him down. It took me about 2 weeks to work anything out.
I was advised by some ‘more experienced’ parents that these so called dreams were Luke’s way of seeking attention and that I wasn’t helping the matter any. This was so far from the truth and even today I think about how I was nearly convinced by these women and their refusal to believe that a child so young could experience such bad dreams and develop such a fear form them. I was nearly convinced to ignore my son during the night. I should add here that night terrors were not spoken about by my GP and I’m not even sure that diagnosis would have even been around during those years or if that was even what he had. Luke’s dreams created a fear of the dark.
Luke would wake to the night from a bad dream and not be able to find his way around. Nightlights did not glow enough to bring comfort to him and baby and hallway lights upset him more and as I found out, with good reason. Using nightlights and hall way lights exaggerated things and created more shadows. When Luke woke, these shadows moved and scared him more.
Why children fear the dark
During this age group children use their imagination in almost every aspect of their day. They invent imaginary friends and characters made from stories, television and pictures they see. A spider, ant or bug can be the beginning of something bigger when mixed with a 4 year olds imagination. Their imagination becomes a canvas for a world unbeknown to us and turning this imagination off at night is where difficulties.
They are beginning to understand all which can hurt them and have experienced different things, little things which stand out and give sudden waring signs to be careful of; electricity, fire, strangers, dogs…. Familiar surroundings, such as bedrooms, can be changed by the onset of night and suddenly make everything around them appear scary. Shadows appear in places that were not there when mum or dad put them to bed and this is not helped by the fact that children at this age are not yet able to distinguish what is fantasy from reality.
Night time also brings about a ‘separation’. When the child goes to bed, he or she is aware of mum and dads presence in the house still. There are noises which bring a certain amount of comfort to them and can be in the form of mum doing a last bout of housework, making cups of coffee, watching TV, conversations, night showers and getting ready for bed. These also bring about sounds which signal a parental presence. When you consider a child waking during the night when everyone is asleep and not hearing these noises, it can bring a fear of separation to them. ‘Where’s Mum? Where’s Dad? Where are these noises I fell asleep to?
What to do?
You can not turn off your child’s imagination, who would want to? Reading through the ‘dream journal’ I created 18 years ago, I found the list of things which I did that helped Luke with his fears.
Bath time – I moved this time from earlier in the night to just before bed. This helped settle Luke down and relax him. I was careful what to read to him and let him watch.
I did not use a night light as these emphasise shadows. Instead I installed a light dimmer in his bedroom so that the light sprayed evenly throughout his room.
I gave him an object, dream-catchers are great, that was explained could catch and keep bad dreams.
I used his bed time as time where I would take in some ‘me time’, my opportunity to read a book or something equally quite so that I limited what noises he heard from me.
I made a point of going into his room at night-time and looking for ‘scary’ areas in the room. I checked for areas which promoted dark shadowy corners and toys which could change from cute to angry. Clowns are great for this, mind you I think Ronald McDonald looks evil too – but I do have a little thing about clowns to begin with….
During the day ask your child to show you what looked scary to them the night before. Chances are they won’t be able to as night time does look incredibly different to them. Don’t ask this at night though as it will play on their mind.
End the night with a drawing. As for happy pictures of something which occurred during the day. I would sit with Luke and go through our days events before leaving his room.
Before going to bed myself, I would play a tape of his favourite songs in his room. Normally it would be Patsy Bisco and Fat Cat singing ‘If you’re happy and you know it’, ‘How much is that doggy in the window’ and ‘Head and shoulders and knees and toes’. I’m a true believer that you continue to absorb information while asleep and believed he could hear his ‘happy songs’.
These were some of the things which I did that helped Luke over come most of his bad dreams but most of all, his fear of waking up in the night. I would still have issues with one dream in particular but that’s another story. If you have a child who is like Luke was and night-terrors are not the problem, then you might want to give this a go.
Anything is worth a try…
(February 2007) (
