The boy, 8, is afraid to sleep alone.
We don't really know what to do about this: solutions already attempted include bribes, punishments, really cool sheets, really cool games, really cool everything.
We're at our wit's end. If we close our bedroom door, he opens it and sleeps at the foot of the bed. If he gets busted doing that, he sleeps on the floor near the foot of the bed. If we lock the door, he sleeps on the floor of the hall outside. In any of these scenarios, it's entirely likely that he will get kicked or stepped on, completely accidentally, by a bleary-eyed adult without spectacles in the dark.
On the rare occasions that we can actually get him into his bed, he insists on every light being left on all night. The light clipped to the head of the bed, the closet light, and the overhead, all burn brightly. If we turn them off once he's asleep, he will wake and turn them on.
When asked about this, he says, quite simply, "I'm afraid to sleep alone." While his honesty is touching, it also makes us feel like bums. After all, *we* don't sleep alone.
Any advice?
7 comments:
Has he ever mentioned what it is he's afraid of? Aside from monsters, which, as everybody knows can only be thwarted by turning on all the lights. (I still do that if I see something scary on tv or something.) Maybe it's genetic. I know sleep has always been a problem for me and it turned out to be an anxiety issue. But when I was a kid being alone in the dark was terrifying, along with nightmares that I still remember from when I was his age. It still happens now sometimes.
Has he ever been checked out for this? His doc may have a few ideas.
Leave the lights on? Let him share a room w/ his brother?
I mentioned a while back that the word *disorder* has been thrown around a bit regarding my 7yo's lack of desire to go to school (and also her unwillingness to attend friends' birthday parties without me).
One of the other symptoms is an unwillingness to sleep alone.
FWIW: Separation Anxiety Disorder
Not the same thing as separation anxiety, which is a normal developmental phase in babies, but perhaps some of the same aids would help: a predictable bedtime routine (enlist the 8yo help to design -- how many bedtime kisses; if only one light left on, which one, etc.); a snuggly shirt/robe of yours added to his covers (unless you think that's too oedipal!).
The choice I made as a parent was that my children would not sleep with me. When they were babies, they slept on a futon on the floor in their room, so if they woke in the night, I could go in their room and lay next to them for comfort and then go back to my room. Miraculously, it has worked!
Of course, I realize how odd it is that we try to teach our children to sleep alone, then if they ever partner as adults, they'll sleep with someone else.
Circumstances forced both my children to have their cribs in my bedroom when they were infants. I would let the baby sleep with me when nursing. As parents, we went through the same concerns, torn between the desire to cuddle the fears away and the need for proper sleep.
I bought a very large bear for my son and later my daughter. We imbued said bear with magical properties and ever wakefulness. He had a magical shield of protectiveness and would watch out for bad guys. Protecto Bear would be set by the pillow facing the door.
Nightlights were used for a while, sometimes the hall light alone was left on. I would go in and talk if called, but would encourage the child to stay in bed.
Making a shield and sword for the stuffed bear or dragon or warrior would allow the child to voice what concerns he is afraid of and to draw items to resist the fears onto the armor.
Helping the child learn to control the fears of being vunerable while asleep, being left behind, being lost in the multiple demands of the household... the bear seemed to help for my kids.
The Littlest Critic is about to turn five and she still sleeps with us. Some nights, I really, really, really wish she didn't, and some nights I'm glad she does. She has her own bed, in our room (we have a v. large master bedroom) but she doesn't sleep in it very often.
Both TLC and her mother have anxiety issues, so I don't kick up too much of a stink about it. At least not too often. Sooner or later, she'll want to sleep in her bed, or sooner or later she'll get old enough that we'll have no choice but to give her the boot.
Sorry to hear what you're going through. I have no advice, unfortunately, but I will say that I was the exact same way for a period of time when I was about that age. I remember some of those episodes fairly vividly. I used to sometimes even sleep in the bathroom for whatever reason. I was just scared of "monsters" and bad guys.
I have no idea how long this lasted, or what my mom did to finally solve the problem, but eventually life did return to normal. I'm sure it will work out for the best. Best of luck to you all.
Before (and for a little while after) I had kids I worked in higher ed. A co-worker announced she was pregnant soon after I returned from family leave after my first child. We had begun co-sleeping because I was nursing and, frankly, my daughter refused to have it any other way. She was not a good sleeper (to say the least). One of our student assistants, a quiet unassuming young woman I liked and respected, started talking about how her parents had refused to let her come into their room to sleep at night and how much it had hurt her and said she had never understood it. She said she had slept outside their door when they locked it to keep her out. She qualified her comments, saying that she was and had always been very close to her parents and that they had been good parents, which I believed because I knew she talked to them both several times a day and she was living at home at the time. I was very surprised by her expression of what was clearly a still-present hurt resulting from what had happened so long ago. I had never heard such a thing from an adult. Here was this well-adjusted, competent, 22 year old honor student talking about how sad and hurt she had been by a parenting practice generally accepted in our society. Then a co-worker and another student chimed in with similar stories. At the time, I was still struggling with whether co-sleeping would be a very brief thing or long term. I think I pretty much decided after that conversation that I would allow my children access to the comfort of their parents any time they needed it. We push our children to be independent too soon in this country.
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