A little after 4 am on Saturday morning, as I was nursing Iris, I heard Jack screaming "Mom and Dad!" over and over, increasingly desperate. He has done this on occasion in the past and has usually been relatively easy to console. I woke Mike and asked him to go check on him. Once Mike went in, Jack's started crying hysterically about something I couldn't make out. I could tell Mike was in there for a long time, as I drifted in and out of sleep after getting Iris back to sleep and could see that Mike had turned Jack's light on at one point. Eventually, Jack got up to use the bathroom. I saw that it was 5:45. Mike came in and told me that he'd been trying to sleep beside Jack, but Jack had been clinging to him, scared, the entire time, causing them both to be drenched and sleepless. I went in the bathroom and tried to talk to Jack, who seemed on the verge of tears every time I asked him what was wrong. Finally, after a long time on the potty (just an excuse to get out of his room-- he didn't actually go), he looked at me, very seriously, and said, "I want to tell you about my dream." So he proceeded, "There was something in my shadow." That did sound very scary to me. Then he told me about the big bunny-like thing with long ears and sharp claws that appeared on his wall, right above his dresser mirror. And how it was eating something.
When I finally took him back into his room after talking to him for a while about it being only in his head, he quickly hopped onto his bed to grab the blanket and pull it up over his head. As soon as I left his room, he started screaming again, so Mike went back and spent the rest of the morning with Jack, who promised to keep a bit of distance so they wouldn't be so hot and could get some sleep.
They both slept in because of the lack of sleep the night before. Jack talked excitedly about the monster all day and how it wasn't real but only made up in his head. He seemed just fine at nap time once I assured him that no monsters were going to get him. But as soon as it got to be dusk, a fear overcame him. He talked more worriedly about the monster and seemed close to tears. So I asked if he wanted to make a sign to keep the monsters out. He seemed thrilled about this and agreed, "Yeah! And it should be red like a stop sign! And say 'NO MONSTERS ALLOWED!'" So a sign we set to work on, and he had tears of joy in his eyes and kept giggling. We taped the sign to his door, but as soon as it was time to turn the light out, he began to scream hysterically, asking if the monster was not going to get him and to leave the light on. We found a very dim lamp and set it up on his radiator, which he again seemed very tickled with, like this would ease his fear. But it was temporary.
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| From 08/29/2010 (by Eye-Fi) |
For the next two hours, we sang "church songs" and said the "Our Father" at Jack's request, hung a crucifix on the spot above his mirror where he kept looking fearfully, tried to reason with him while holding his quivering body, turned his overhead light on and took him to the potty twice (he once ran there by himself just because he was too afraid to be in his room), until we realized this would go on all night. So we asked him if he would be able to sleep in Abigial's room, to which he wasted no time grabbing his things (we moved the spare crib mattress from Jack's room to her floor). He did fall right asleep, as it was after 10:30 at this point, and slept straight-through to morning.
This afternoon at nap time, I tried to put him down in his own room, but again was paralyzed with fear and began clutching his blanket to his face. I told him he could sleep in Abigail's room if he was quiet, so he did. And they both awoke too early.
This evening, we started our bedtime routine 45 minutes early, anticipating some delays. Good thing. We started out tonight telling Jack he could sleep in Abigail's room. He seemed only mildly afraid as we were getting them ready for bed. Though when he had to get his pajamas from his room, he dashed in as fast as he could and came out with only a pair of pants and a pair of shorts. We left their door open and the hall light on, but as soon as we left, he was wailing again, holding his hands over his eyes. Jack is still under the illusion that if he can't see you, you can't see him. In fact, at one point, after he kept burying his face in his pillow and blanket, we got a scarf for him to put over his eyes like a blindfold, but he said that wouldn't work. We ended up doing a switcheroo with the kids: Jack sleeping in Abigail's bed and Abigail sleeping in his free bedroom. I am typing away here with Jack, with a dim light on, while he falls asleep. Mike started out here while I finished putting Iris to sleep. It's the only way he would calm down enough to be at peace. Who knows what we will resort to in the coming nights or how long this fear will last?
We've looked up this issue online, and some people have things to try-- like Monster Spray or other childish trickery, but I really don't think that would work for him (we tried the sign). Sitting right beside him with the light on barely did.
I had a fear of a presence in my room when I was in the sixth grade, and I slept on my parents' bedroom floor in a sleeping bag for a month. Eventually, we put crosses around my room and "talked" to the presence, saying something like- you can stay, but please don't scare Kellie anymore. And it worked. You can't talk reason and logic to a three-year-old about monsters. This little boy is genuinely petrified of a big, hungry bunny in the shadow on his wall and seizes up every time he thinks about it. If you pray, please pray for him. For all of us.
