Honeybun has always been an excellent sleeper (we have about a billion baby pictures to prove it!) She slept through the night at 9 weeks old (9 pm to 6 am) and aside from a few times when she’s been sick, she never stopped. She was the type of kid that you could lay in her bed and walk away and she would eventually go to sleep on her own without crying or fussing (which was actually a huge problem when they wanted to knock her out to run tests after her seizure since I couldn’t help her calm down!) And she never struggled with bad dreams or night terrors like Sugarplum has.
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he’s never known “how” to fall asleep, not understanding to close her eyes and wait for the sleepy to come but it was never really a problem until a few months ago, though. Around the time her first teeth got loose, she started having a lot of crying troubles at bed time, hysterically crying because her teeth hurt every night at bed time.
It got really bad when we were in Massachusetts visiting family earlier this month when she started screaming the last two nights we were at my in-law’s house because she was scared to sleep somewhere else other than home. We tried everything we could think of to lessen her fears. We gave her extra soft animals and squeezed the scary thoughts away. We talked about how nothing bad could happen because we were right across the hall and Sugarplum was right across the room. The only thing that worked the last night was pushing their beds together so Sugarplum could hold Honeybun’s hand.
When we returned home she was better for a few nights, even surviving a few nights at my parent’s house. But last week it got really bad, hysterical crying and screaming again, claiming she had bad dreams minutes after laying down. We tried to reason with her and tell her that nothing bad would happen, explain to her that she was safe but she just wouldn’t calm down.
I’m no stranger to bad dreams, I had more than my share growing up. I had two recurring dreams throughout my childhood, the first that involved monsters chasing my sister, cousin and I through my aunt and uncle’s house which ended around the time my second cousin was born when I was 10. The other dream, which involved a little old lady’s coffee table and a getting stuck on a mechanical conveyor belt (don’t ask!) which persisted well into my teen years. It seems Honeybun is having some of the same recurring type dreams so I can relate to how scary it is (I spent many nights curled up in bed with my mommy!).
We’ve tried a few new things that seem to have worked and kept her calm for quite a few nights now:
- I told her that if she is having scary thoughts, the only way to get rid of them is replacing them with happy thoughts. I explained how I usually think about dancing when I can’t sleep, going through a ballet class from the first plie until I’m asleep and she shared that Grandma had told her she used to tell hubby to think about floating in outer space.
- I suggested if she was really scared she hug one of her soft animals really tight and give all of her scared feelings and thoughts to the animal and that she could even snuggle one all night if she wanted to.
- I gave her a very special little blanket I had gotten when I was pregnant with her. It is soft and furry on on side and smooth and satiny on the other. I explained that I had a special blanket when I was little that I used to touch and rub when I was scared at night.
I don’t know which suggestion she’s using or which one(s) are working, but we haven’t had a hysterical Honeybun in 3 nights which is a new record in recent times!
