3 year old afraid to be alone??

luckydust

my little boy just turned 3 and suddenly afraid to even be in any room alone.  bedtime is the worst (which had been perfect) because he wakes up 5x a night when  he realizes he is alone.  He won't play in his room and I even bought him a new play rug that he won't even try unless I am with him.  if he forgot a toy upstairs he won't go alone...etc...Over the ast 2-3 weeks I feel like I have tried everything under the sun.  I researched and implemented a million methods...anyone else have this prblm??  TYVM!

neverblushed

This is really normal for his age, although not every kid goes through the stage.  I had one who did and one who didn't.  It seems to happen when they go through a spurt of cognitive growth where they begin to understand more about danger.  At 3, my son was afraid of: being alone, fires/cooking/stoves, and strange dogs.  And not just a little afraid, either!  Like you describe, this affected our lives quite a bit, with night waking, anxiety whenever I cooked on the stove, etc.

Dealing with it is kind of tricky, because, as a mom your impulse is either to 1. get aggravated (nothing's going to bother you!  Just go up to your room and get the toy and come back down!!!)  or 2. rush to the rescue (It's okay sweetie, Mommy's here, I know you were afraid.) 

1. sends the message that he's done something wrong and that you're made at him.  2. sends the message that he really SHOULD be afraid when you're not there, that he really DOES need you to rescue him, just as he suspected!

I found that the best way to help my son cope with this was to try to help him feel more confident.  At night we helped my son realize that it was okay to be alone by coaching him to "think happy thoughts, not scary thoughts" when he woke up.  We got him a neat poster to put by the head of his bed, we got a new nightlight, we read books about characters who are afraid to be alone at night, etc.  During the day we made sure that he knew where we were, if we were going out of the room. 

But to keep him from feeling like we were running to his rescue, we gave him the minimum amount of support and comfort that would allow him to handle things on his own, and reassured him with a lot of "It's okay, you did fine being alone!  You can handle this!" type of talk.

The worst of this phase was over within a few months, but my son remains a pretty sensitive kid -- it's just his nature!