We have officially entered the monster phase. DS talks about the dark, things being spooky, monsters, etc. We have a light in his room, but he has been crying a lot at night and seems to be genuinely scared. Although he has also started crying upstairs for several hours and twice this week didn't fall asleep until almost 11 p.m.! We try to talk to him about it during the day, but that's not helping either. DH thinks we should just ignore him when he cries, but I feel like his crying is a different kind of crying than just a tantrum.
Really don't know how to handle this! It seems like he is also becoming overtired, which I have heard can make things worse with nightmares and stuff.
Last night when I went into his room and laid next to him I saw him start to make "claws" with his hands and then he was asking me what was behind the headboard of his bed. He was laying sideways on the bed vs. his head up by the headboard like usual, so I think his imagination is just going a little wild lately.
How do you handle monsters and fear at bedtime?
Re: Bedtime fears
I'm going through the same thing so I am going to peek in on this one later...
We have a big dog that keeps monsters from coming in the house. We also talk a lot about imagination and what is real that we can touch and hold and monsters are only real in her imagination.