A Nightmare Once a Nightmare Every Night??

I found that reading a sweet story will take my daughters mind off it. Strawberry Shortcake does the trick since it's super sticky-sweet - everyone gets along, everything is happy. When my daughter was having problems with the scairy thing in the closet or under the bed, I bought a light bender crystal thing that looks very fancy and told her I got it at a magic shop and the old wise woman there told me it was a magic crystal to keep the stairy things out of her room. It's still hanging over her door to this day, and after we put it in, the scairy guys went away.

It wouldn't hurt to watch it again with her so you guys can talk about it and you can make it less scary, maybe by laughing at it instead?

A light on in the hallway is always helpful. Other than that, I believe it helps to talk about what the scary dream was about and let them work out any issues.

Empower her. Some use a flashlight beside the bed to frighten the "monsters". I direct my daughter to focus her thoughts on something "happy" to think about as she drifts off, another happy show. Sometimes it takes a good 20mins on the couch awake and watching something else to help her.

Remind her that it's all pretend, that it's her mind and she can control it and tell the "scary" to "go away!". Does she know how cartoons are made? That they are just drawings.

I also remind my daughter that I and her father would NEVER just let something scary into our home. That she can trust us to protect her. I've also shown her her father's claymore (sword), it's mostly for show, but it made her feel safer.
My girl's usually really good with "spooky" she loves the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and playing "zombie Apocolyps" fighting off "zombies" in the backyard with her sword(stick). But just the other day she was watching Auquabats and she started crying, at first I thought she was being silly, but she was really shaken up. She's acted "afraid" of really harmless things before. Had a butterfly "chase" her once because she was pretending it was a zombie. Any way, we tuned it off and I held her while we watched 'Aliens vs Monsters: Holloween Special'. Sometimes things are too much even for my warrior princess.

Good luck!

I would watch it again, if she wants to. Ask her what it is about the monsters that scare her, and see if you can address that.

Sometimes, it helps our kids to remind them that the monsters are "inside the TV," and WE are OUTSIDE the TV, so we are safe from the bad guys in that story. (For live action, we also watch "how it's made" specials about the special-effects. Harder to find for cartoons, but if it comes up for you in the future for live action, they were very helpful.)

Also, we have a monster who lives in our garage. He is invisible, and his name is Stanley. His very important job is to keep the bad monsters away. If either of the kids is feeling especially vulnerable, he will sleep under their bed for the night. (Stanley also has lots of family, who hang out at hotels and friends' houses, if they are needed.)

Is it the Scooby Doo movie? I had nightmares from it and I was in my 30's when I watched it. It's a lot scarier than I thought it was gonna be. Don't know if I'd let her watch again ... Ip until she's older maybe. She may just be more sensitive to that kind of haunted fantasy genre; I know I am. Talk through it with her and find some of those old 1970 version cartoons to enjoy with her instead.

We had the same problem and we put stuffed Scooby Doos all around her room so that Scooby could scare all the scarey ghosts away. This and a dream/night lite worked really well. I think we ended up with 3 or 4 different size Scoobys at one time. Maybe try that. Also, make sure she knows that all the monsters and ghosts in Scooby are pretend because tv isn't real. This also helped. Good luck! and I second getting the older tv shows. We can't watch the new ones either, they are just too scary!

wow. that's interesting, because my son, who won't watch lion king or nemo because of the "scary parts" - LOVES scooby doo lol. i guess each kid is different.

does she have a nightlight? we leave the hall light on, you're probably already doing that. a few concessions to help with her fears are okay - but i would not make it into a huge deal and bend over backwards making a big to-do over it. ask her what she thinks would help. then deal with it, and move on. unfortunate fact of life - we all go through it. she knows you're there to snuggle and calm her down when she needs it, and that's most important. hang in there, poor kiddo!

We went through a phase like this with my son. We did a couple of different things.

When he was younger we did the following things:

#1 We checked for monsters with rediculous comical efforts - used swords or random items and launched ourselves into closets loudly and stomped around whereever he wanted us to check. It always made him giggle uncontrollably (hard to be scared when you are laughing!)
#2 We installed a dimmer switch so that he was able to choose the amount of light he was comfortable sleeping with.
#3 Comforting Stuffed animals/flashlight/and or possible nerf gun/sword/balls (aka "monster bombs") (I've heard some people do spray bottles/wands etc.)
#4 Every night before bed we would pick a "happy thought" this is whatever "happy" thing/idea they choose (flying, Lego Land, toys, going to grandmas etc) - if he thought long enough about that happy thing he would more than likely get to dream about it. That was fun for him.
#5 I don't know if you are religious or not, but we started saying my childhood prayer at night and he added his own ending "God bless everyone in the whole wide world & please keep all the bad dreams away. Amen." This seems to bring him the most comfort of all.

My son will be 6 next month and we no longer "check for monsters" unless ofcourse he thinks he heard something. He sleeps with whatever he thinks he needs (not usually anything for monsters), he still picks the setting on the dimmer switch and he says his prayers. Besides a hug & a kiss, that's all he needs.