Child with Nightmares

Updated on November 26, 2008
S.G. asks from Pottstown, PA
4 answers

My daughter, who is almost 5 years old, has been having horrible nightmares for about a week now. She has been waking up, sometimes several times during the night, screaming (and when I say screaming, I mean a blood-curdling scream). When I ask her what is wrong, she tells me she is afraid of skeletons (and it is ONLY skeletons). I have tried everything I can possibly think of to figure out where she picked this up. I asked her if it was in a book she read, something she saw on TV, something a kid at school told her...nothing. She says she doesn't know why she is scared or where it came from. There haven't been any deaths in the family and we don't even mention the word 'death' or 'dying' in our house. And it's to the point now when I mention going to bed, her eyes well-up with tears. She even just cries in the middle of the day. When I ask her why she is upset, she tells me she is afraid of the skeletons. I talked to her preschool teacher about this, and she can not think of anything that would suggest why she is scared or where the thought may have come from. She did say she would keep an eye on my daughter to see if anything she says or does might give us an idea. I am so concerned/frustrated/upset that I can't figure this out and help my daughter. It is breaking my heart that she is so terrified and I can't do anything about it. (I tried explaining to her that if she tells me whats wrong, that I can fix it and make sure it doesn't scare her anymore.)

ANY advice would be extremely helpful, especially if any moms have been through this or something similar with your own child(ren). Thanks...and I hope this passes soon. :(

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So What Happened?

So oddly enough, as quickly as these "nightmares" came on, they just disappeared! We never did get to the bottom of what triggered the nightmares in the first place, but she seems to be over them. In fact, she even says now on occassion that she is no longer afraid of skeletons, or monsters, or the dark. :) But thank you to all who offered advice. We finally got through it. :) (We're chalking it up to an over-active imagination!!!)

More Answers

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C.C.

answers from Philadelphia on

Try having her draw what scares her and then let her rip it up and throw the bad thing in the trash..as for where she got it from it just could of been something that stressed her out..you may never know i do know i have had weird dreams of thing that i have no knowledge of..but try helping her let it go the paper idea worked for my son he was having nightmares about clowns and we drew a picture from his dream and then we rippped it up and let it go...

2 moms found this helpful
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A.M.

answers from Philadelphia on

Hi Stephanie,

That is really scary! I don't know how you feel about homeopathy, but I know there are remedies for nightmares and night terrors. I just googled nightmares and homeopathic remedy and I got this website http://www.abchomeopathy.com, I have had great success with homeopathy, and I know it can't hurt, so its worth a try!

Good Luck

1 mom found this helpful
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S.M.

answers from Philadelphia on

Hello Stephanie,
This sounds like night terrors, and like that hse is getting them during the day as well. If i were you i would talk to her doctor about, only because they have found that night terrors can happen to little kids when they have something wrong going on inside of there bodies, when i was younger i use to baby sit these three awesome little kids and the booy use to get night terrors, and his mom took him to the doc, they found out that he had a heart problem, and then after the he had problems with his tummy, needless to say he has had 3 major sugeries, but now he is fine, but the doctors told her that if she didn't bring him in right then and there he would of died, so please call her doctor make an appointment, cause there could be something seriuos coing on.

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R.T.

answers from Philadelphia on

OMG... my 5 yr old when through the same thing. I finally discoved just last week that it was a TV commerical (for some tool place, maybe Sears) where they used different size pipes to build something and at the end you see it's a skeleton. She did have nightmares, but not screaming ones. Just became afraid tp be in her own house which I didn't like. Finally, after several conversations, she stopped. Her father really helped by just telling her over and over again, that he beat-up the skeleton and he kicked him out of our house. I think that really helped!!!!!! Good luck!

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