Sleep issues with almost 3yo

Aime - posted on 01/25/2011 ( 1 mom has responded )

Hi Moms. I have a daughter who turns 3 in less than 2 weeks. Since she was 6 weeks old she has slept through the night, only waking at night if she was sick or teething. She has always gone to bed at 8pm, and always took a good 2 hour nap (after age 1, had 2 naps before that). She's never fought us on sleep, she seemed to enjoy her bedtime. We would lay her in bed, and she would put herself to sleep within minutes. I was a very lucky Mama. But now recently, over the last few months, sleep is a major MAJOR issue. We bring her to bed at 8pm, and a long drawn out fight begins. It takes anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hours to get her to go to sleep. She started out in the beginning saying she was scared, that monsters were in her room. So we started checking her closets for her, and I used a line I got through researching on the net when I was done, "If there were monsters, they could not get in your room, or in our house, because Mommy and Daddy are here and wouldn't let that happen. Now which stuffed animal will protect you tonight?" And we'd let her pick an animal who would be her "guardian" throughout the night, and told her Mommy, Daddy, and whichever animal are going to make sure she's safe. But every night, she still spent crying and coming out of her room saying she's scared. We bring her back to bed, no words, and will do so about 15-30 times a night. Needless to say it's exhausting. We expected it to be a phase, it would only last a short time, and we just had to get through it. She begs us to sit by her door (she got that one from her grandma who sat by her door one night when she watched her), but I do not want to start that habit, and I'm sorry if that makes me mean but I refuse. On a good night, she will be asleep around 9:30 or so, 11 usually at the latest. We avoid falling asleep while we wait for her to go to sleep just to be safe. Eventually our door is opened during the night and in comes our daughter, who is scared again. She wakes in the middle of the night pretty much every night(there've been a few precious nights where she stayed asleep.) There have been terrifying moments where she will scream or start crying out of nowhere which we hear in her monitor and go running. I do not have the heart to make my terrified child go back to her room, so I let her stay in my room the remainder of the night. But last night was awful. Absolutely the worst, and I was in tears at the sight of her. She awoke screaming, crying, yelling "NOOOO NOOO MOMMY!" and we ran to her, to find her trembling and crying something about a wolf in her room. Now I have found her shaking at night before..but this was so intense..her entire body was literally trembling and she didn't stop for about 15 minutes. I held her and talked to her and she kept saying "I don't ever want to go in my room again, the wolf is in there.". I have never seen her this bad, and I feel helpless. She sees her pediatrician on February 7th, and I plan to discuss her sleep issues with her, but I am wondering if any moms have experienced these issues with sleep with their child and what helped them help their child sleep better. Nothing is worse than feeling helpess in helping your baby..Sorry so long.