But I'm Still Scary!

Amanda has had some trouble recently getting to sleep. She cries and screams if we turn the light off, even though there is a night light in the room. Once or twice, keeping the light on calmed her down (even if neither her nor Elena got to sleep right away when we did so). Starting about 5 days ago, though, when the light was on it seemed to keep both of them up for hours. Elena woudl really prefer not to have the light on at bedtime.

I would turn the light off and negotiate with Amanda as to why the room was safe and that she didn't have to be scared. Her rebuttal, unchanged no matter what point we made, was "But I'm still scary!". Holding her, walking her around the house, reading her a story ... everything we tried just seemed to prolong the crying and not avoid it.

Finally, Monday night (after literally banging my head against the wall), Donna devised a strategy to deal with it. We would leave the light off and put up with the screaming and crying to help her train herself to put herself to sleep. But before we left the room, we would explain to her what she can do to keep from feeling so scared. We asked Elena what she did when she felt scared, and she said she covered up with her blanket. Donna is also keeping them up during the day (no naps!) to make sure they are tired enough to go to sleep at 8:00 PM.

Monday night was bad. She cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep. That is always hard to bear. Last night, it only lasted about 20 seconds. Hopefully, tonight will be equally uneventful.