Bad dreams

Ugh. So sorry to hear ! This happened to us, we decreased screen time and changed up the stuff she watches. That seemed to help maybe a week after

We’ve experienced this with our daughter. So sorry, I know it’s hard. We’ve gone through this since she was around 20 months and triggers are usually when she is in the middle of developmental stages, if there’s been a recent change in the home/school or she’s way overtired. Ours can be pretty intense because she becomes completely inconsolable when she wakes up. We’ve noticed that lots on connection the hour before bed(usually rough and tumble play followed by hugs, kisses and cuddles) and telling her that she’s safe when we’re putting her to bed works really well. She has a bear that ‘helps make her feel safe’ that she sleeps with when we go through these stages too. There’s really no perfect solution. When we least expect it, she’s sleeping through the night again.

I don’t know what your bed setup is, but is it possible to sleep in her room for a night to try and catch it as soon as she wakes up and reassure her in the moment?

hi, yes we’ve been monitoring her screen time and now only limit her tv time for mornings before school . During the weekends we try to keep busy with games /puzzles. We’ll watch a couple episodes of Bluey but that’s all

we have had recent big changes, we recently moved and we have a new baby , I’m sure that’s impacted her.
We do the same thing you mentioned here, she has stuffies she loves and feels safe with in her bed, we reassure her, she has a night light. We talk with her after school about her day and her friends and everything else just to make sure nothing happened to “stress her out”

We can definitely try sleeping in her room to try catch the moment she wakes up .

Right now we watch her on the monitor ( we know about the time she’ll have a bad dream) when she gets up, both my husband and I will go to her room to reassure her then one of us stays back to sleep through the night there.

It’s just so tough to watch her crying though 😩

That’s a lot. It’s tough being the biggest and having a new room. We’re actually moving in a couple months and dreading it lol but at least we know what to expect. We have a full size floor bed(selfishly got the full size so we’d be comfy if we needed to sleep with her 🫢) and sleeping with her when she’s in those phases helps reduce the crying. Mostly because I think it eliminates the ‘I’m alone’ feeling for her.

I think you’re doing a great job ❤️ it has to be even harder to handle with a new baby. Hang in there. It’s all a phase.

Just thought of something that helped that I forgot about. If she’s waking right around the same time every night, it could be that her sleep cycle isn’t connecting properly, which causes her to wake up. If you think you can gently rouse her 30ish minutes before you think she’s going to wake up, you might be able to interrupt the wake up. Maybe shift her sleeping position in bed so that she feels it just enough but doesn’t fully wake up. This has worked for us when our daughter wakes up a few days in a row at the same time.