Suddenly afraid of the dark

My 2.5 yr old DS is a great sleeper. Hardly ever gives issues when we put him to bed, but for the last 2 weeks he's been crying when we shut off the lights. We have a sound machine with a projector so that gives off a lot of light. It's not enough for him. Tonight I put an extra nightlight in his room and he still wasn't happy. Finally I put the lights on dim and had to leave the door open to calm him down. I remember his older brother doing the same but don't remember leaving lights on. Anyone else have this?

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

My DD is 2.5 and has never been a good sleeper.she has been sleeping in my room in a pack n play for months but was way to big...the crib fairy came and took it one day so she had to go into her own room to her toddler bed. She kept saying she was scared and wanted the lights on. The nightlight was not enough. So now she sleeps with her lamp on. I hate that it's so bright but it seems to be working. Good luck!

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

My older son when he moved into his room around 4 started wanting lights on for him to sleep. I figure if it helps him out no reason to fight and I just leave a light on upstairs for him.

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

i refused to keep the lights on but I leave his door open with the light on in the hallway.

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

My nearly 2.5 year old DS has been the same. I eventually just leave the light on and tell him I will come back in 5 min to turn it off. Once he falls asleep I turn it off.

Suddenly afraid of the dark

My ds did this for a few weeks. We just left the lights on.

Suddenly afraid of the dark

They sell those stuffed toys with flashlights inside them. So the kids can take them into bed and it auto-shuts off in 10mins.

Message edited 1/16/2014 7:58:13 AM.

Suddenly afraid of the dark

My DD is 2.5 too and she was waking up at random times in the middle of the night saying it was too dark in her room. So we put a night light in there and that seemed to solve the problem. Thankfully she hasnt asked to put the lights on though.

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

DD went through this at 2. We put in a Philips Vue lightbulb and keep it on all night on a dim pink setting. She is obsessed with pink, so she is happy with this. I like that it isn't as bright as a white light.

We can't turn the light off after she goes to bed though, if she wakes up and the room is totally dark, she throws a fit!

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

Thanks all. Seems to be a thing that happens around 2 when they start getting fearful of things. He has a few lightup stuffed animals so that wouldn't help. I just shut his light off when he went to sleep and shut the door. He woke up fine so whatever works I'll keep doing.

Re: Suddenly afraid of the dark

We actually saw a correlation between a fear of the dark and that damn TV show Caillou. There is an episode where Caillou is afraid of the dark because there is a scary monster. My son started saying the same thing. We had to gently remind him that that was only on TV, and there are no monsters. And even if there were, they are all friendly monsters who like to laugh and play.

Not to mention that the DreamLites commercials (the pillow pets with lights) all start out with "Is your child afraid of the dark?".

Those two things combined taught my son to be afraid of the dark, not help him overcome it! Fortunately we recognized it early on and he was old enough to understand our explanations about it being on TV.