Try This: How Do You Deal With Nightmares and Monsters Under the Bed?

Cut the legs off the bed...lol

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My children are now 52, 51, and 49 so it's been a while, but we still had monsters. We had a little Bible verse that we'd say, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in you." They tell me even today that helped them.

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Our daughter thought the monsters would eat her so we left a cookie on the nightstand for the monster. The cookie idea worked until her older sister ate the cookie!

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I haven't read the article but my solution for night time monsters was telling the kids a can of spray Lysol was really a monster killer spray and once applied lasted for several years. Maybe I should have copy writed this but it seemed to have taken care of the problem.

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Decades back, our three year old son dreamed of a green hand monster that came into his room at night to get him. He sceamed in fear. I'm was a builder at the time. I taped a 16d nail to the side of his headboard, right by his pillow. I told him that green hand monsters are afraid of 16d nails. The green hand monster never returned again.

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KIDS SHOULD BE AFRAID! One time my little brother was scared of what was under his bed and we told him to shut up because he was stupid, but then in the middle of the night, and escaped convict who was hiding under the bed came out and ate my little brother alive, with some fava beans. So be careful.

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Its great to hear all of these ideas. I have been working with kids in my practice and have found that when a child is scared of a monster or anything before they go to bed I use an exercise that has worked out great. We draw what the monster looks like on a piece of paper and then we draw a ballerina tutu on the monster and put on high heels and lipstick and make a story that the monster has a name and dances around their bedroom.

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If you have more than just one child, let them share a room while they're little. My 6 year-old twins and their 5 year-old brother all sleep in the same room, and nobody gets scared this way because they have each other for support.

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I played "hide from the monsters" almost every night with my grankids as soon as they learned to talk. The game goes like this.
1. Say "hide from the monsters." Get under the covers with kids.
2. While under the covers say " what are we gonna do?" Kids usually
reply something, I do'nt know ect.
3. Say "let's ear the monsters, on the count of 3, ready 1,2,3, eat"
4. Come out from the covers and make a sound as if your eating,
ie. num num num num ect.

Works great. Kids have never had nightmares.

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The best way I found was to teach the child that in his brain he is the one who manufactures/makes every thought, he chooses to think this way or that way and back around, the thoughts he makes produce an effect in our emotions therefore by controlling what kind of thoughts we prefere to make he is having control on his own emotions. Smart people prefer to feel good and positive emotions, others who do not know this might fall in an addiction to drama, suffering and conflict. When we imagine monsters, we should also imagine ourselves laughing and thinking poor monster, he is not that scary, anyway I prefer to imagine something better and go ahead and imagine a ride at Universal etc, or even imagine flying. While all this is a lot for a 3 year old you should be surprised and how quickly they understand this and how this new control on their thoughts give way to a just sense of responsibility as well as fun.

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I USED THE,,,,ANDY DONT BOTHER ME AGAIN TILL THE MONSTER HAS YOU BY THE NECK ,THEN CALL ME NOT TILL, WORKED THE 1ST NIGHT

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I played "hide from the monsters" almost every night with my grankids as soon as they learned to talk. The game goes like this.
1. Say "hide from the monsters." Get under the covers with kids.
2. While under the covers say " what are we gonna do?" Kids usually
reply something, I do'nt know ect.
3. Say "let's ear the monsters, on the count of 3, ready 1,2,3, eat"
4. Come out from the covers and make a sound as if your eating,
ie. num num num num ect.
5. Say "monsters all gone. No more monsters."

Works great. Kids have never had nightmares.

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Mmmk... I am 18 years old. And I remember all my traumatic experiences as a child and I can tell you one thing. Making up things to prevent the "monsters" from scaring your children such as "monster spray" and nightlights is only increasing their beliefs that these monsters exist! What you want to do is to completely stop them from thinking the monsters are still around. And in doing so your children won't even think there are monsters in their room anymore. Tell them you hired someone to come and remove all monsters in the house. They need to know that you believe them in order for them to believe that they are gone.

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When my daughters were little I developed an innovative way to deal with the monsters they saw as well as the bad dreams they experienced. Now I am in the process of developing a company so I can share these ideas and others with you. We aren't up and running yet, but we're close. If you would like to know more you can contact me at lhalycon@aol.com That first letter is a lower case L) I would love to hear from you.

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When my daughter was three, I told her the best way to vanquish ghosts or monsters was to shout "Get moving!" It wasn't just a "throw away" comment. I sat down with her one day and in a serious way let her know that even if the monsters were in her imagination, yelling at them was the best way to scare them away.

It wasn't too long before we might hear "Get moving!" a couple of times a night instead of tears and her having to run into bed with us.

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We used to have "monster sprinkle" It was a glass baby bottle that had the invisible sprinkle in it. We would go through my son's room "sprinkling the potion" saying "No more monsters under the bed, no more monsters in the closet" He would say it too. Whenever he got scared he would do that and be fine.
He went through a phase where he was afraid of the dark and my husband went into his room with him and they played in the dark, jumping up and down on the bed. He then realized that dark wasn't so bad.

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well anyway ,, one mother knows the truth, Guardian Angels

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To use the so called monster spray or shouting at the alleged monster to get out and stay away allows your child to think there really is a monster. What's to keep it from coming back later when you're in the middle of sleep? With the spray, the scent wears off and the monster will come again.

The parent who allowed the children to sleep in her bed - the monster will come and get all of you at the same time.

The psychiatrist who had the child draw a picture of the monster and they put a tutu, ballerina slippers, and lipstick on it and let him dance around the room - the monster is going to take off that stuff when the child falls asleep.

However, I did like the one where the parent told the children that the monster dislikes pepperment, as in tooth paste, so they brush every night. The part about the monster staying away - forget it.

You may spend a couple of hours in the room with him until he falls asleep. But that's just playing along with his fears.

I say to teach him from the first episode that there is no such thing. Have him look for himself. Show him what needs to be shown so he can see for himself.

How about having the child get on the floor to look for himself and look in the closets and let you know if he found anything?

Turn off the lights and sit in his room or lie on his bed in the same spot that he does. You may find that certain lights makes shadows from certain angles (and the shape of say his jacket on a coat rack and the baseball cap on the top) take the shape of someone or thing that may put frightening thoughts in his mind.

If you have stuffed toys on the shelf with eyes that glow in the dark or maybe the light from outside the window may make it look as if the stuffed toy is staring at him. You have to look at it from the childs view point. When you come into the room and turn on the light, you don't see what the child was seeing with the dimmed lights. You have to sit there with the same light level he has when he's alone. Turn off the light, SIT on his bed and ask him what he sees. You may be surprised at what you may see.

So you might hang his jacket in the closet and put the cap in the drawer. Then you might turn the stuffed toy so that his eyes are facing the wall.

But above all, no "monster sprays"

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