What should I do about my daughters nightmares?

Question

My daughter is 5 years old and always having nightmares and I dont know why...The scariest thing she watches is Scooby Doo...I dont know what could be causing her to have nightmares and what I can do to keep her from having nightmares (if thats possible). So will help me and give me some suggestions on what I should or can do please?

Answer 1

Well, I have heard a bright night light can help. I used to listen to a radio show called the Dream Doctor, and he recommended that. Other than that i think all you can really do is to reassure her and talk to her before she goes to sleep. A hug and a kiss from Mom And Dad can work wonders.

Answer 2

We all wonder what we can do to help our kids. I just might even have the sketchiest profile when it comes to my only sons upbringing, but I'm his provider and he has a relationship with me still, even though he rarely saw me over a 4 year period, from the age of 6 1/2 until he was 10 1/2.
You want to talk about nightmares... Okay. Well, I'll tell you how I used to tell him stories at night before he went to sleep.
First of all, it was never going to be that he would be able to whine and get to get up out of his own bed and go where 'it's safe'. They are children, NOT kittens. Much of a childs sense of safety, and hense his/her ability to HANDLE freaky dreams comes from what we tell them from early on is 'okay to feel'.
Ah', I know you don't want a speech so I'll just tell you this. I used to lay beside him and tell him all kinds of stories. I got his little imagination going. It was dark, so I could not see to read. Plus he liked made up stories better.( I did read him the Bearnstain (sp?) Bears nightmare book a few times-it's a good one.)We would have absolutely no idea what we were going to talk about, but the little ,usually, dramatic stories would have some sort of moral to them.
I personally had a hard time with the Flying Nun show. The witch in the Wizard of Oz terrified me as a kid. My parents did NOT play into my fears like I see many parents do. You just can't. There is not much you really can do anyway. Heck, I was afraid of the dark right when I turned the lights out at bed time until I was maybe 30!

Answer 3

Dear Mom,
I love the answers and they imply other similar ones. When I was young I had trouble with nightmares for a while. Two or three times my folks let me sleep with them, maybe not the whole night, I'm not sure. Then the gently as possible said no. The same dream escalated for a few nights, until one morning, it was light too, and I kept dreaming, waking and asking to sleep with them and back to an even worse stage in the same dream, but anyway the third time after much insisting, they said OK and that ended it. Not that I never had nightmares agin, but I think the change in method shook my view of dreams. I finally got the picture that dreams where unstable so not so real.
In trying to analyze those times, I really do think that when parents argue over a remote control, a child may not know that, but only that a life or death struggle is going on and life is dangerously close to deatn. The remote is life and death, to the adults, as they invest so much of their existance, identity, source of joy and even sanity in the only emotional life they have, because of not knowing that joy comes from within, our attitudes and ways of looking at ourselves and life. They're finding that not only love, peace and fear come from how we view our relation to our mind, but even genius does. Genius is hindered by physical limitation, especially a serious one, but normally genius is just mind set. That appropriate mind set is that we are not our thoughts, feelings, ideas or even our view of ourselves, but only an awareness of them, awareness of the memory of them and awareness of our expectation of the future of them. From that perspective, the awareness is the us with the remote controller. Life is all just our 'show.' The 'me' show, nightmares and all. We sense that as children, but we get a conflicting view from the way our parents act.
Our attitude to this information might be that the ideas seems true enough or we may even be more skeptical, but by trying it, testing it and gradualy gaining confidence in it, as we see it works the more we understand how to use it, has a radical change in our lives at any age or stage. The change is so profound that they are calling it the paradigm shift or mind shift that they expect to be the only answer needed to the the ever increasing stresses that we encounter, now, or ever will. It's practically the final solution to what went wrong. If you need more information, so far I'm always available, the gods of Yahoo willing. Sincerely, hbar12

Answer 4

I don't know if this will help but I read somewhere that the evening news could give kids nightmares even if they weren't really paying attention other than that I'm not sure my two year old has been having nightmare periodically since she was 6 months old, but they have slacked off a lot lately but I'm not sure why.

Answer 5

I have a small lamp in my daughter's room and I leave her closet light on with the door just barely open. I read her a book every night, kiss her goodnight and leave the room. This works for me. She is only 2 1/2 though. Your daughter should be able to tell you what her dream is about and then maybe you can figure out what is causing them. Try the lamp though.

Answer 6

WELL TRY TO TALK TO HER ABOUT SOME GOOD THATS COMING AND TALK TO HER MAYBE IF SHE WAKES UP FROM A NIGHTMARE SHE COULD WATCH TV OR PLAY A GAME WHEN I WAS A KID I DONE THE SAME DOES SHE HAVE SUGAR AT NIGHT IF SO TRY TO STOP HER THE SUGAR RUNS TO THE BRAIN WHICH WHEN RESTED THE SUGAR HAS NO WHERE TO GO AND THATS HOW THE SUGAR COMES OUT I HOPE SHE FEEL BETTER

Answer 7

I truthfully have the staggering comparable concern, different than my daughter in regulation is 5 and over the final 12 months shes gotten worst she throws tantrums she gets mad went we don't have provides to furnish her, she even instructed her dad that shes certainly no longer gonna come over except he has money to spend and her mom is not any saint, the little lady instructed us that the reason she does it quite is because of the fact her mom neglects her for her new boyfriend spends all her time with him fairly of her and drops her off each wheres and her mom is going by way of fellows like loopy, and easily so occurs there all my husbands previous acquaintances, and that i assume the only thank you to handle a toddler like it somewhat is to behave such as you do no longer care that there getting mad, then they are going to observe there no longer bothering you anymore yet different then that get her dad to have slightly one on one conversations as quickly as in awhile this way she feels he nonetheless loves her, because of the fact young ones at that age could desire to sense there excepted via the two parents ecspecially if there parents are cut up up there to youthful to realize issues could no longer work out yet sturdy success along with her and not all young ones want counselling they only want interest in different approaches

Answer 8

LOL. SOME OF THE CREATURES ON SCOOBY DOO CAN BE QUITE TERRIFYING IN A DREAM. ESPECIALLY TO A 5 YR OLD. IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT MONSTERS. SHOW HER SOME BIBLE STORIES ON TAPE OR DVD. LET HER KNOW THAT GOD IS REAL AND LOVES HER AND WATCHES OVER HER ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT WHILE SHE SLEEPS. TEACH HER THAT SHE HAS A GUARDIAN ANGEL THAT PROTECTS HER, AND IS ALWAYS WITH HER. SAY PRAYERS WITH HER WHEN YOU PUT HER TO BED. A LOT OF CHILDREN'S SHOWS CAN BE DOWN RIGHT SPOOKY. EVEN HARRY POTTER. TEACH YOUR CHILD ABOUT JESUS! SOMEONE THEY CAN ALWAYS TRUST AND RELY ON . IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIM ,GET TO KNOW HIM. OK?

Answer 9

when I had nightmares when I was growing up my mom would ask me to draw a picture of what the "bad guy" looked like and then she would tear it up into tiny pieces and set it on fire (safely) once I saw that I knew "it" was dead and I could sleep!

Answer 10

Sleep with her for a bit. If you've been doing that, then don't feed her at night. if you never did that, then i suggest taking her to a neurologist (yes the doctor who does stuff with nerves). or if you want a home remedy that really works, a small ammount of alchohol (not rubbing alchohol, the liquor type!) in her system should bring her to a calming point in her sleep. Don't do it everyday! just for 2 days and everything should be okay after that