MONSTERS!!

One note of advice: Do NOT let your 2 1/2 year old watch the movie Monsters Inc. (by Disney). We all went to the video store before leaving for Chicago and let the boys pick out a movie they could watch on the drive up. They seemed very determined that Monsters Inc. was the one. We had seen it before, and neither of the boys were afraid of anything in the movie. After all, Finding Nemo has super scary parts and they LOVE that movie. Anyways, we watched the movie in the car ride up to Chicago and they really enjoyed it....I thought nothing further of it.

UNTIL....Drew started waking up and saying "there's monsters in my closet". We explained there was no monsters, they are just pretend, and put him back to bed. He seemed to do well with this, and we experienced no further problems... at that moment. Then he started waking up at least 2-3 times a night crying. When Ryan went up to ask what the problem was, he said "there's no monsters, they are just pretend, there's no monsters". Poor guy......he's trying to convince US there's no monsters!

We started to let him sleep with a flashlight to comfort him more, and it worked the first few nights. We peaked in on him to see how he was doing the first night with the flashlight, and the poor child was clinging on to that flashlight for his dear life even though he was in a deep sleep. Of course that wore off so we tried leaving the light on in his closet. That had no effect at all either.

Our latest solution has been to let him sleep in the same room with his brother. This often means less sleep for both of them, but hey, we were already getting less sleep so what's the difference? After putting them to bed and telling them to go to sleep, we went downstairs and waited. When they used to share a room they would play for a little while and then they quiet down and go to sleep. So we were expecting the same thing to happen. All of the sudden BANG BANG BANG. Drew was pounding on the door (we put a childproof handle on the door to prevent them from climbing into our bed). Oh man, not gonna work. I go open the door....."yes Drew?".
"I wanna sleep in my room"
"Okay Drew, but you get scared being by yourself"
"Ethan sleep with me"
"Okay. Ethan do you want to sleep in Drew's bed with him?"
"Ohhh Yeah!".
Great. We'll see how this goes.
I had barely put my foot down on the main floor from coming down the stairs when I hear BANG BANG BANG. Back up the stairs (at least I'm getting exercise out of this).
"What?".....losing my patience now!
"I wanna sleep in Ethan's room"
"No. You were just there."
"Pease?" looking at me with those big brown eyes.
"Fine. Last time changing rooms though, okay? You MUST go to sleep"
"Ok"
Back to Ethan's room both boys go. Needless to say this went ON and ON and ON. We ended up having lots of crying and disciplining:-)

Has the situation been better the last few days? Slightly, but we still DREAD naptime and bedtime. It used to be so easy, in fact my boys used to look forward to that time of day (so did Mommy!). Now it's a constant battle (game for them) of up and down the stairs. You know when naptime is the most stressful time of the day that something has got to change!

I actually have the boys sleeping in seperate bedrooms again since Drew just likes to go back and forth between the two rooms. So now when he wakes up at night, either Ryan or I will end up sleeping in bed with him. Let's just say we are walking zombies lately:-)

Any other suggestions for dealing with a toddler afraid of monsters? Anyone else go through this? It's EXHAUSTING:-) I have open ears.......