Bed time help!! | Autism PDD

I need some input. My dd is 7 1/2 and she is scared of the dark and says there are monsters in her room. She has a night light that is on in her room because she will freak out if its not on and also she has to have the T.V. on which I am really not a fan of at all and if I could take it out with out her having a utter meltdown I would. Here is my question even with all that on she will want to snuggle in our bed,so I am like ok because she will fall asleep quicker because I turn the T.V off which is weird she is fine with that but once she is in a deep sleep we will put her back in her room. But she will wake in the middle of the night and try to climb into our bed. I lock our door so she cant come in,and I will hear her because she will say momma want to snuggle and I tell her she needs to go back to her bed to sleep and she says she can't there are monsters. I dont know what to do,I dont know if its aporpriate for her to sleep in our bed,it was fine when she was a little thing but she is almost 8. I have even gone through at night and looked under bed and in her closet and said no monsters,but it doesnt help.

Any ideas has anyone else gone through this???

I read this somewhere (just don't remember where). Take a spray bottle with water in it, and add some of your perfume, peppermint extract or something just similar to this and label on the spray bottle "For Monsters ONLY", take it in her room everynight and spray under the bed, in closets, wherever. Then allow her to keep the Monster Killing Spray on her table or somewhere close (within reach) to her bed at bedtime. That gives her control to Kill the monsters when she sees them. All she has to do is give them a spray and POOF they are gone.

Hope this works! GOod luck!
Wow, T.V. My kids are not allowed to have them in their room EVER. My daughter has a night light and used to have problems But no monsters. I punish her if she leaves her room at night. She is only allowed to go potty amberwaves39296.5268402778

We're endorsers of the "Bad Monster Killing Spray" here, too :) And yes, it works great to keep the heebi-jeebies at bay, particularly if you let the child do the spraying (while you supervise). They feel like they're taking control of their own fears.

We use lavender oil and water, which doubles as a calming agent for sleep (aromatherapy!). I'll also plug in a lavender oil nightlight in the corner to provide some small illumination.

I have an 8 year old daughter (ADHD) that still wants to come in with me at night, so we actually do the reverse - she starts out in her own bed and if she wakes up for some reason or another, then she can come and talk to me about it, or climb in. More often than not, she sleeps in her own bed through the night just fine. My 15-year old daughter sleeps with a small television on at low volume in her room all night. It acts as "white noise" for her - she can't sleep without it. Before she got the television last year, she was constantly waking up or staying up through the night.

It's my personal belief that I need to be available to respond to my children's emotionally needs, and if that means dealing with a scared child in the middle of the night, so be it. Their fears may be ridiculous to a rational adult, but they're very real to a child, and I need to respond to them that way. They've also learned through the years that if the bedroom door is closed, then they need to knock first, but if the door is open they are welcome to come in - and that applies to the middle of the night, too.

This is interesting story My son did this when he was younger he would refused to go bed in his room because there were monsters he would cry he would make up all kind of things like he had to go potty all the time get a drink watch a movie have the t.v. Now being 14 years old he sleep in his bed everynight with radio on and the door shut and don't mind if he needs a night light . There is hope she will get better as she gets older but they will go thruogh all kinds of different things .It is hard my son has PDD-NOS and is 6 years old and he is also afraid of the
dark. He won't sleep in his own room so he sleeps in his sisters room with
the TV on volume down and I never did the TV with my daughter who is
now 10 but she doesn't have the same fears as him. Sometimes you have to
do what you have to do. If he does come in our room we make sure we walk
him back otherwise he thinks it ok to keep doing it but I am lucky I can put
him in with his sister if not I am sure he would be doing the same thing as
your son. I also think the monster spray is a great idea

My daughter needs a night light, closet light, and the hallway light on to go to sleep. We turn them off when she's asleep and that seems to be ok with her for now. She's 8 now, she didn't sleep through the night in her own room until she was 3. Every now and then she goes through a phase where she's scared, but I'll stay in her room till she's asleep and the phase quickly passes. Good luck!Thanks everyone for your input. I am going to try the spray and see how that works.

My son is 9. He's not afraid of monsters, but still wakes up in the night needing snuggles. For him, I strongly believe it's sensory seeking behavior (tactile/proprioceptive). I think some people use a weighted blanket for this, but we haven't gotten that far.

Auditory and visual sensory issues could also be behind your daughter's nighttime struggles. For some autistic kids, visual details and background noises come too easily to the foreground, and are naturally harder to interpret in the dark and half-slumber -- so she jumps to the conclusion that monsters are behind them. Maybe try lying in the dark room with her and looking and listening for what frightens her, and explaining what it is (for example, that's the sound of a tree branch scraping the side of the house).

I would also try a social story that explains what is expected of her at bedtime/nighttime, explains that there are no such things as monsters, and explains what she should do when she feels scared. As someone else said, the fears are very real to her.

We had monster spray - but with a slight twist. We called it FAIRY SPRAY. With my daughter I found calling it monster spray reinforced that there were infact monsters in her room. Calling it fairy spray and telling her that a small spray will invite the fairies into her room rather than monsters worked really well.

We also let her decorate her own bottle with some fairy stickers.

chamomile tea with honey if she will drink it

warm bath with lavender oil

melatonin! 1mg

*eta: I always give her allergy meds a half hour before bed (Claritin) It isn't supposed to amke you sleepy but for some reason it does, so we just switched timing of it, so it will help her sleep.