Afraid of the dark

I think my girls are afraid of the dark. Last night my one of my girls woke and started screaming, she woke her sister up and they both were freaking out. I went in to see what was the matter, and I noticed the light on the monitor base was covered up (I use it as a night light). I uncovered it and picked up the girls to comfort them. After they calmed down I layed them back in bed and they fell right back to sleep. Is it to early for them to be afraid of the dark? Or is this a normal age for it to start?

 

Usually they become "afraid" of the dark when they realize this is a tactic to either stay up later or get mom's attention. Odds are one of them had a bad dream and woke up freaked out and disoriented. She in turn woke up the other one who was freaking just because her sister was (gotta love twins for that).

 

My kids went through that phase around 17-18 months and now my son is going through it again. We purchased a brighter night light. He told me today that his room is "spooky." They don't watch that much tv so I don't know where he picked that phrase up. DD could care less.

 

we started with a night light from early on and the one night we unplugged it to plug in the a/c in their room and forgot to plug it back in - my son woke up at 3 am screaming and didn't know where he was...once I plugged the light back in he was ok...won't ever do that again!

 

My son isn't really scared of the dark, but he thinks it is scary to see lights on the ceiling from cars outside. He's 3 1/2.

 

My girls are afraid of nightlights. I thought they might like it but when I put one in their room they freaked. They don't show signs of being afraid of the dark.

 

If your girls are used to their room being a certain way, I can see them being upset if the light they are used to seeing when they wake up at night is not there. It doesn't mean that your DD is afraid of the dark, necessarily, it could be just that she uses that light to focus at night and self-soothe back to sleep and without it, she became disoriented and anxious. I agree that "afraid of the dark" can be used as a stall tactic at night, but both my girls have gone through a fear phase where they are genuinely anxious about the dark closet, or something they saw on television. I remember experiencing this kind of fear myself as a child, and it does cause children a lot of anxiety. My girls started voicing their night fears at around 3 and 1/2 years of age. I told Jamie that her stuffed dog Sasha was a guard dog and would protect her at night. Sometimes I would just switch on the closet light momentarily to show Nicole that there was nothing to be afraid of.

 

I leave their little light on till they fall asleep mostly because my Son likes to mess around with his cars before he sleeps and was throwing a fit when there was no light in the room. So I leave it on and check on them before I go to bed and turn it off. I like it because I can see them and move hard objects that could wake them if they rolled onto them.

 

Mine went through a stage of being afraid of the dark around 3 yrs. Until then they had no problem with complete darkness during winter months.

I just added 2 night lights to their room and they were fine. The lights have since stopped working but we no longer need them.

 

Mine started wanting a light on at around 22 months. So I typically leave the night light on and turn it off before I go to bed.

 

My boys have always had a night light in their room. They also started taking small flash lights to bed with them. It has always worked for us.