The reality of toddler dreams – Mummascribbles

I’ve written before about Zach’s dreams. It was a while ago and I’d noticed him whimpering in his sleep and saying the odd thing when he woke up that gave me an idea about what his dream was about. He was still only just learning to form sentences though so a lot of it was guess work. 

A couple of weeks ago when he turned three, I received an email from one of the many milestone update information services that I’m subscribed to (you know the ones, your baby at week 23 etc) which said that now was the time that they start to struggle with the fact that dreams aren’t reality along with a guide on how to explain the difference between dreams and reality. I didn’t think much of it but then suddenly a couple of days later, it became reality.  Dreams are happening and explanations from Zach have begun. They aren’t always bad dreams but he is struggling with realising that they are not real life.

The first dream he had was a bad one. He woke up in the morning doing his usual shout of – mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy mummy. I went into his room and said good morning and the first thing he says to me is, mummy, the crocodile ate me!

I was stumped for a moment. He was upset and worried and I had to make him see that it was just a dream. I made it a bit lighthearted at first – the crocodile ate you? I said in a fun disbelieving voice (the kind you use when they are being funny by telling porkies!). Yeah, he said nervously, it ate me mummy.

Ok, he was serious, I had to comfort him. So I sat down beside him, put my hand on his and said, Zachary, the crocodile can’t have eaten you because you are still here in front of me. I think you may have been having a bad dream. Dreams happen when we are asleep (or bored at work!), but they aren’t real. Sometimes they are good dreams and sometimes they are bad, but they are just dreams.

He looked at me, thought about it, processed the information I had given him and accepted it. He was soon wandering with me into our bedroom to bounce on the bed.

Since then, he has had two other dreams that he has been able to tell me about. One good, one bad…very bad.

The second dream was the good dream.  He woke up and told me all about the train that he was on, where it was going and how Hector from nursery was driving it! He was telling me so excitedly it was really wonderful to hear him piecing it all together.  What I did make sure that I did was, like the previous one, make it clear that it was a dream. That this train ride couldn’t have taken place in reality because he was clearly asleep but that dreams can be a lot of fun as he found out. Again he accepted this and moved on from his story.

The next dream happened on Tuesday night. I was downstairs on the sofa playing around with my blog and the other half was cooking his pasta having just come home from the pub (after playing footie with the lads!). It was about 11.30pm and I had a page half edited when I heard movement through the ceiling.  I looked to the monitor and he wasn’t in bed. Assuming that he’d rolled out onto the floor and taken up his comfy position there,  I meandered my way out of the front room. It was then that I heard he was crying and it wasn’t coming from his room. As I got to the top of the stairs he came wandering out of our bedroom bleary eyed and full of scared tears. Where were you mummy, he sobbed. I told him I’d been downstairs. He clearly thought it was the middle of the night and expected to find us in bed. He was still sobbing and I suggested getting him back to bed. It was at this point that he went completely stiff and cried out that he didn’t want to go back to his bed. This was completely unlike him so I instantly knew something had scared him. I took him into room telling him that I’d sit on the floor and cuddle him but still he screamed and writhed in protest. At this point I needed to calm him down so I took him into our room and sat on the bed with him. As he calmed down he asked for some water so I nipped downstairs to get the other half to pass me some and dashed it back upstairs to him. He moaned at me for leaving him.  After having his drink he’d calmed down enough and told me what exactly the problem was. 

Mummy, the spider was on my covers. The spider was on my covers and it was this big (cue him stretching his arms as wide as he could).

Suddenly I understood why he was so terrified!  In his dream, there was a giant spider on his bed covers.  I’m 33 and that would terrify me! After a big cuddle and me once again explaining that it was a dream and that there was no giant spider on his bed, he fell asleep in my arms and I waited for the other half to come up so he could move him into his bedroom.  He woke a bit and wanted me to stay and settle him but he fell asleep and remained there,  bad dreams all gone. And at just past midnight I nipped downstairs to finish editing my page before getting ready for bed.

The interesting thing of course is figuring out where these dreams come from. It seems that it was an easy investigation to make when mum told me that he’d seen a crocodile on TV before thhat dream and and that when they went to Sainsburys the other day, one of the Halloween decorations in store was a giant spider hanging down from the ceiling! He told her there and then that he didn’t like it but who’d have thought he’d be dreaming about it that night.

I feel like I’m doing OK with trying to get him to learn the difference of what is a dream and what is real life. It all seems to be about explanation,  reassurance and cuddles.

How do you deal with bad dreams in your house? All hints and tips are welcome