SCARY SPRAY!
So Isaac was having the hardest time with sleep. Didn't want to go to bed at night because he was scared so it was up and down a million times. He kept waking up at night scared and coming in our room. It was getting so ridiculous. I couldn't figure out what was so scary and what to do. It was night after sleepless night and I was at my wits end. I was so tired. Here he was 5 years old and NOT sleeping. I am not one who just puts the kid in bed with us to go back to sleep because I know that habit can be just as hard to break. I was talking about my frustration at work one day when a friend told me about something she did when her kids were done so I decided to try it. Her kids were afraid of monsters so she used monster spray. Isaac was scared of anything and everything. Fires, bad guys, storms, everything. So, after everything I had tried I decided it couldn't hurt to try one more thing. I filled up a squirt bottle with some water and told him it was "SCARY SPRAY." I told him my friend at work gave me some to use. I sprayed it everywhere. Under the bed, behind the door, in the closet, the floor, the air, you get the idea. I told him that it would make it so that no bad guys could come in and no bad things would happen. I told him that because I sprayed his room, it blocked EVERYTHING from entering it and that if something bad tried to come in they would just bounce away. The first night he looked at me as if I was crazy. But I had to play this up big time. I pointed the bottle towards the door for "extra protection" That night he slept through the night for the first time in months. I went in and made A HUGE DEAL of the fact that he'd slept through the night. I literally yelled to everyone that the scary spray worked and Isaac stayed in bed all night. That night when I put him to bed, I sprayed again. This time he was still a little skeptical but he made sure I sprayed areas that I had not sprayed before (in his backpack to be specific) and it worked. That night he woke up to go to the bathroom but went right back to bed. I continued to make a big deal about it working until he convinced himself that it worked. A few days into it he asked me what we were going when we ran out. I told him I knew the special store where we could buy it that only parents knew about. (I put a small amount in it every few days and he never questioned that it never ran out) It has made all the difference in my sleep! One day we will all laugh at this or he will be mad that I lied to him or embarrassed or all of the above. Bottom line is it worked!!!! It's been months and he no longer hates going to bed....