Sleep (yes.. again)

K&H

Do your kids have bad dreams? What's your response?
E has been having a run of bad dreams, and H and I disagree about how to handle them. She thinks that E should talk about them when she wakes so that they'll go away, and I feel that that actually encourages her to expand upon them and make it more of a "thing". Like talking about them encourages more thinking and talking about them, thus more bad dreams.
When she wakes in the night I would prefer to either just let her crawl into bed with us, or silently go potty and go back to bed. H would prefer that she talk it out before going back to her own bed.
What do others do?

mel

When one of mine wakes me to tell me about a bad dream, I bring them into my bed and ask "Do you feel like you need to talk about it, or would you rather just be here with Mommy?" The answer varies and I just do what they feel they need. I agree with you that making someone talk about it just makes the problem worse, but sometimes they just want to tell me about it and that helps get it off their mind. I usually tell them that thinking of happy things helps, and we talk about cute baby animals or something for a few minutes, then go back to sleep.

Shanny

I was going to ask what SHE wants as well. Kate has never had a bad dream. Today was the first day she has ever told me about any kind of dream but I don't know if she actually had one or just decided she did because I've asked periodically for a few years.

If she ever woke with a bad dream I'd do as Mel described which is pretty much what we do if she's just having troubling thoughts before bed as well.

K&H

She does seem to want to talk about it. I just worry because H still has bad dreams frequently as an adult and I feel like they have a little club of bad dreams that I don't understand. I have a bad dream maybe once very five years, so I don't get it. I don't want H to be encouraging her to identify with bad dreams and as a person who has bad dreams. Tho I get that it just happens and you can't make a person have bad dreams. All the reading I'm doing basically says that H has it right and that I have it wrong (in terms of encouraging bad sleep habits by letting her sleep with us, which we don't want). So I think I just need to work on empathy and apparently interest in the content of her bad dreams. It's just so odd to me.

fisch

Jack comes into our room with bad dreams sometimes still. I always let him get in bed and he goes right to sleep. I always ask in the morning about his dream. Every once in awhile he will tell me what it was, but most of the time he doesn't remember. I typically know what it's about if I know he's watched something or played something or something has happened that would be frightening to him. Those nights he wakes with dreams. Emerson hasn't yet come to us with bad dreams (though she has a multitude of other reasons to want to get in our bed...)
What about a general, "are you ok" open-ended question? That way she can expand without being led. I personally don't like being woken up, so if a cuddle soothes, then I go with that.

jones.mom02

When I had bad dreams as a kid, my mom would ask me about it. Till this day, I remember talking about some of the dreams and my mom some how turning it around to be funny or meaningful. One that I remember most was about a scary wolf chasing me. My mom asked, did it run like this? And she ran silly, so I'd laugh and say no, then try to show her. Then when I would describe the face, she would make a funny face asking if it looked like this. It was fun and actually covered up the scary parts to seem funny. I remember falling back asleep and actually trying to remember how scary it was but couldn't cause I'd think of how funny my mom was trying to figure it out.

Another thing she did, which I don't know if its an actual myth or made up by my mom. But anytime I dreamt of someone dying, she would say it means that person is going to live a long time. I was the type of child, which most children are, that really believed 100% in anything my mom said. She was good about explaining my bad dreams and making them funny, meaningful, or no big deal.

I remember having a lot of bad dreams, and still do as an adult. I always seem to wake up and naturally laugh about how silly the dream was. To not be able to run, I have a lot of slow motion dreams, where I can't get away fast enough lol. It seems like I naturally find something silly about it

I think its good to talk / think about the dreams. It lets you know what your child might be feeling. And how to handle the situation. Make it funny, or problem solve the dream. That's another biggie, I remember my mom having me fix the bad dream now that I'm awake, think about what I can do to turn it around.

Patienceisavirtue

I obviously do not have kids, so I cannot advise on how to handle it with kiddo. But I can offer some personal experience that may or may not help with your understanding of the dreaming peeps.

Since childhood, I have had very long, detailed, and vivid dreams. I go through periods where there are frequent bad dreams or scary dreams. For me, it sometimes helps to express what has happened in the dream. It is sort of like anxiety...once you name it, talk about it, explore it, etc. and can get if off your chest the feelings or fears of the dream start to dissipate and you can (sort of) make sense of the non-sense of the dream.

My mom always dismissed my dreams and didn't want to hear about them (granted they were super long and boring stories), so I never had a place to discuss them. Looking back, I absolutely made a bigger deal about the dreams that I had to keep to myself as I didn't have a place to discharge the energy or a sounding board to help me work though my dream experience. I also remember feeling scared and alone after some of my dreams and being afraid to tell my mom because I knew she did not want to hear it. However, when she would actually listen, I often felt better and safer.

I can also (almost) guarantee that avoiding discussing the dreams will not help the dreams go away, just like avoiding your anxiety triggers will not really make the anxiety go away (and may make them even scarier/more frequent- depending on the context).

Given my experience, I like the idea proposed above of letting your little dreamer take the lead on what she needs in the moment. It is what I wished would have happened when I was a young dreamer. I am sure it is hard, especially if the dreams are happening frequently, are boring, or really long like mine. I am sorry that you are having a difficult time.

Now my wife just hears all my dreams and she thinks I'm totally weird.

Also- sorry about all the anxiety comparisons, anxiety and bad dreams not the same but it was the easiest way I could explain it.

EMG_REL

I'm another adult who frequently has stressful dreams, though not exactly "scary". I usually talk about them to R in the morning, just a brief description, and then it feels like I distance myself from them by examining them and can let them go. R barely dreams at all (or, at least, she doesn't remember her dreams), and she seems to have passed that down to H. He has occasionally said that he's had a bad dream while crying in the middle of the night, but I'm not sure he knows what that even means. I researched it a few months ago when he was having these crying episodes at night frequently, and one article that I remember stated that three years old is when kids start having dreams with plot lines instead of just images, which does make sense to me. I honestly feel like it depends on the kid. Since my dreams are so vivid, I'll often ask H if he had any dreams last night, and he has a generic answer: "helicopters and airplanes". They're his favorite things, but I'm sure he doesn't dream about them every single night. He's had a fever off and on for about 36 hours, and at one point when he fell into a delirious sleep yesterday afternoon, he talked in his sleep for the first time--something about "that book". I was fascinated because it was the first proof that he dreams at all. Anyway, I get what you're saying about not wanting her to identify as a bad dreamer because it might be somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but she very well already is one, and she needs to talk about it. Maybe it can be something that she and H share together because you can't relate.

Zen

Shiloh has had bad dreams once or twice. Usually on waking up she just needs cuddles and comfort and falls alseep immediately. I have asked her about the dreams. The first word or two that she gives is reliably about the dream. After that it just expands into story telling.

On our side there's never been any underlying issues expressed in dreams to warrant extended conversation. I just assure her that she is safe and loved and back to sleep she goes.

syoung0204

Lucid dreaming was my coping mechanism when I was a kid having nightmares. I was older though, like 6 or 7 so I could reason at that point.

My plan for our kids, if they have nightmares, is to some how teach them they have power over their dreams and power over their thoughts. Not sure exactly how, was thinking of using the "magic fairy dust" approach, like the placebo affect. Or maybe some meditation and practice...