Night Terrors, the 2009 edition

For a while now, Banana has gone through another period of night fears. If she wakes up in the middle of the night (and this is the big IF) and the IKEA sea horse light on her wall is not turned on, she either turns the light on over her bed and goes back to sleep or comes in to my room. Last night, when this happened, I asked her to go back to her bed and she said she was scared. Mind you, this wouldn't have been a problem at, say 5:30, but it was just shy of 2:00 and there were a good few hours of rest still to be had. I asked her what scared her and was informed that it was dark under her bed. Unfortunately, the logic that it was also dark under my bed was not enough to convince her that our rooms were equally safe (or dangerous).

I migrated her back to bed and lay with her for a bit until she fell back to sleep. This was all well and good until I woke up this morning to find her awake and reading. She said she'd been up for a long time, and this drives right to my parent paranoia. To wit: she isn't that far into the book, but there's no telling how long she's actually been up; this could result in a tired kid after school and an early evening of couch-sleeping after dinner; and of course, these thoughts are topped with my own anxieties about how well (or poorly) I'm parenting.

The reality is that everything will probably even out. We had a busy, busy weekend with a couple of late nights; so chances are her mind was just hyperactive and she wouldn't have slept well anyway. Chances are, a bit more routine will bring the even sleeping back. But if it doesn't, how the hell do you get rid of the monsters under the bed?

potty accidents

A week or so after I was shot, Banana started having potty accidents. Nothing really seemed to precipitate it, and there doesn't seem to be a medical cause. Nonetheless, every few days she has an accident in her bed. She has also been waking up in the middle of the night, saying she's scared of the dark. Sometimes she'll talk about a dream she's had--a scary house, a monster, a robot--and that's the reason. She comes into my bed and seems to sleep all right rest of the night.

I've tried to reassure her that there are no monsters out there. She has a couple of cool IKEA nightlights to keep the room from being too dark. But nothing seems to help.

Time to do more research, I guess, to figure out if this is just a normal phase for her age--apparently the potty accidents are--or if this is somehow her channeling of my fears and anxieties. It's hard to say and doesn't help my own sleep difficulties.