comments:
Ok. So it’s not the “sleeping alone” part. I still, from the periphery and not knowing this child, would wonder if it has something to do with the new house/bedroom itself, which he somehow is equating with bed size. It very much seems to me that he doesn’t feel safe in this new bedroom, and would recommend trying to explore what is making him feel unsafe. Kids can surely make us crazy, trying to get at the source of issues. Especially when they might not be consciously aware of the rationale, themselves. When my husband and I moved into a new place a thousand years ago, our 2-year-old was unsettled in his new bedroom. Of course, he was much younger than your boy, so this may or may not be a relatable story, but he kept talking about “pig mocker.” Mocker was his word for monsters. (This was a little weird because Amityville Horror had just come out; we hadn’t even seen it, so there was zero chance that he could have seen it accidentally or anything, and I think there were some sort of scary pig scenes in that movie? So it was weird he kept saying that!) Over the next couple of days, we were able to coax the story out of him that it was the “lady in the window” that had triggered a nightmare about pigs - and the lady in the window was real. We had a first floor apartment, and some woman actually did come up to his window to peer in, being nosy, before we had a chance to hang curtains. Lady in the window became a pig mocker in his little mind. Took us a while to shake that image from him. So. Perhaps trying to get to the root cause might help. Since all the other approaches haven’t worked, and I think the return window on your kid expired last year, so you’re stuck with him! 🤣 If nothing works at all, I will vote with the person who recommended being bored of the subject and not engaging on the subject. And I promise that this will pass; he’s not going to start high school still asking for the king bed/primary bedroom every single day. Hugs! ETA: My twin grandsons had fallen into a habit of getting up way too early every morning. I got them an actual stoplight clock, this is a similar concept, though not an actual stoplight that glowed red until the acceptable hour of rising came, at which point it turned green. It saved their parents’ sanity, and son/DIL used it for years with them! If you wake up and that light is still red, buddy, go back to sleep.