Go AWAY Monsters!!

Do you have monsters in your house??  I do, and they keep me up all night!  They only reside in Rylee's room and don't seem to care if the light is on or off.  UGH!!!!!

For the past 9 months Rylee has been waking up at night at least 3 times per week, crying that there are monsters in her room.  We will sometimes spend over 2 hours trying to get her to go back to sleep.  Add that to an infant who still wakes up to eat at night and you get a couple of tired, crabby parents!! 

We have tried having 3 night lights on in Rylee's room to now having a lamp on in her room, and it's not helping.  I actually think the lights make it worse because then she sees shadows.  I have taken almost everything out of her room and I always shut her closet doors to limit the items she might interpret as monsters.  She takes really long 3 hour naps everyday and never has any problems with monsters then, even though her room is nearly as dark during the day as it is at night.  During the day though, she won't go into any room by herself as "there are monsters in there."  It's so annoying! 

She does watch tv, but mostly Disney movies and cartoons that don't even have a single scary character.  Most of the Disney movies have a "bad guy", but she has never said that any of them are scary and she always wants to keep watching them, so I can't imagine the movies are causing the issue???? 

We have had several people recommend the "monster spray" (water bottle and water), but we haven't wanted to try it yet because then we are acknowledging that the monsters might exist.  We always tell her there are no monsters.  Last night however, she almost made the monsters believable.  I asked where the monster was and she said, "on the wall", but then a few seconds later she said, "he's by my bed!!" and she got up and ran out of the room.  That was the first time that has happened and I followed right after her because I didn't want to get eaten by the monster either ;) 

After talking with several parents who have or have had a 2 year old, it sounds like this is a pretty common phase.  This has me thinking.....maybe monsters really are real!?!?!?!  Think about it....how many memories do you have as a 2 year old??  None?  I don't have any at all.....so maybe, there really are monsters, but they only bother 2 year olds as they know our brains won't remember them as we get older and thus, no one will believe a 2 year old when they are seeing monsters.  Makes sense, right??  Let's compare notes about the monsters.....Rylee always says her monster is "yellow" when I ask her what it looks like.  Anyone else have a yellow monster??

We tried having her sleep in the living room last night to see if it would help her, but she still woke up twice crying for us.  The living room is a much farther walk for us than her bedroom, so we won't try that idea again.  And I refuse to have her sleep in our room.  She's a smart girl and she will start crying "monster!" every night if she knows it will get her a free ticket to sleep in our room.  Plus, she rolls around and kicks too much at night and then I really don't get any sleep. 

Today I'm going to remove nearly everything from her room, not let her watch any tv from the time she wakes up from nap until she goes to bed and read her some fun upbeat books before bed so she has something positive on her mind as she goes to sleep....we will see if that works.  Her Daddy also talked to her about the monster spray this morning and she sounded excited about it, so I told her she could help me decorate the bottle.  Hopefully all or some of these items will help, because we can't take any more unnecessary sleepless nights!!