4 year old and fear at night

so my DS is going through a stage (or so I've read online) where he is scared at night and refusing to be left alone. This not only includes sleeping alone, but even just sitting alone in the living room! or playing in his room! If i have to go up/down stairs- he follows. If i get up to get a drink from the kitchen - he follows. No matter if its 10 steps from where he is - he is like my shadow following.
If I get him to sleep and move him to his bed, He always wakes up at some point SCREAMING and calling for DADDY! If I show up - he tells me he just wants Daddy?? which in the beginning I thought was great but now It has me feeling guilty that I cant help my DH out at 3am.

This is going on over a month now. I have tried to be patient. I have tried talking to him, leaving his room lit like a stadium, music, tv, reading books, religious statues, dream catchers, stuffed animals, foot rubs, back rubs, stories, and the list goes on on and on. NOTHING IS WORKING!!
the kid walks out of school and immediately hammers on about how he doesn't like the night and doesn't want to go to bed!!! just this morning he started talking about it being night later...its crazy a
I am beyond frustrated and tired. Our house is totally getting disrupted by this behavior. His screaming and crying is no longer getting met with comfort from me - im snapping at him and just overall frustrated.
what can i do??
anyone else survive a situation like this?
HELP

4 year old and fear at night

I know exactly What you are going thru, the frustration where your not even comforting anymore... I'm dealing with something very similar with my 6 yo dd but it's kinda worse. She's scared of EVERYTHING!!! She can't walk into the closet that I'm sitting 3 ft from in broad daylight, she is scared of the dark so at night she's practically useless for doing anything herself. She's even scared of stupid things on tv, if the music is slightly creepy at all she's scared, before she started screaming for me to shut the tv off, I was watching storage wars!!! How was that scary? Lol. It's weird too bc when she was younger she was the complete opposite, she use to love watching scary movies and all that stuff. I don't know what happened, when I ask she blames it on her friend telling her monsters live under the stairs, yet we have stairs that you see right under lol. I'm thinking bout taking her to a Dr bc I can't take it anymore. I'd love to hear from other people if they were able to break their kids of this.

Re: 4 year old and fear at night

My 4yo is going through a fear of the dark stage right now as well. He needs multiple night lights and I had to explain all the shadows on his ceiling the other night. Sometimes he follows me around too lately. We're not dealing with him waking up at night but when he wakes up in the morning he jumps out of bed and to our room because he doesn't want to be alone in the dark. We think this got worse around Halloween. I think he just questions more this year and he was more affected by "spooky" cartoons, lawn decorations, monster books at preschool, etc. One week it seemed worse and we discovered he was watching Monsters Inc. during aftercare at school. For him that's scary, he's a sensitive kid. I try to get him to think of happy things before shutting his lights at night. It seems to help a little.
ETA: Sounds like you need to get in his head a little and see what's going on if all those things you are doing aren't working.

Message edited 11/11/2014 9:30:23 PM.

Re: 4 year old and fear at night

My four year old is doing this too!

It has gotten better, except the kid who slept in his own room from 4 months old until just after his 4th birthday is now sleeping in my bed each night!!!

He is scared to be alone at night, at least he doesn't follow me around all day like he used to.

Re: 4 year old and fear at night

Re: 4 year old and fear at night

thank you all for your responses. Im glad Im not alone in this horrible horrible stage.

4 year old and fear at night

They will def not give your 4 year old medication for this--I'm assuming that was a joke. I would tell your ped exactly what you said the problem was. There may be books for kids re : fears of the dark etc. Or if the problem is bigger and you see a lot of anxiety emerging that it's really impacting everyone's functioning the ped could give you names of pediatric therapists to work with.