HELP!! 4 yr. old suddenly won't fall asleep alone.

[J's Mama]

Okay, now that I don't feel like I'm gonna lose my mind anymore...this was night 4 or 5 I think of my son who just recently turned 4, crying at bedtime Background: I'm almost 6 months pregnant, I do bedtime alone because my husband is a chef who works nights, up until about 4 months ago I was lying in bed with him until he fell asleep but then one day we switched to him falling asleep on his own with the door open and he never looked back (until this week!). He was doing awesome and I was *loving* not having to lie in bed with him for sometimes up to an hour!!! Tonight was by far the worst! I sat outside his door in a chair reading for an hour! He finally fell asleep but woke up 25 minutes later crying because I wasn't in the chair. I sat again for about 15-20 minutes until I thought I might jump out of my skin and told him that I couldn't do it anymore. I got up and he started screaming and crying, followed me out of the room and I had no idea what to do next. I briefly flirted with the idea of letting him just stay up, not playing or watching TV or anything, just staying up until he was so tired that he'd fall asleep on the rug or something! Ugh! Honestly, I just felt like such a failure. I ended up going back to bed with him and he fell asleep next to me in about 20 minutes. So, has anyone dealt with this? My husband and I have a few theories about why but DS doesn't seem to be able to tell us what's causing the sudden fear. If it's just a phase, I can swallow sitting outside his door for a few weeks but I *can't* risk him getting used to this again and expecting it because when the baby comes it will be an utter impossibility! Any suggestions? (Sorry this is so long. I'm not good at organizing my thoughts here!)

[lovesea]

My ds is nearly four and we've experienced something similar. When he was 2 and a half and I was about to give birth we got him to stay in bed on his own and go to sleep. About 6 months ago he started wanting the light on, then he wanted songs at bedtime, then eventually he wanted us to stay with him until he fell asleep. I could tell that he was genuinely scared and it wasn't just a case of prolonging bedtime. The difference in my situation is my ds falls asleep within minutes. Does your child still nap? If so, try dropping the nap so that he's really tired at bedtime. If he doesn't nap and it still takes ages for him to drop off the best way for your comfort, sanity and his sense of security is probably to lie with him. If you are worried about how you will manage with the newborn, I used to lie down with ds and breastfeed the baby at the same time. That worked out fine.

I've talked quite a lot with ds about why he feels scared. I've never tried to dismiss his fears but after a week or so of him saying he was scared every night we talked about how he always felt scared but nothing scary ever happened - that reassured him. I know he has some scary dreams because he's talked about it a bit