Hand Holding for Nightmares

I still sleep in the same room as my 6 year old daughter E and my 4 year old son C. It is mainly to make sure they don’t sneak out when they have nightmares to find Mommy (and disturb my wife and baby L). If they sneak out of their room, it is chaos at night and the next morning, so it’s my small way of helping.

At first I enjoyed sleeping in this nook near their bed. It was a way to be close to the kids at night and everything felt complete. Then they started to fight or have nightmares throughout the night and I got grumpy having to wake up several times to diffuse the situations. I was getting some sleep anxiety (feeling like I needed to get more sleep to please my Apple Watch) and the arrangement became unenjoyable for a bit. Now, I have tried to reprogram my mind to cherish even the chaos that happens at night while not worrying about getting enough sleep. My body will self regulate and things will smooth out over time.

With this new approach that took a bit to adopt, I don’t mind waking up to help. And C has been waking up from nightmares more frequently because he is at the age where his imagination runs wild. Recently though, he wakes up to tell me he has a nightmare very calmly and asks to hold my hand. It’s the sweetest thing and I end up holding his hand until he falls back asleep. I keep holding his hand because I love to do that and I hold on until I fall back asleep. It’s those little moments that make it all worth it (at least that’s what I tell myself!).