Cloudy Bear

My son has struggled a bit with sleeping in his own bed at night for several weeks now. We hoped that moving his sister into his bedroom with him would solve our nighttime challenges, but he sometimes has bad dreams.

On our pediatrician's advice, I talked with my son about how everyone dreams. Sometimes we have bad dreams, but they are just pretend. If a bad dream wakes him, he can simply "change the channel" on his brain and go back to sleep for a new dream. As I explained this, I turned a pretend knob on my temple while making a clicking sound. My son thought this was hilarious. I told him he could do it too, and hoped this strategy just might work.

It didn't.

One night I was on solo duty putting the kids to bed. After I got Little Sister to sleep my son asked me, "Can you tell me a story about me being brave?" Oh my. What a mature request for a 3 year old boy to think of on his own. The only talk of bravery we had ever done was telling him he was brave for putting his face in the water when swimming. "Of course I can tell a story about you being brave, Sweetie!" I did, and it seemed to help.

That was several weeks ago. Then again other night my son was afraid during the bedtime routine. With some coaxing I got him to tell me why. "I'm afraid of that Cloudy Bear that is there when we're downstairs at nighttime!"

"Cloudy Bear? There's no Cloudy Bear, we don't go downstairs at nighttime. You are safe in your cozy bed in your cozy room." I assured him.

"How about I tell you a story about you being brave?" My husband suggested. It went something like this:

Big Brother and Little Sister were visiting in Candyland. Suddenly they heard some barking. They looked around and they saw Pepper was stuck in a hole that was guarded by Cloudy Bear. Cloudy Bear was not being nice, but Big Brother was brave and told Cloudy Bear that he wasn't being nice and he had to let Pepper go. Then, since Cloudy Bear is only made of clouds, Big Brother took a deep breath and blew Cloudy Bear away into the sky.

Then Big Brother and Little Sister fetched some sticks from the Peppermint forest to put in the hole so Pepper could climb out. Then they went to the Giant Ice Cream Cone to eat ice cream.

"Are the goats stuck on the Ice Cream Cone again?" My son asked.

Apparently Big Brother and Little Sister have been to Candyland in Daddy's stories before. They always rescue Pepper, and once they did rescue the goats from the top of the Giant Ice Cream Cone.

The story worked, and my son fell happily asleep.

Big Bro & Lil Sis in Candyland drawn by Mama of Ma'at