Tantrums and Tears, Monsters and Fears

Yeah, that about sums up what we've been going through lately. Of course, developmentally, all these things are appropriate since they usually occur when children are 3 years old. It then makes sense why Sarah would be going through these stages as well.

• Tantrums and Tears: They don't look like your stereotypical fit with screaming and kicking wildly on the floor. She's always been a quiet crier, in fact I think I recall my sister saying she sounds like a little kitten mewing. Her tantrum is her wanting something and repeating it over and over and over. And while she's crying, she is almost impossible to talk to or reason with. Tonight for example it was her needing to sleep in my bed. She repeated "I need mom bed!" I'm sure she said it while crying in a panicky voice 30 or more times. I knew I had two choices. One, put her to bed, tuck her in and leave. She'd likely still cry, possibly till she got herself so upset that she'd be sick. That really isn't Doug or my parenting style. Two, I could pick her up, settle her under my covers and know she'd be sleeping in minutes. Tonight, I chose the easy road. Now, I will say, every night, we encourage her to go to her own but sometimes at the end of a long day, I just don't have the fight in me. 
• Monsters and Fears: Again, this is a very typical phase in a preschooler's life and if we look at Sarah's developmental age, it would seem appropriate that she'd be experiencing fears. Sometimes the fear will come as I'm putting her to bed and she will start crying that there are monsters in the room. I try desperately to tell her that the room is safe and there's nothing wrong but again, she is really hard to reason with. She also will cry out in the night, panicking and searching for me. Quite often in the morning she'll be snuggling in my arms telling me she had a bad or scary dream. She of course can't tell me what the dream was about so all I can really do is console her as best I can.