When he was still in diapers but old enough to sleep in a normal bed we had a child lock on his door to keep him out of trouble. We took off the safety knob soon after he started using the potty (that was over a year ago). It didn’t happen immediately but slowly and moreso over the last few weeks he’s coming into our room at 10p, 12a, or even 3a. It’s usually stuff like a “monster in the closet”, “I’m out of water”, “I can’t find my stuffed animal”, or “my music box turned off”. Telling him things like “turn on your light and see what’s there”, “monsters don’t exist”, or “the bathroom is open and you can refill your cup” he’ll eventually have the same problem and wake us up again.
Is this just a phase he’ll grow out of or is there a better way to help him solve more of these problems on his own?
It’s a phase, but he will likely need help transitioning through to the next developmental stage. You can help by giving tools to deal with the things he can handle independently and lots of love/empathy for the struggle.
We found some success combining your current approach with some light use of social stories (telling stories/reading books about others with the same worries, etc). Sometimes it was enough to say things like, “I wake up thirsty too. When I was your age, grandma gave me a special water bottle/cup/whatever works for you. Every night I filled it up when I brushed my teeth and kept it by my bed. Remember the story I told you about the magic flashlight grandpa gave me when it was too dark to go potty by myself? Well, when I was thirsty, I would turn on my flashlight and take a drink out of my special water bottle and I could go back to sleep! Now I’m a grown up, and I still have a special water bottle that I fill when I brush my teeth at bedtime, and I still wake up and take a drink at night when I need to.” Sometimes we would take a special trip to the store and they could pick out their special bottle; sometimes they already had something that would work for the situation.
I mean, we would have to do several iterations of this, along with a fair amount of just letting them sleep with me at times. When it got rough, I could set up a sleeping area for them to use, but the idea there was they wouldn’t wake me, just be able to feel better by being close. By about 7 yrs all three of our kids were sleeping through 95% of the time. There are still the occasional nightmares, yucky feeling tummies, etc. Maybe it’s more like 98:2 vs 95:5.
It’s a phase. Be calm and thoughtful about his fears (even if it’s horribly exhausting at times) and it will go over. That’s how he’ll learn ‘to solve these problems on his own’. He’s too young to get over his fears on his own and needs his parent’s input to learn that there’s nothing to fear in the dark.
I have found that mentoring through these moments helps. So I’ll blearily get up and walk with the kid to the kitchen and make sure they have access to a cup for the water, and coach them through getting some water, and heading back to bed.
Sometimes it’s just an excuse for some time together, but usually it’s a real teachable moment. (A teachable moment which invariably repeats five or more times because their little brains aren’t developed yet.)
For the stuff that is just an excuse to spend time together, I try to ramp up my “time together game of chicken” during our bedtime routine. That is, I try to spend more time at bedtime, but with the goal of both satisfying that need, while also being the least interesting person on the plant (at least during bedtime).