The Snake Solution

A few mornings ago I woke up to Little Man staring at me from the side of the bed.  This is unusual for a couple of reasons-usually I am a super light sleeper and can hear anything in the house, and secondly, he was awake before I was.  I groggily asked him what he was doing and he said that he had a bad dream.  He told me he dreamed that there was a snake and it was biting me, and then it was going to bite him and he couldn't remember how to kill the snake and the snake killed both of us.  We talked about it for a few minutes and then he seemed to be okay, so we got up and went about our day.  That night when it was time for bed he said he was scared.  His bedroom is in the basement, while ours and Little Miss' are upstairs, and he occasionally tells us this, but it has usually seemed to be a ploy to stay up later or sleep with Little Miss in her room.  But that night he got very upset and was crying and we just could not console him.  We even had Jade, the snake hunting dog, go into his room, closet and on his bed to hunt for snakes.  No dice.



Jade-the vicious snake-hunting dog.  Yeah, Little Man didn't buy it either.

Eventually, Cori and I told him he could sleep in our bed until we went to sleep, and then we would move him to his bed.  He wasn't super happy with this plan, but agreed.  Cori went up to check on him awhile later and he had tucked the comforter completely around his head and he was super sweaty, but finally asleep.  Cori decided to bring him down to his own bed where it is cooler (since we don't have AC and all) and Little Man completely lost it and started sobbing while he was still half asleep.  That clued us in that something was really going on and we needed to take him more seriously.  So we put him upstairs on the couch but he still didn't go back to sleep.  Now usually this little guy is OUT like a light when we put him to bed (thank goodness!  I've discovered I am so not one of those people that can handle when the kids are up and down 15 times before going to sleep) so when he was still awake when I came upstairs I told him he could sleep with Little Miss.  We made up a little bed on the floor and he crawled in and seemed to settle down.  But when I went in a few minutes later he was curled up in a little tiny ball and had again tucked his blanket completely over his head and face.  It was so tight it scared me-what if I hadn't checked on him??  Of course he was completely drenched in sweat and flushed.  Luckily he had fallen asleep for good and I was able to fix his covers without worrying he would wake up and cover his head again.  We didn't push things for a couple of days and continued to let Little Man sleep on the floor with Little Miss.  When we broached the topic again with him, he had an immediate meltdown.  We couldn't decide how to handle the situation and finally decided to really just acknowledge his fears and let him dictate how to move forward.  I'm reading this book titled "The Connected Child" and it's geared towards parenting adopted children and/or children with trauma history.  The authors really advocate for disarming the fear response in kids that come from these situations, so we decided to give it a shot.  We talked with Little Man about what would help him to feel safer and gave him a couple of ideas that we had thought of.  I thought giving Little Man a jug filled with ice water to "freeze" the snake was fabulous, but I got a seven-year-old eye roll in response.  Thankfully, Cori came up with a GENIUS story about how old time cowboys used to lay their ropes around them while they slept because snakes wouldn't cross the rope because the snakes' bellies are too sensitive and the rope would hurt them.  I have no idea if it's true or not, but he swears it is.  Either way, it was convincing enough for Little Man to at least listen and not dissolve into tears right away.  I have to say, it turns out that Cori can be a really convincing liar storyteller, which has worked out great when you need to make something believable for the kids-thankfully at this point I can tell when he's trying to do this to me!  We told Little Man that he could sleep one more night on the floor with Little Miss, then he would move to the couch the next night, and then we would talk about him moving back down to his room the night after that.  We talked up the rope idea all day today and told Little Man he would get to pick the rope he thought would be best.  Before we went to the store, he had decided on a black rope, since the snake would not be able to see it and then he could trick the snake by having the rope laid out.  When we got there, he ended up choosing some regular old jute, which is actually pretty scratchy.  I told him he would have to wear gloves before he could lay it out so he wouldn't hurt his hands and when we got home, we made up his bed on the couch and then laid the rope out all around it.  I have to say it worked like a charm!  It might have also helped that we got up early, and the kids didn't get to bed until almost 10, since we went out to dinner to celebrate Pops' birthday tonight.  Whatever it was, Little Man was sound asleep and didn't have any trouble tucking in for the night.  Thank goodness for creative husbands and trusting little boys!



My Little Man sacked out on the couch.  The rope is on the floor and he has his "lucky" quilt with him.

**UPDATE**
We put Little Man in his room last night with ZERO problems.  Yay!!  It worked!