My 20 month dd has never been scared of thunder. She has even sat and played through tornado weather with absolutely no problem. Then sometime last week we had a particularly intense storm, and she was watching it through the window as she usually does. She likes the lights. :) While she was watching, a tree across the street was struck by lightening. Big flash, and BIG boom. It startled DD so bad that she tipped her chair over backwards. The storm continued, and she didn't seem to have any issues then...
Now it is storming again. My DD is freaking out to the point that she is shaking and crying. The storm isn't even that bad, we can only hear thunder every 5-6 minutes or so, and its not too close. She is still scared though. I have tried doing what we used to do, which is to clap and cheer for the thunder and lightening, but she does NOT want anything to do with that! I also tried distracting her with toys, books, etc. but that didn't work. I put in a movie with lots of musical scenes, hoping that would drown out the thunder and keep her distracted, and while it has helped she still freaks out every time she hears the thunder. I don't know what else to do for her. I can't put her down at all, or she has a complete meltdown. If she was doing it just for attention, I would ignore it but since she is so terrified I can't bring myself to abandon her. I can calm her down a little in between thunder claps, but after each new one she completely loses it and I have to start over. Any ideas of how to keep her calm?
with my daycare, we cheer with each round of lightning & thunder. Seriously, we dance & cheer! It really helps the kids....well, that's after the first few times when they looked at me as if I were crazy!
Give her some pom-poms, some noisemakers, & make it fun.....
Tell her that God/Angels/Giants are bowling and when there's a big lightening, someone got a strike. Ask her what she thinks the score is. Maybe even get her a little indoor bowling game. My DD is nervous about storms (we camp and every year one blows up and if you think it's scary in a house...!) so we started the Angels Are Bowling stories and we talk about the teams, etc.
Well its her age and this is all developmental and it happens.
Maybe use some white noise?
At varying age junctures, babies/kids get scared of random things.
But its normal.
My kids went through that too.
Or, just hold her in your lap... and comfort her.
Because things like this really DO scare young children. Even if it may not make sense to us adults.
Babies/toddlers, do not have "deductive reasoning" nor reasoning ability...and it is not yet developed.
It is also really tweaking her... so thus, she probably gets overly stimulated. So I would not use anything that is MORE overly stimulating to "calm" her down... otherwise, it will be just keying her up, even more on top of what she is already feeling and processing.
Try something calm... a calm show or music. Instead.
My daughter just turned 2 in December so when we were in Thunder type weather she was about your daughters age and there were times when it would BOOM really loud that she would get scared so we started to make a game out of it and started singing and dancing around to AC/DCs Thunderstruck
She loves it - she gets right up and starts singing along and it has her laughing (probably because we look so dumb) but it works
Good Luck
My MIL gives her dog Benadryl during a storm to calm him and help him sleep (vet reccomended); I wonder if the doctor could reccomend something for this too, more like an herbal. I know it does not handle the now, but watching lightning strike that close is freaky and I, a full grown adult who lived in tornado alley for 7yrs would be scared after seeing that.
Turn the TV up loud enough she can't hear it?
I am not really sure, most of my kids got scared at the point where they understood the danger so all I had to do is explain how random lightening is and the small chance they would ever see it strike.
If you feel it is really serious (which shaking and crying would qualify), I would do this. Get a cd or iPod download of thunder noise. Play a game that she likes and have it on super quiet. Casually say "thunder is not too bad right now, let's keep playing". Then little by little, turn up the volume. As it gets louder, say very calmly "it's a little louder now, maybe we need to hug (her favorite stuffed animal)? Give it a hug, but keep playing the game and model for her a very calm attitude about it. Don't let it get scary loud, just enought that she might start to freak but is easily calmed by your calm demeanor or a hug from the stuffed animal. She's pretty little to rationalize what thunder is. But she most definitely takes her cues from you. And mostly importantly you are controlling the level of thunder by volume and keeping her distracted by the game, while showing her it's ok to want to hug the bear. This may take some time since she is already conditioned to be scared. So if she is clingy and scared and wanting to be picked up, do it. Don't go on and on about why it's ok. Just hug her, hold her, and keep calm. She will start to freak a little less. But it does take a little time to undo. Good luck. BTW, I'm with her- I hate thunder!! :-)
When I was little I was told that thunder was just God bowling up in heaven! Maybe you can take her bowling and let her get used to the sounds in the alley!
I don't blame your daughter. She's not even two! She had no idea a tree (or part of a tree) could be hit like that! Good gracious! What has happened to her world!? She's wondering what might happen next. Don't let anybody say that toddlers don't have imaginations.
This is going to be inconvenient, to say the least, but I think I would go ahead and sit with her. (Hopefully, Daddy and even Grandma or Grandpa could spell you sometimes if they're around.) I would tell her that even though storms can hurt trees, most of them don't - but that I'll be right there to take care of her no matter what happens. Get yourself a cup of tea, and her a cup of milk, and sit. Don't try to distract her, but maybe you could sing, or softly tell her stories.
It will take some time, but your calmness in the midst of the storm will eventually teach her to be calm. Eventually.
You don't have to tell your little girl this, but just for perspective for you: one of the classic stories at my house was the time my mother's family went through a cyclone. She hadn't been born yet, but three of her older brothers were there, along with my grandparents. The cyclone blew them right out of the house. They weren't hurt, but the house was totaled. (This was in East Texas in the 1890s.) My mama said that after that, until the 1940s when she died, whenever my grandmother heard thunder she headed for the cellar.
