The Return of Soda

So for the longest time my daughter has been a night waker.  When she was little I would go in and comfort her and she would go back to sleep.  I know there are a lot of you that are going to scream "cry it out" but I couldn't let her sit in a dark room and cry.  Feel free to judge away.  So I go in and kiss her good night and she goes back to sleep.  Since she has had her big girl bed she now gets up out of bed, opens the door and comes and gets in bed with us.  If it's closer to 12, I walk her back to her bed.  If it's closer to 5 then she gets to stay since she will sleep a little later in our bed.  We cycle through night wakings.  Some months she has one or two nights where she gets up and some months she gets up every night.  Earlier this year I was at my wits end on what to do.  So I asked her.

"Babe, Why do you keep getting up and getting in our bed?"

"Mommy, there is a dog in my room."

Bewildered, I pressed on.

"What dog?"

"His name is Soda.  He comes out of the hole in my floor.  He gets in my bed with me and wakes me up."

She was 2 and about 3/4's when she came up with this little story and I have to admit when she told it my mouth dropped.  I just stared at my husband for a minute.  What?  Really?  Did she just make all this up on her own?  What do I do now?

I was a little stumped on what to do next since she has a fear of dogs.  Our neighbors dog has been a thorn in my side since she is deathly scared of him and his favorite activity is to sit by her window and bark his head off.  At first I thought she was talking about him.  I asked her to show me the hole and she brought me into her room and showed me the tiny space in between her bed and the floor.  Most kids have imaginary friends or monsters...mine has a dog.

So we played a long.  We told Soda to get out and we even brought in her Deee to help board up the hole so Soda could no longer get out.  It stayed like that for while.

Then tonight...

"Mom...Soda is under my bed again"

"What?"  I laid down and started to shout at our imaginary dog and Clover yelled at me.

"Mooooom.  Nooooo!"  She continued with "Soda is a good dog!  He watches over me at night now"

She then called him up on her bed and laid down.  "Cmon Soda.  Get up here...See Mom...He sleeps with me and I stay in my own bed".

Again I sat there completely bewildered and muttered out and "oooookay".

I'm glad that she was able to become friends with Soda.  We could use a guard dog around here!