Woman's Toddler Refuses to Enter His Room for a Month, Leading to a Wholseome Parenting Lesson About Communication

Author image for Ely Bulnes
Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Aug 18, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Welcome, mommas of the web. We all remember being afraid of something innocuous as children - your grandma's collection of porcelain dolls, the potentially possessed Furby that kept yapping without any batteries, or even a chair that cast a creepy shadow in your room at night. Those fears are long behind us as we've gained the wisdom to be scared of real things such as your toddler's tantrum when you tell them they can't wear a fuzzy Pikachu costume to the swimming pool in the summer or overbearing mother-in-laws with strong opinions of how to raise your children.

In our story today, a new mother had to put her detective skills to work over the course of a month after her toddler suddenly refused to set foot in his room. Read below to find out which innocuous household object struck terror into his heart and how relieved the family felt when they had finally solved the mystery.

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  • 01
    r/ r/BestofRedditorUpdates u/Direct-Cat... 3d Satan is not a At my wit's end. My son suddenly won't go in his room but won't tell us why
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 02
    Original Post July 20, 2024 We moved into a new house about a year ago so that my son (who turns 4 next month) can have his own room. We thought the transition would be rough but he took to his room almost immediately and have had no issues. He loved his room, has all his toys in there, bedtime routines went smoothly. Most nights he dozes off after a couple of stories and a smooch on the head. He has his nightlights and we keep his door open, even though he never mentioned being scared of the da
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 03
    Something changed on July 4th. He spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing in his room, even refusing to come downstairs for a bit. That same night and every night since, he refuses to go into his room at all, insisting on sleeping in our room. He won't go in with us holding hands, and if we're able to get him in for a second to retrieve a specific toy, he won't go all the way in and then immediately run away back down the hall. He has no problem taking a bath in his bathroom across the hall,
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 04
    We have asked him in all sorts of ways why he doesn't want to go in his room, and he'll deflect either by screaming COW BOY HAT (a la muffin) or giggle while naming every animal he can think of. We're guessing he had a nightmare at some point, but he did spend the afternoon in his room with no problem on the day this started. We're not getting anywhere here, and as a result I've been sleeping in his room while he shares our bed with my husband.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 05
    Maybe I'm looking for someone who had a similar experience with their child that can offer up some fresh ideas, or maybe I'm just venting because | miss my bed. Argh.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 06
    Edit 7/23: thank you so much for all of your great responses, ideas and stories!! I think I may have cracked the case here but now I have to figure out how to go about it. I was just grabbing something in his room around 3pm today and heard what was definitely an animal scurrying on the roof! Probably a squirrel. We have a metal roof and an exposed beam ceiling so we hear any drop of rain, but I have never until now heard an animal. This would make sense as to why he sometimes keeps naming anima
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 07
    RELEVANT COMMENTS Honey No8465 My guess is he's either scared or ashamed. Could be fireworks like others are mentioning or it could be really silly. Hopefully not a ghost. I'm thinking like he pooped in the closet, had a potty accident, vomited, broke, or spilled something. Have you torn the room apart to make sure nothing is different about it?
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77, u/HoneyNo8465
  • 08
    OOP My perception is that he seems more scared than ashamed. I've been sleeping in his room every night and checked every single corner, nothing out of the ordinary. I don't think it's the fireworks because there were no fireworks going on in the early afternoon when he was actually in his room, and either way he enjoys fireworks so much. We stayed outside all evening and watching them in both the front and back of the house.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 09
    I've kept his room as normal and welcoming as possible especially when he's taking a bath, he might crane his head around the corner to get a peek of his room but ultimately turn and run. We managed a few times to get him to walk a few steps in and grab a specific toy he wanted, but then he bolted.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 10
    Update Aug 8, 2024 (19 days later) After exactly one month, I finally figured it out! I've been busy but wanted to update because I still am so stoked he's back in his room.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 11
    A few days ago, I got my son to acknowledge a couple of his toys from the doorway, and he stepped in a little bit with encouragement. I then took the opportunity to point at objects in his room and he had a huge reaction to a marvel poster that had been hanging over his bed since we moved in a year ago. He ran to our bedroom and hid under our covers, so I took it off the wall and walked it through the hallway. I stopped at our room for confirmation and he freaked out when he saw I was holding it
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 12
    was gone. He leapt out of our bed and hurried down the hall to his room and jumped in excitement that "EVIL FACE IS GONE!!!" He then screamed in excitement about his Mario kart bed, tossed my pillow off, threw his Mario pillow on and tucked himself in! I was so ecstatic I danced around with him the rest of the night singing "NO MORE EVIL FACE". We played with all the toys he missed He slept in his room that night and has since been spending even more time in his room playing by himself. He bring
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 13
    To those who are curious, it was a marvel framed poster with like 100+ superheroes and villains. He had always named even some of the more obscure characters (my husband is a comic book guy and passed on this knowledge). Im not sure which character scared him in particular but I theorize it was either m.o.d.o.k. Or ego the living planet. I didn't stop to have him point out which was the evil face.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 14
    RELEVANT COMMENTS What the poster looked like A picture of the poster, 100 Marvel characters
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 15
    MARVEL ורן
    via u/
  • 16
    charmander_ann I knew it!!! Yes, Ego and M.O.D.O.K have very evil faces! Another contender could be Armin Zola OOP That one too but I couldn't remember his name tbh when my husband put it up, I felt like one day he would be scared of some of the sinister faces on it, but it just didn't click since it had always been there
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77, u/charmander_ann
  • 17
    cokakatta When my son was a baby I put mickey mouse and friends wall stickers near his changing table. He got terrified of their eyes or something and I had to remove them. When he was a preschooler, I bought him pajamas that had a polar bear face on them and its eyes were angled and fierce looking. He was scared of it. I took a sharpie and rounded the polar bear's eyes and brought his eyebrows out and down to look kinder. I was proud of myself for that one.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77, u/cokakatta
  • 18
    OOP Yup, I think it's best to stay away from eyes and front-facing heads for decor. He still has his big Mario movie poster with Mario and Luigi but their heads are turned so it's not so aggressive. Plus he loves Mario and Luigi and they're so the opposite of scary.
    via u/bananaburps, u/Direct-Caterpillar77
  • 19
    Brad Brace .3d This reminded me of the time as a kid when I suddenly got terrified of the Moon, because it began to look like a face and it was watching me. Reply 2.5k
    via u/Brad_Brace
  • 20
    JetKeel • 3d Let's be honest, M.O.D.O.K. is a complete freak. I don't blame him. Reply 2.9k
    via u/JetKeel
  • 21
    RegularGuyAtHome • 3d My parents once got me a tickle me Ernie when those tickle toys were all the rage as a kid. Ernie sat in my closet at the other end of the room and I could see his big white eyes at night. One night, Ernie started malfunctioning and, despite nobody tickling him, he'd occasionally laugh. It was terrifying.
    via u/RegularGuyAtHome
  • 22
    I took the batteries out the next day and turned him around. I was certain one day I'd wake up and he'd be at the foot of my bed laughing away. Edit: I'm really enjoying reading everyone's horror stories with toys like the mom in this Bestof. ← Reply 7.8k
    via u/RegularGuyAtHome
  • 23
    chickpeas3 3d Reminds me of Furbies. I hate them. All my friends had them, and whenever they had sleepovers, I'd almost always get woken up by a Furby talking to itself in a closet or wherever it had been shoved. I'm a very light sleeper, so it was always me being jolted awake by the Furbies while everyone else got to snooze right on through the creepy, possessed toy talking to itself. 248
    via u/chickpeas3
  • 24
    peter095837. 3d the lion, the witch and the audacit--HOW IS THERE... This was cute! I remember my mother had a painting in the house that had a face that used to scare the Oh those memories. ... Reply out of me. 3.7k
    via u/peter095837
  • 25
    localherofan • 3d When we were little we had Wizard of Oz sheets. That was fine, except one side of the pillowcase had the Wicked Witch of the West on it. I couldn't sleep with that side up. I also couldn't put my arm under it to sleep because of the witch. 30 years later my sister said she was afraid of that pillowcase and I said hey, me too, and my mother couldn't believe we spent so many years being afraid of our sheets and not telling her. Reply 336
    via u/localherofan
  • 26
    Funkyluckyducky22 • 3d My sister once bought me a nutcracker (yes like the ones at Christmas time) and I got so scared of it while trying to sleep that I threw it on the floor and the head broke off. I then hid it under the couch cushions in the living room and cried lol ... ← Reply 320
    via u/Funkyluckyducky22
  • 27
    Chaos-Pand4 • 3d When I was... pretty close to the same age... I had a Gremlins poster on the wall. I can't find a picture of it... but it was Gizmo in the center ... surrounded by all the gremlins. That was scary. So my parents cut the poster up... got rid of the Gremlins, and had just Gizmo.
    via u/Chaos-Pand4
  • 28
    But THAT was scary because even though Gizmo was CUTE and FRIENDLY and entirely unthreatening... it was a guilt by association thing. He reminded me of the Gremlins, whether they were on the wall or not. So Gizmo had to go too. Sorry Gizmo. Reply 832
    via u/Chaos-Pand4

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