We had some pretty serious thunderstorms earlier in the week, and one hit right in the middle of nap. Our power went out several times, turning off the fan and music in the daycare nursery just as a HUGE clap of thunder appeared. Even I, the adult, was taken by surprise with the huge thunderclap.

All my kids woke screaming, and it took over an hour to calm them down because it was still storming. Since that nap, my 2.5y DCB has been waking during nap screaming his little head off. Today, he started getting worked up about nap as we were sitting down for lunch, and he was up multiple times during nap screaming fit to shake the walls.

I have been sitting down with him 1:1 and trying to understand why he is screaming, why he feels scared (I am guessing it is the fear of another storm hitting), but DCB has a pretty big speech delay (think baby babble 90% of the time), and during these attempts he just blankly stares at me. I have tried explaining that thunder can not hurt us, it's just a loud noise. I have talked about other things that can be loud and not scary, including him and his friends when they play. We even looked at the sky and saw that it was sunny before nap today.

I am not sure what to do. His mom said he is sleeping fine at home, but this is so disruptive to our nap time which is desperately needed here, and I don't know what else to do to help him through it.

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You are at the point where this can become a major problem if he gets attention for it. You have calmed him down, there is nothing more to fear so now it is time to ignore and sleep train.

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