It wasn’t the dark.
It wasn’t monsters under the bed.
It wasn’t even the vacuum, though that got a good scream or two.
The first thing my daughter was terrified of was flies.
Or as she named them, with complete toddler confidence: “shoo flies.”
She thought that was their actual name. Not a command. Not a phrase. Just… the name of the tiny buzzing villains that had suddenly taken over her imagination.
And oh, how they scared her.
Not just during the day, when she’d flinch and cry if one dared to come near her snack.
But at night. Every night.
She’d wake screaming, “Shoo flies! Shoo flies!” thrashing in her crib like she was fighting off invisible wings. I’d run in, scoop her up, and her little body would be shaking so hard it felt like holding a bird that had flown into a window.
It went on for weeks.
The same nightmare, the same trembling.
I’d rock her in the dark, whispering, “No flies here, baby. You’re safe. Mama’s got you.”
And the moment I’d feel her go limp with sleep, my whispers would turn to a mother’s desperate prayer, repeated over and over. A mother’s version of Psalm 23. “You will fear no evil, for God is with you. He will comfort you.”
And each time, I’d feel it. How small the world still is for her, and how huge even the tiniest threat can feel. A creature she could swat with her hand had the power to haunt her dreams.
It made me realize: fear starts earlier than we think. Not the “big kid” kind. The kind we dismiss. But the raw kind. The kind that says, “Something I can’t control feels too close.”
So I sat with her through every “shoo flies” nightmare. Held her until the shaking slowed. Reminded her, again and again, that she wasn’t alone. Mama’s got you.
But that’s not always enough.
Sometimes you can be the safe place and the fear still follows them anyway.
After weeks of nightmares, it started following her into the day. And soon it was everywhere.
In the woods she used to love.
At bedtime.
In the quiet way she pressed into me and whispered, “I’m scared.”
I had been trying not to make it bigger by naming it. But fear does not stay small just because we refuse to look at it.
So I stopped trying to shield her from the fear.
I helped her name it.
I let her tell me about the flies.
And then one night, she fell asleep in my arms. Curled into me. Heavy with exhaustion.
And for the first time in weeks, she slept.
Her nightmares were gone. But the lesson stayed: when our children’s fears feel bigger than life, we don’t always need to solve them. Sometimes they just need us to be there, steady and sure, a safe place to name it, until the buzzing quiets down.
Have you seen your little one latch onto a fear that seemed small to you, but enormous to them?
