I
have a horse crazy 8 1/2 year old daughter with a very active imagination.
When she was 4 years old, she started having horrible nightmares.
I tried everything. She wasn't sleeping well at all and when she
was, she would wake up crying and it would take a long time to get
her back to sleep, but even then, it would be only a few hours before
the next nightmare would occur. This was our pattern for almost
9 months. I conferred with our pediatrician (whose answer was it
must be something that she was seeing on TV, the worst of which
was Barney), I called my mother and a friend who had 6 children,
I called my sister and a nurse who I was acquainted with. No one
had any clues how to fix it, one of the few suggestions I did get
was to get her a puppy to sleep in her bed with her...we tried that,
but the puppy cried all night. The worst part about the whole ordeal
was that my happy, cheerful, loving and beautiful daughter had become
this crying, clinging, back talking, and very unhappy little girl.
I began searching the Internet for answers and through one of my
searches came across the Nightmares. I decided to give it a try
and had one over-nighted. The day Moonbeam arrived changed everything.
We read the story that came with her and the healing began. That
first night, she slept all the way through and within about a week
and a half, she was back to her old self. I was so grateful to have
my daughter back and to have seen an end to the nightmares. She
slept with Moonbeam every night for over 2 years and slowly we began
to recognize that it was time for Moonbeam's retirement. For Christmas
when she was 7, she received Comet. It was difficult for her to
transition from Moonbeam, but no nightmares. Unfortunately, Comet's
lifespan was short (within less than 7 months, her light went out).
I began the search for a new one only to find out that there were
none to be found. The nightmares started again and much to all of
our dismay, sound sleep became a thing of the past. As the weeks
wore on, I looked at and contacted endless websites that said that
they had the Nightmares, no luck. I called over 20 stores around
the country; all had the same answer, none available right now,
try after the holidays. I had spoken to the people at Wild Heart
Ranch and they had been very helpful in giving me phone numbers
to try, so I decided to make one last desperate plea. By the time
of my last call, my daughter was crying all the time at the smallest
things, she was not happy, even when on the back of her own pony,
she was having trouble with her school work and we were all just
plain old miserable. So I called Wild Heart Ranch one more time
and started the conversation with "Maybe you don't care or
can't do anything about this, but I have to tell you what is happening
in my home...” I told the very nice woman on the phone all
about my daughter and her troubles. Much to my surprise and delight,
she did care and she promised to do whatever she could to help us.
Just as I was about to give up hope that she had actually remembered
the pathetic call from a very tired mom, Moonbeam showed up at my
door. And once again everything changed, it took a little longer
for her to recover this time, but within 2 weeks, she was finally
back to her old self. I cannot thank you all at Wild Heart Ranch
enough. The first night that Moonbeam was here, I went in to check
on my daughter before I went to sleep and kissed her cheek, she
stirred a little bit. As she rolled over to find a comfy spot, she
reached for Moonbeam's hoof and rubbed it with her thumb, felt the
switch that gives her so much comfort and fell into a nice deep
sleep.
