Mom is at wit's end; 'My 4 yo son suddenly refuses to enter his room and we don't know why.' UPDATED 2X

When this mom is concerned about her 4 yo son, she asks the internet:

"I'm at my wit’s end. My son suddenly won’t go in his room but won’t tell us why...what do I do?"

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. Then...things got weird.

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 dark.

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, but he insists we keep the bathroom door closed. Then he runs straight from the bathroom to our room.

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.

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 I miss my bed. Argh.

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 animals in his room! Now if I’m right I just have to figure out how to go about this…

Update 1 (with comments and responses from OP):

HoneyNo8465: 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?

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.

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.

Update 2 (1 month 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.

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. I told him that it’s going in the garbage and he’s never going to see it ever again.

I hid it downstairs for later disposal, came back upstairs and told him it 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 brings up nightly that evil face is gone and his room is fun.

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.

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

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.

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.