Scared and overly empathic

Hi all,

Have been wanting to write this post for a while now. Partially from Lady Zaidie's post about her not being sure if DS is sad / has empathy.

DD (almost 3) is way the opposite of this. She refuses to listen to stories / watch TV where even minor bad things happen (even if they are resolved at the end). As an example we have a Grug book where his trolley gets away from him and runs down a hill. DD begins to cry at this point, even though at the end his groceries end up in the cellar.

You also can't do that fake crying thing as a game (eg. don't crash my house down I'll cry). She ends up bawling and you have to comfort her.

She has fears about going to creche at my gym as she is worried they'll have the TV on and ends up crying if something comes on she doesn't like.

I think she is starting to have nightmares too - night waking has started again after a long absence. Last night she was up at 4:30 worried that her thumbs were going to break or fall off. She is still carrying that fear around today and is holding her thumbs inside her fists. I have tried checking if there's anything physical going on, but I think it's just a fear.

I could go on - irrational fears about certain toys, etc.......

Any thoughts / advice / ways to desensitise her a little?