Sweet Success
This past weekend we moved Ellie into her new bed: A big girl toddler bed. We were nervous about the transition since Ellie is such a great sleeper. Nevertheless, we have a new baby on the way in October and only two cribs. It was always the plan to eventually put Ellie and Hanna in the same room, we have just been putting it off.
The transition has been really smooth so far and I thought it would be fun to share what we did. I don’t think of this as advice, just sharing a fun success in our house.
We had a nice time rearranging the room as the girls made a mess of things around us. They of course thought it was quite fun to throw all the books on the ground and sit on them. Once we found the right set up, we introduced Ellie to her new bed. It immediately became the new “trampoline!” I tried not to make too big a deal of it and instead focused on teaching Hanna how to get off the bed safely. She picked it right up and has been doing great.
At bedtime, I wanted things to be as normal as possible. We stuck to our routine until it was time to talk about the bed…
Do you ever have those rare parenting moments when you actually come up with a good idea? Well, today just happened to be my day. We had gone to a birthday party earlier and Ellie was talking all day about presents. I thought this would come in handy to put a small reward system in place for Ellie’s new bed. I decided to tell Ellie that each time she slept in her bed and stayed in bed until I got her she would get a present. I have a whole bin of big girl books in the garage that we stashed away for when Ellie was old enough to handle books with paper pages. This was my idea for “presents.”
The first night, we told Ellie that if she stayed in her bed all night she would get a present when she woke up. The next morning, she woke up and called for me. I went in to get her and she immediately asked nicely for her present. She was thrilled to see that I had a wrapped present for her! She was even more overjoyed when she saw it was a book. We had to read it three times in a row.
We have had absolutely no problems (only 5 days) with the bed so far. She is eager to sleep in her special new bed and really enjoys opening a new book each morning or after her nap.
I wanted to share this story because I know there are so many unknowns in parenting and so many opportunities to feel like you are failing. Yes, we are using rewards to praise Ellie’s behavior. I know not everyone would agree, but it is working. And it feels SO good to have a success with Ellie that she is excited about and we can be excited for her. I think that as parents we need more opportunities to celebrate our victories together.
I hope you are encouraged by my story to share a few successes of your own!
