So, the first night, he is very excited about this and asks if he can go ahead and put a check in the box since he knows he is going to make it all night. I agree. He puts a check in the box and goes to bed in his room.
And around 3 a.m. guess who crawls over my head and into my bed?
The next morning he wakes up and gets out of my bed and doesn't say a word. He comes back a minute later, sniffling. I ask what's wrong.
"Go look at my chart."
I go to his room. He has put an "X" over his checkmark.
It's like George Washington and the cherry tree. "I cannot tell a lie."
We're still trying to get to that new toy...
2 comments:
Precious.
You know, this is an area in which I am a wimpy parent. Think of evolutionary development: children have spent thousands of years sleeping in dark and dangerous locales, AMONGST other humans. To sleep alone would have been death. So, it seems to me that children's brains are evolutionarily set up to seek out other humans to sleep amongst. A child has to be bothered by sleeping alone in the darkness. The child would not know why he is bothered, yet he has to be bothered, subconsciously, all the same.
So, I am a wimp in this area. I am 100% on the side of the child. I am no moral support.
Greg, I'm with ya! We had not started trying this until recently, and he's 4 1/2, so he has been sleeping in his parents' bed for a while. We're going the gentle, reward-driven route to encourage him to sleep in his own bed, but we don't turn him away if he wants to come in our room. As for me, I have definitely "evolved" and can imagine nothing better than sleeping alone in the darkness!!
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