Bed Time

Ella's a great kid.  I am pretty sure I say that in just about every other post but, she really is.  Even as a baby she was just really easy.  She slept through the night almost right off the bat, she's always gone down for naps easily, she wasn't a climber, and she potty trained in a weekend.  It's always just been easy.  

When we moved into our house, Ella was not yet two.  I was having a hard time deciding if I should move her from her crib to a big girl bed at the same time we moved her from the apartment to a big house.  I talked to a lot of my friends that had kids and they all said to just make the switch all at once.  I was still uncertain but, I did it anyway.  It was a really big mistake.  I should have waited until she adjusted to the new house and waited until she was ready to sleep in a big girl bed.  

We moved her to the big bed and it was just a really big struggle so, we put the crib back up...well, that was a struggle too.  So, for the last year Ella has been sneaking into our room at about one in the morning.  She would wake up run into our room, climb into our bed and get as close to me as she could.  For awhile, I enjoyed this - I love cuddles and I love her cuddles BUT she is unable to sleep in one position.  We tried taking her back to bed (most nights I would be too sleepy to) we tried telling her that she's too big to sleep in our room.  Nothing really seemed to work for a long period of time.  I was starting to get really frustrated and we (Ella and I) were losing a lot of sleep.  This meant that we were having a lot of grumpy mornings.

About a month or so ago we were all at the mall and passed Build A Bear.  We had taken Ella in there before so that she could give Bapo and air bath.  She saw the store and wanted to go in and give him a bath.  As we walked into the store, she saw a Panda and she fell in love.  She told me over and over how much she liked the Panda.  We proceeded to give Bapo a bath and left.  As we were leaving the mall, we saw a little girl that had the Build a Bear Panda dressed as a Princess.  Ella got SUPER excited and talked about princess panda.  

That night I was thinking about it and thinking about how excited she was about it.  I talked to Devin about it and told him I thought maybe implementing a sticker chart in the effort to earn Princess Panda might be a good way to get her to stay in her bed.  The next day I told Ella about the sticker chart.  We told her that each night she stayed in her bed like a big girl, she'd get a sticker the next morning.  We explained that when she got to ten stickers we would go get Princess Panda.  I honestly wasn't expecting it to work.  Three nights in I was in shock. Ella earned her Princess Panda and has stayed in her bed ever since.  

We still continue to praise her each night she stays in her room but, we're not having to tell her every night that she needs to do it.  I must say, since the change I have been having way more dreams.  I think it's safe to say all of us are much happier :)