A treasure box

Ever since Taylor was a newborn she has wanted to be held to go to bed. She was miserable as an infant and never slept more than 20 minutes at a time during the day unless she was being held. We have tried repeatedly over the last three years to break this cycle to no avail! At one point we thought we were doing pretty good and got as far as sitting next to the door in her bedroom while she laid on her bed. Unfortunately, this could sometimes take over an hour for her to go to bed. When the tornado came and we were left in a house with no windows or carpet (I certainly didn't want to sit on the plywood and wait for her to drift off) we ended up sitting on her bed. That's where the back rubbing came into play. (Michael never sat on the floor. He preferred to sleep in bed with her). I have tried and tried to get her to stay in her room at bedtime. That didn't work. I told her she could keep her light on and read for as long as she wanted. That didn't work. I was nearing my wits end when I decided perhaps her litle stubborness just needed a little reward. So, the other night we made a 'treasure box' out of an empty diaper box. We decked it out with stickers and put stars over it. We even went to the extreme of using glitter. What a mess (Thank you Jamie)! Since that night, the little darling has been pretty good about going to bed. I have stocked the treasure box with a few 'rewards' when special stars are earned. So far so good. Right now, she has to earn 2 special stars in order to get a reward out of the box. We keep track of these stars on a little erasable board on the fridge. We hype it up as best as we can hoping she catches on and gets excited about how well she is doing. Eventually, she'll have to get a lot more stars to get a 'reward' out of it and then hopefully she'll forget about it. So far, two stars is about as long as she can wait or she'll tell me "I don't care" and go about jumping out of bed.

The other night I was so proud of her. She didn't go to sleep right away but she did stay in the room. I'd periodically go in and check on her and she'd want her back rubbed or scratched again. (I forgot to mention, that before I leave her in the room we take a timer in and set it for how long I will rub her back. She then knows that when it goes off that I am going to leave.) It took about 45 minutes before she finally gave up but she didn't come out of the room!

It sure has been nice to not have any tears at bedtime. Yeah, it cost me some items in a treasure box but mostly they are things she needed anyway. (Have you ever had your kid excited about getting a new toothbrush or batteries for some toy?) Shh.. don't tell her otherwise!