The Sleep Fairy Pays a Visit
I read several months ago of a book titled "Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Side of the Road and Other Lies I Tell My Kids." I don't recall who wrote it, but she was a smart (and, ironically, honest) woman. The idea of always being truthful with our children may be noble but is neither convenient nor much fun.
Take, by way of illustration, the manner in which I finally got our two-year-old daughter to sleep in her bed after about three weeks of her crashing on the floor just inside the baby gate at the top of the stairs. This habit arose when another deeply addictive one--sleepytime pacifier use--was eliminated. For a while, I mostly ignored it (my initial approach to virtually every behavioral problem), but 20 days in, I figured it was time to take action (go me!). That's where the lie comes in.
The way I see it, getting children to listen is simply a matter of motivating them with something compelling. M&Ms worked when potty-training our older child; something similar would probably do the trick in this situation, I reasoned. But what? You can't very well reward a child who is still awake for falling asleep in her bed by herself. That would be putting the cart before the horse, since she'd most certainly take her reward, plop down in the hall with it and her blankie, and get comfy there. No, this had to be delayed gratification, which isn't easy to sell to a two-year-old.
That's why I decided to let the Sleep Fairy do the selling. You haven't heard of the Sleep Fairy? She flies through the homes of little girls and boys who are having trouble staying in their own beds at night, checks to see where they've fallen asleep, and then leaves something wonderful beside the beds of the children who've stayed put from dusk 'til dawn. If they wake up under their own cozy covers, the Sleep Fairy's gift will be the very first thing they see in the morning.
In our case, the "something wonderful" was a tiny bowl with three Jelly Bellys inside. Not earth-shattering to you or me, but what child wouldn't love to have a tiny bite of candy before she even has breakfast? How unorthodox! How sublime! How worth staying in bed for!
Given what went on with our eldest and his bowels today, I ought to have stayed in bed myself. Looking back, I may have fed us a bad cucumber for lunch yesterday, but whatever the case, things were messy around here. When I picked the kids up from the drop-in child care center at the gym, there was a telltale blue plastic sack tied to the strap of my diaper bag. Upon spotting it, I quickly turned my head in search of our four-year-old, who I then saw was wearing unfamiliar shorts. When I inquired into the nature of the problem he'd had, the queen of the care providers called it a "juicy toot." I thought of this as I was cleaning up the offending garments after we'd returned home and decided that I'll never look at that Wrigley's gum in the yellow wrapper the same way again.
Take, by way of illustration, the manner in which I finally got our two-year-old daughter to sleep in her bed after about three weeks of her crashing on the floor just inside the baby gate at the top of the stairs. This habit arose when another deeply addictive one--sleepytime pacifier use--was eliminated. For a while, I mostly ignored it (my initial approach to virtually every behavioral problem), but 20 days in, I figured it was time to take action (go me!). That's where the lie comes in.
The way I see it, getting children to listen is simply a matter of motivating them with something compelling. M&Ms worked when potty-training our older child; something similar would probably do the trick in this situation, I reasoned. But what? You can't very well reward a child who is still awake for falling asleep in her bed by herself. That would be putting the cart before the horse, since she'd most certainly take her reward, plop down in the hall with it and her blankie, and get comfy there. No, this had to be delayed gratification, which isn't easy to sell to a two-year-old.
That's why I decided to let the Sleep Fairy do the selling. You haven't heard of the Sleep Fairy? She flies through the homes of little girls and boys who are having trouble staying in their own beds at night, checks to see where they've fallen asleep, and then leaves something wonderful beside the beds of the children who've stayed put from dusk 'til dawn. If they wake up under their own cozy covers, the Sleep Fairy's gift will be the very first thing they see in the morning.
In our case, the "something wonderful" was a tiny bowl with three Jelly Bellys inside. Not earth-shattering to you or me, but what child wouldn't love to have a tiny bite of candy before she even has breakfast? How unorthodox! How sublime! How worth staying in bed for!
Given what went on with our eldest and his bowels today, I ought to have stayed in bed myself. Looking back, I may have fed us a bad cucumber for lunch yesterday, but whatever the case, things were messy around here. When I picked the kids up from the drop-in child care center at the gym, there was a telltale blue plastic sack tied to the strap of my diaper bag. Upon spotting it, I quickly turned my head in search of our four-year-old, who I then saw was wearing unfamiliar shorts. When I inquired into the nature of the problem he'd had, the queen of the care providers called it a "juicy toot." I thought of this as I was cleaning up the offending garments after we'd returned home and decided that I'll never look at that Wrigley's gum in the yellow wrapper the same way again.
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 9:26 PM
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