For the past few months…I’ve had an unwelcomed nighttime visitor in my bed. He’s hot (as in emits heat); a bed hog and he snores. And he’s demanding. He needs his Pablo and Uniquia; his blankie and his glass of water. As ridiculous as it sounds – I actually just found it easier to let him float into bed with me – I’d get up; grab his paraphenalia and go back to sleep. But I knew it was wrong and that I’d pay later.
Monday night. It started. I’M TAKING BACK MY BED!
I thought about how to do this – I opted for the bribe. My partners in crime? A calendar, stickers and a promise of a DVD. The deal is each night he stays in his own bed all night, he gets to put a sticker on the calendar. Four nights in a row equals a new DVD after school on Friday.
It is going SWIMMINGLY. He’s so proud of himself and so excited for Friday. The best part? I feel rested – and far less claustrophobic when he barnacles himself to me the rest of the time.
My question is this? Do I do a few weeks of the DVD reward and hope it just morphs into regularity or do I make it a one-week deal? Hmm…consequences that I haven’t thought of. Was I insane to go for the bribe? Thoughts??
*maybe if he’s stop sleeping in the effing car at 5:30pm!!!*
if you think one week will work, great. Then there’s an end. If not, I’d say maybe go for smaller rewards each week until they are tiny treats he’d get anyway and might start to lose interest in.
I have a wonderful family consisting of myself and my three beautiful boys.
I went from having a family bed which broke up when we got a new place.
I started to wean the fellas from sleeping with me by imposining a time limit on how long they had to stay in their own beds before a night visit could happen. This allowed me to get a few uninterupted hours of sleep and also allowed that the children to feel welcome in my bed as always.
Sara,
Do whatever works for both of you. Seems like this is working without any downside so far. Go with it. Adjust when necessary. That’s all you can do.
You rock!
don’t worry, i don’t know any teenage boys who sleep with their mothers! 🙂
(ducks away from the flying shoe)
Yes, I do use bribes, not proud of it, but hey it works…
From one of the very few things that I remember from my school days… rewards work best when there they are not on a schedule (variable ratio schedule, and yes I looked that up)… that is you might get a treat for two night straight, and then it might not happen again for ten days, and then maybe three days after that.
So certain behaviours mean absolutely no reward, but the correct behaviour means maybe reward this time, so hopefully this will encourage the kid to always do the ‘correct’ behaviour, in hopes of this time is the time that the reward comes. And, if you space the rewards far enough, maybe he will forget about getting a ‘prize’ completely.
According to my teacher, it is basically how slot machines work. You keep putting money in (behaviour you want) and hoping that this time you will hit the jackpot, but you know that if you do not put the money in(behaviour you do not want), there will be no reward for sure.
Girl, whatever works for you…I would give it a week and see how it goes and then don’t mention it to him and just continue with the stickers…he’s to0 young to remember that he has to wait until Friday….I told my 6 yr old that if he gets 10/10 on his spelling test we would go to McDee’s – well he got it 6 weeks ina ROW!! The first Friday we went to McDonald’s the second Friday it was a family restaurant and after that I said “NOTHING” …… my problem was I started to0 big in the beginning!!! Now I told him it’s his job to do the best he can…and he was good with that.
I’m for the one-time-only thing… and YAY for getting your bed back!!