Maya the Sleep Queen

After a few miserable weeks, Maya's sleep is finally improving. What a relief!

I made a sticker chart for Maya last week, hoping to exploit her current love affair with stickers, and told her that she could get three stickers in the morning if she went to bed "nicely" -- one on each hand and a third on her chart. Then I dragged Mike out to the huge Alfa market in Maadi and found some stickers, nice shiny ones that I thought would appeal to her. Some of them have horses and unicorns on them, some have dolphins, some are birds, and the others are hearts, stars and soccer balls.

I was honestly a bit worried that at 20 months she was too young for a sticker chart. Meaning I didn't think she got the concept of delayed gratification. Boy was I wrong. She actually wants to "play night night" constantly now so that I can give her a sticker afterward.

We introduced her to the idea with a little role play -- we told her (at a time when it was clearly not bedtime) to lie down in bed and go night-night, and then to stay in bed in order to get a sticker. Then we proceeded to very dramatically tip-toe out of the room. Then when we looked back and saw she was still lying down, we clapped our hands and gave her a sticker. She totally understood the concept.

Since we introduced the idea, she has gone to bed "nicely" every night but one. Plus, we have been able to simply sit in the bean bag next to her bed while she falls asleep on her own -- which is much better than before when she was demanding that both of us lie in bed with her for hours while she resisted sleep.

We even got to move the beanbag a little bit away from the bed, and I very sneakily moved her solid-wood bed rails so that she cannot see us while she goes to sleep. OK, so she is still popping her head up over the bed rail every few minutes at first to "check" if we are still there. But at least she is doing it quietly and then putting her head back down on the pillow to go to sleep.

We are hoping that soon we will be able to actually leave the room while she is awake, but it seems that still needs a little time. But I can hope, can't I?