A few weeks ago I made my little girl a reward chart for good sleeping. Since breaking her elbow she had been up most nights, and though I am used to a bit of sleep deprivation, I wanted to try and break the cycle. I have never been a fan of reward charts, not the kind that you can buy in the shops. They have long lists of things that you need to achieve and different stickers for each task. It's all a bit too military for me. They make me feel like children are something that needs to be sorted out. But still, my kids love stickers. What is it with stickers?? Olive comes running out of school every day showing me the little stickers on her school jumper. 'That one is for good tidying up', 'that one is for being a hard worker', 'that one is for the first thank you of the day'. (That last one always makes me giggle, so British...) So I thought about making my own sticker charts and they shouldn't be so rigid and strict, but more fun...
The Good Sleeping chart has been a great success. Not only in our house. Surprisingly I have sold a lot of them, via Not On The High Street, Etsy (for a downloadable chart) and to people around me. It's a very simple reward chart. You can make your own rules, set a reward together. Our reward for two whole weeks of good sleeping is a staying up late night with a midnight feast around 8pm. It works!
Today I added another chart that we used to have in our bathroom when the kids were still learning to brush their teeth properly. It wasn't nicely designed like this one, but stuck together with bits of paper. We used it until it completely fell apart. A sticker in the morning after brushing teeth, and a sticker after brushing in the evening. The kids loved it, it worked. I am hoping for a large order from Santa, because really these should be in the stockings this year, together with the new tooth brush that he always brings... Pop over to the shop if you would like to get one. The charts are laminated and they come with two sheets of golden star stickers.
