Sleep Training a 4 Year Old

We have always kind of known that Davie is a morning person. Which has always been bearable since he's always been a pretty darn good sleeper at night. Davie wakes up about 6:50 almost every day. It drives me kind of crazy but there is almost nothing that changes that. A couple of months ago we started doing our best to get him to sleep by 7pm as often as possible. That is a lot easier said than done because the girls I babysat often didn't leave until after 7:00 pm and to truly get your kid down or at least calmed down by 7 you really have to be on the ball by 6:30pm. That pushes up dinner and baths and everything else.  

The horrible bed and bedroom that Davie refused to sleep in.

Between about October until we came back from Idaho in March, Davie had decided that sleeping was best done in our bed. I can't say every night because there were a few exceptions (like once in a blue moon) but without fail about 99% of the time he was in our bed by about 1:00 am. It drove us nuts because he would go to bed really well and almost exactly 3-4 hours later he woke up and never wanted to go to his bed again. We originally tried just taking him back, laying down with him, locking our door, locking his door, punishment (which just lead to a LOT of screaming in the middle of the night) and many other things. Nothing worked, so instead of getting no sleep and waking up all the time we settled for only getting woken up once and letting him sleep with us.  

Now there were many times that I didn't mind because I know this won't last forever and thankfully our bed is big enough that it doesn't make a huge difference. However I did worry a LOT about this when the new baby comes. If I had two kids waking up at different times in the middle of the night, especially one who is VERY capable of sleeping through the night in his OWN bed, I might lose my mind. If we didn't let him in our bed there were many times that he would just wander around the house!  

Davie had gotten really good at sneaking up on us too, after we thought he was long asleep. We would be watching our shows together, hanging out and winding down in the evening and then he would just be standing there with NO warning. I have literally screamed in his face because he has startled me soooo bad! SOOO many times. David started getting mad at me because I would scream or yell and/or get frustrated, but seriously! Just picture the whole house is quiet and dark, you look over or go around the corner (in the dark) and a small boy is just suddenly standing there. Silent. It was creepy.  

Afterwards I would feel bad but in the moment I was just so scared and frustrated that he would NOT stay asleep that I just could not help it. That's why David usually dealt with him at that point. I just lose my patience. I mean he just lingers in the dark and stares at you! It's creepy!!! Obviously some nights were better or worse than others but I really REALLY missed him sleeping through the night. David kept blaming it on Davie being scared and while I thought that was a possible issue I didn't feel like it was THE issue. So about late January I just stopped resisting Davie's nightly invasions of our bed. After a couple of weeks of that David finally said "ok I can't handle him sleeping next to me anymore" haha David is a hotbox and so is Davie.  

Shortly after that we went to Idaho, but when we got home we promptly put a plan in motion. We bought some toys, grabbed a sticker chart and told Davie that every 5 nights he stayed in HIS bed ALL night, or at least until Daddy left for work, he could have one of those toys. 

And guess what? It worked almost IMMEDIATELY. 

I couldn't get Davie to smile so I told Macy to poke him. I was thinking in the tummy (i.e. tickle him) but she went straight for his face haha.
Now before you go thinking we were spoiling him they were twin packs of Star Wars action figures and one big dinosaur altogether I think it was like $35. The sticker chart was also 50 days worth of staying in bed, IF Davie were to have been absolutely perfect. Which was perfect. Experts say it takes about 50- 60 days to create a new habit or change a bad one. 

We split each character pack in two which broke down to be about $3. I figured you can barely get a milkshake for that plus he got to enjoy it longer. AND if he was bad I told him I would take back the toy and he would have to re-earn it. He earned those toys just about every 5-8 days with few exceptions.  

The BIG dinosaur finale prize!

 
Macy helping Davie point at his prizes.
Overall it's been great, I knew he wasn't really scared or having other problems and I felt like the experiment validated my mom hunch. He just needed the proper motivation to re-create his good habits. He has now earned all but the last big toy which takes 2 weeks to earn and he only has 2 more days to that prize. 

Gotta sneak one of the little sister in here, because hey she's been sleeping like a champ this whole time.
And that is how we have been sleep training our 4 year old. Or should I say sleep bribing? Either way we have ALL been sleeping better.

Adulting Win

I once watched a little video on Facebook that followed a young man while he posted updates on his Facebook. The gist of the video was that if he posted the truth no one liked it and if he posted something positive everyone payed attention. For example he posted that he was sad about his girlfriend breaking up with him and no one really said much and then he posted something like "Yay, I'm single" and everyone noticed. I REALLY liked this video and while I am in a totally different stage in life (marriage, house, kids) the point was clear. We share the positive and we edit the negative, in our posts, pictures and blogs. Even if we are going through a difficult time in our lives, which is unfortunate because that is when we should be sharing the most so we can receive support. 

So in order to NOT edit out the negative in my life and only share the positive, here is my rather long time coming adulting win I was finally able to experience mid February.

I feel like ever since I got pregnant I have been behind on house chores (and life but this post can't be that long). I didn't get sick per-say this time (more on that later.... maybe) but the fatigue was crippling. I was so tired! I have never been that tired before and it was not fun. I started babysitting at the beginning of September about a month after we moved in and then a month after that I got pregnant. In between all of that we had some visitors, holidays, game nights and just life. For the longest time we were just trying to clean up, organize/ unpack. I also was also not exercising, at all which of course made me feel even more crappy. Then December hit. We put up our tree, we got a TV, we set up our living room and cleaned for a game night. I was finally starting to feel like "yes! Our house is doing so great and we can do this!"

That was a Friday night. Macy got sick the next morning, thankfully it was only once, and all we had to do was clean all of her bedding and a small spot on the floor. Then on Sunday evening Davie got sick, for a full 24 hours. BUT Davie didn't just get sick. He got sick all over the carpet (as in we had to go out THAT night and buy a wet/dry shop vac to clean it up) and all over our NEW couch AND some of the couch pillows..... uuuuughhh. It was awful. We had to clean it immediately. Our couch was out of commission for several weeks until we got it cleaned professionally (totally worth the money we paid when we bought it) thank you upholstery protection plan! The carpet took forever to dry and basically we were up to our ears in laundry. To add to that later that night I got sick too. The kind of sick where you CANNOT eat anything for several hours or it just comes right up. Shakey, clammy awful. ALL NIGHT. I haven't been sick like that in YEARS. Probably about 15 years to be exact. AND The next day I had to babysit (sad face). 

So between getting sick, being fatigued, life and all our other projects I was feeling constantly behind. UNTIL the week of about February 15th. That's right. It was February and I was just barely feeling like we have hit the same level of cleanliness and organization that we had finally accomplished in December. Our computer/office room is still a disaster, but it's full of papers and things that are impossible to sort through with a small child even vaguely present (ESPECIALLY Macy), our bedroom because we don't have dressers means the clothing is out of control and our garage a LITTLE. Our garage isn't too bad though because we can park the Sequoia in there which is a HUGE car so I'm calling it an almost win. 

Anyways I guess where I am going with this is that sometimes in life I get feeling just soooo overwhelmed, like to the point of anxiety, and I feel like I will never get ahead, or even catch up, on my chores and life "things" in general. And way too often I don't think about times like the week of February before we visited Idaho. That last week at home before our trip was great. It's sooooo great to see and feel like we are making progress! I just hope we can all take a moment to enjoy our progress when it does FINALLY happen. I'm still working on getting my daily steps up (thank you Fitbit), but I'm feeling quite positive! There is a light at the end of the tunnel and to prove it I am finally posting some pictures of our house.

 Our Entrance area, to the left of our entrance is the office.

A small glimpse of the office

My super crafty office filing cabinet make over. What you can't see is how un-even the sprays turned out. Most are a matte finish (regardless of what the can said) and the top silver is nice and smooth. Oh well I still love it and the metallic sprays are useful for everything! 

 The downstairs bathroom/guest bathroom is to the right of the entrance area you can see the door. After the stairs is what they call the Drop Zone. It's basically an open coat closet that they built shelves in (not as an upgrade I might add!). It's a life saver. Of course ours only seems to looks this nice and clean about once or twice a week or when company comes :)

 The 4th bedroom is also down there, and even though it is actually pretty clean I didn't take pictures, it's really just an empty-ish room with storage items and my sewing machine.

First floor bathroom/guest bathroom.

This is my super cheap shower curtain from Kohl's, I think I ended up spending like $8 on it. I was excited haha. Mom life no? Trust me it was exciting. I had a very small budget for this room so it took me a while to get the towels and shower curtain. The flowers, mason jar and bird were nice because they were maybe $3.

Isn't that little birdie so cute? Davie found him for me at Habitat for Humanity for like .39 cents and then I painted him gold. I just love him!

 Living room if you go into the house from the entrance area.

Our amazing electronics cabinet that keeps little hands out of everything. I'm basically in love with it.

 Kitchen

Breakfast in the kitchen

Our cabinets

Looking at our front door from the kitchen area

Back to the entrance area and up the stairs.

I finally cut all the little plastic strings hanging out of our carpet and trimmed off the little paint spots left by the painters (don't even get me started).

TOYS! Of course they all leak downstairs and into the kids rooms, but I do try to round them up once a night and get kids to "clean up" completely once a week.

Kids rooms

Macy's pretty pink room

Lamp I re-did. I love gold spray paint

Craigslist dresser for $50. I wish it was a little more sturdy, but for $50 its great.

Davie's green room. I'm not in love with it. I actually kind of hate the green. I can't decide if I went to dark, or too yellow based or if I'm pregnant... etc. Either way I don't like it.

We had initially bought a red book shelf, but I exchanged it because it was just too much red and green with the red chair next to it. Again I can't decide what to do with his room now, it just seems so loud. I have always loved his decor before this and now I finally got to paint his room the color I always wanted to and I don't like it. I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually. I just don't want to/ can't afford to again paint for a while.

Old News, New Baby

I wish it wasn't so, but this is not really "new" news because I have waited so long to blog about our newest addition coming in June.

 We are having baby #3 in June (and yes, I am due on my birthday) and it's going to be another girl! I am very excited because I don't have a sister and I always REALLY wanted one. And now Macy will have one! I don't think any of us thought we would have a girl. With all those Warden genes I was worried Macy might be our one and only.

  So we are very excited. While trying to get that perfect shot for my new Facebook cover photo I also captured several others of these two goons. 

They are adorable as always. Even if I had to take a fillion pictures to get the one I needed. 

It should also be said that Davie is not disappointed, he only knows what it's like to have a sister and I'd like to think he's still a little young to really care/know, I was trying to get him to make silly faces. 

I did my best to coax them both to stick their tongues out and it didn't really work. 

Davie is the only one who can follow directions. 

Close up

Aren't their little blue and pink outfits cute??

What did I say? Two goons.

Cheer guys!

They got a little distracted

Wow the cheesiness

Both cheering, but not in the picture frame....

both cheering, but Davie's face is covered...

and both cheering but Davie isn't smiling. Oh well they are still cute.