Hadley's Sleep Chart

Hadley has been a great sleeper for most of her childhood. She would go down easily around 8pm and wake between 7-8am. Those were the good days!

All of a sudden she started waking in the middle of the night. The past 6 months have been so inconsistent. We've tried a number of things and so far, nothing has worked. On the recommendation of her pediatrician we are now trying the Sticker Chart approach. Every time Hadley stays in her bed the whole night she gets a sticker. After 3 stickers she gets a reward. Her reward this time is to go on the mini-train. After a few nights I've even thrown in riding the train to feed the ducks. We talk about the chart, the reward every night before bed. She gets really excited and we talk about what color the train might be and how many ducks we'll see. Hadley says the ducks might bite her, then I promise her they won't. Then she says she'll feed them bread and throw it in the water for them.

And then she STILL wakes up at 3, 4, 5am. I don't talk to her, I just take her back to bed. Over and over and over again until she finally passes out...for an hour...and then we do it all over again until it's sunny outside. And of course as soon as I get Hadley down, it's Teagan's turn. So I'm pretty much up for the day at 3 or 4 am every day.

So the sticker chart might work if she would actually just sleep through the night, but it doesn't seem likely. This morning she asked me if we could go on the train. I told her we couldn't go today because she hasn't earned her stickers yet. A few minutes later she walked over and handed me this:

:

And says, "Mom, I got 3 stickers. Let's go!"

I wish it was that easy! But at least she managed to get me to lighten up, which can be a challenge after 4 nights of limited sleep.