Moving Ariel to her own room

After co-sleeping with us for 4 years, Ariel was suddenly interested to have her own room and to sleep with her younger sister in a separate room. On seeing that Ainsley is able to sleep through the night, we decided it's time to move the kids to their own room.

We did all that were suggested in magazines and books: she chose her own comforter and bedsheet, we put pictures of her favourite princess on the walls. However, after the novelty of a new room wore off, she would either want to sleep with us in the middle of the night, or would insist hubby to lie down with her until she falls asleep.

Then we heard from another mommy how she used a reward system to get her 4 year-old boy to sleep on his own. I'm someone who is never for reward system unless absolutely necessary. I just feel that giving rewards is almost like bribing a child. However, hubby came up with such a brilliant idea of a reward chart that I absolutely have to share this.

1. First, we noticed that Ariel has reached an age where she is really into games and winning races.
2. Hubby did up a chart (see pic above) which each member of the family is represented by a character from her favourite cartoon at that time.
3. Each one of us have a goal that we set for ourselves. For Ariel, it's of course, to sleep on her own in her room. For Ainsley, as she is not able to set goals for herself yet, we set it for her: keeping her toys after playing with them.
4. For one week, whoever meets his/her goal will get a sticker. And at the end of it, the one with the most stickers will get a pressie.

Voila! Guess who win at the end of one week? It's of course, Ariel!

Through this game, values that are learnt include:
1. Goal-setting and Perserverance.
2. Helping one another out by: (a) holding each one of us accountable for the goal we set; (b) it's really touching too, to see how Ariel helped Ainsley to keep her toys when Ainsley was on the losing end.
3. Instead of a top-down goal set by parents, the goal is something the child sets for herself.

Kudos to hubby for this wonderful idea!