The terrible twos never really hit our household. We always said between the age of 1 and 2 was harder. We knew we wouldn’t get away with it lightly though and prepared ourselves for the threenager stage.
Well, lamb has been 3 for almost a month now and what a challenging month that’s been.
It seems he’s turned 3 and found this new confidence to expect what he wants, when he wants it. Don’t forget the huge tantrum he had in B&M car park and I wrote the post about the woman who stared.
Like every other 3 year old, Lamb has found an obsession with surprise eggs. I remember my brother and sister in law warning me about this new craze as my nephew was already hooked. Well, lamb had been sucked in too. Almost everyday he asks for an egg or to watch eggs. It’s crazy. Unfortunately there are days where I use them as a way of getting him to do simple things like get in the bloody car so I can get to an appointment on time. Yes I’m that mum.
This week I had enough of bribing with eggs, it’s costing me a fortune! So I’ve introduced a Reward Chart
I only introduced the chart on Wednesday but I already seen improvements, which I’m amazed at. Lamb has 4 sticker colours. Orange is for sleeping, purple is for eating, green is for helping and blue is for being good.
The rules are simple. Once Lamb has 10 stickers (which I will try drag out over a week or at least a few days) he gets a present, which he has decided is a surprise egg. That’s fine, they’re only 99p!
One thing Ive really been trying to crack down on is his sleeping. It’s been awful since he was 1. He’s rarely slept through the night for the past 2 years and with baby number 2 arriving very soon I wanted to tackle this problem as soon as possible.
Well this week he’s turned a corner. He’s slept through every night! We introduced a Gro Clock recently which has taken around a month to take effect. He now wakes up and tells me the clock is yellow and Mr Sunshine is awake. I’ll be writing a more thorough blog post on our experience with the Gro Clock soon. It really is an incredible product for kids who don’t sleep well. It just takes a bit of time to kick in.
Finally, I wouldn’t say we’ve seen an improvement in Lambs eating, but he’s started eating a bit of fruit again which is great as his diet is appalling. He’s always loved satsumas but because his diet is so limited he goes off them quite easily, the same goes with apples. This week he ate a number of satsumas at home and finally ate his apple for a snack at nursery. Breakthrough! I’ve asked nursery to let me know when things like this happens so I can give him a sticker on his chart.
After introducing his reward chart I’ve definitely seen an improvement in his behaviour. I have to keep reminding myself he’s only 3 and it’s not going to be a quick fix. It will take time for him to get used to and he will forget the rules every now and then. There are times I’ll say if you do this or that you’ll get a sticker and his reply is “how about now?” Meaning how about I get a sticker now! Bless him, he’s a little spoilt I think.
I’m actually really proud of Lamb this week. I just hope it continues for the rest of this pregnancy and when his baby brother arrives!
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That’s fab that he is sleeping through the night. Alice’s sleep has been really bad for a year! I hope this improved behaviour stays around x
Ah it sounds like he’s definitely on the right track, clever boy and well done you for implementing it! I’m desperate to start using a Gro Clock with Toby (more so every morning at 5am when he wakes up screaming!) but I know he’s too young yet realistically. I hope you keep seeing such positive results xx