First night

So we started Ben on his new sleeping pattern last night and he did great! I only had to go and put him back in his bed twice, but I did have to lay with him until he fell asleep, which wasn't very long. It was hard to get him to just lay down in his bed the first time to get him to just go to bed, he gets scared in his room, even though we have lights in there and he was clutching to his stuffed animals and I had to give him a flashlight and lay down with him, but I was impressed with how well he did. Hopefully we will get to a point where I won't have to lay down with him and he will just go back to sleep instead of getting up. But we made a rule chart for him to follow and hung it up in his room and whenever he followed the rules the whole night he got a star sticker on his chart and then got a special reward from the reward basket that I put together for him. So he got a reward this morning! Hope it all keeps going good! I love him so much but it is so nice to have our bed to ourselves!

My new challenges...get ready to follow me!

ok, so I have been inspired from all the things that I have been pinning on pinterest over the past few months to be a better and more engaging mother! I have a plan to get Ben off the t.v. and into more challenging and learning experiences. Also to have him play more and just to get away from so much t.v. So I have to admit, the t.v. is the biggest crutch I use for a babysitter, not gonna lie. I use it for everything, when I need to clean the house, doing homework, to tired to play, it gets used for it all. My kids are addicts, and it is my fault! So here is the challenge, to get Ben off the t.v. and into more learning activities and more play! He does have a few things he does need to learn before he starts school in 2 years, which is not that far off, I need to be his preschool teacher, not just a mom. So the goal is to get him down to 1 hour of t.v. a day and fill up the rest of his days with me teaching him new things, like his letters which I know that he is far behind with learning them, he know how to spell his name, the short version (BEN) and I want to just be a better MOM!!
So here it goes, I have till his bday, Sept. 5th, to get him on track and me to feel better about how I am raising him to be! I mean, yes, he already is super smart, anyone who knows him knows that, but I know that I can be doing more to do better with him.

Here is the other challenge that I am going to work on not just with Ben but with David too. They are both not great sleepers, Ben more than David, but Ben has been bad since day 1. Of course, this comes back to me too, doing all the things they tell you not to do "don't let him sleep in your bed" (did that) "don't let him fall asleep with a bottle" (oh do that with David) "Let him cry himself to sleep" (oh tried that and failed miserably) So here goes this challenge, to get Ben to sleep in his own bed and fall asleep in his own bed.

I guess you need the history. Yes Ben slept in our bed til he was 9 months old, then we got him to fall asleep while crying himself to sleep after that, then he did pretty good til he got promoted to the big boy bed where he crawls into bed with us every night, without fail, and this has been going on for about a year, year and a half. And we allow it, cause we are to darn tired to do anything about it. But I am taking a stand, no more terrible sleepers!! My challenge is to get Ben to fall asleep in his own bed, oh the other part is that he always has to fall asleep on the couch with the t.v. on. So we are now going to get him to fall asleep in his own bed and stay in there throughout the night! No no not going to be easy, but it is going to happen!! Mostly with David we just need to get him to fall asleep without the bottle! I have a system, a fool proof system that will work, and of course you know it is going to involve rewards, won't get no where without rewards! So here we go.....