~Three rules~

Oh love a duck! He he

A friend at work says that all the time and it tickles me, so I thought I would share it with you tonight.

Our kids struggle with bedtime. I don't know if you parents out there struggle like we have. From the first week my daughter struggled going to sleep. Rachel was just about 2 when she figured out how to climb out of her crib, however she didn't climb, but used her body weight to force herself over the edge to slam on the floor. After two nights of that we decided to take make it into a toddler bed. I was afraid she was going to hurt herself or break something.Well, the little stink was now free to get up anytime.

We used the SuperNanny trick of putting her in her bed shutting the lights off and then sitting by the door and slowly sneak out. We did that for about 6 months and we would end up falling asleep on the floor...clearly not working. Then we got a brilliant idea. The baby gate! We tucked her in and turned out the light and put the baby gate up. Well that was just like the crib, but with a little more freedom for her to get up and turn the light on to play with her toys. When she got bored she would flop herself over the gate. The next brilliant idea...Two baby gates! One on top of the other. We found that to be a bad idea. Rachel scaled both gates and flopped herself over.

Eventually, we all figured it out. Hubby came up with three brilliant rules.

1) Stay in your bed.
2) Be Quiet.
3) Go to sleep.

We have found that summing up behavior expectations to three rules saves so much arguments, fits, and makes it clear cut when it comes to discipline.

Try it out!