Mission for Phoebe to Sleep in her Bedroom

Phoebe has always slept in the bed with us. I was 6 months pregnant when Hurricane Katrina hit. We lived in a hotel room for 2 months and by the time I delivered her, we were sharing a trailer with my brother and his family in St. Bernard. Eventually we moved to Kingwood, TX and had plenty of room, but Mikey didn't move in with us until he found a job here, which was a year and a half later. So being here in the house alone with Phoebe, I was always worried that I wouldn't hear her if she woke up crying. We got her a beautiful bedroom set, but when the time came, I worried myself sick thinking I wouldn't hear her. So I moved her in the bedroom with me. Once Mikey was able to move in with us, he had lost out on spending time with her for a year and a half! Of course he drove up every single weekend (we're talking 700 miles round trip!), but it still wasn't enough. So he wanted to keep her in the room with us, which was fine by me.

Well it became habit, but then we began to realize it was probably not the best thing for her. She needed to learn that big girls sleep in their own bed. So we are working on that (started about 2 weeks ago). We got a velcro chart with stars and each time she sleeps in her bed, she gets a star. She loves rewards so this is working out pretty well. The first goal was 3 stars and she gets to choose an award. We gave her options and she chose a family outing for ice cream. So once she got to 3 stars, we went out for ice cream after her gymnastics class. Then we took down those stars and changed the goal to 5 stars and she chose a prittiful (Phoebe's word = it's pretty and beautiful together) new dress, then she changed it to new shoes and now that she reached the 5 stars, she has changed it to a new movie. So it looks like we'll be hitting Blockbuster today! But it's definitely working out! She does come to our bed in the middle of the night, but it's fine... baby steps! I'm thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful, good hearted child! We really couldn't ask for anything more. =)