Taking back the night (one pony at a time)

Peanut has always been a fantastic sleeper, something for which her father and I are tremendously grateful. If we were the type, we would get down on our knees every night and thank the dear lord that of all the early parenting experiences we could have had, bad sleep has typically not been one of them.

However, we've started noticing a problem in the last little while. Particularly after an illness or some other disruption, Peanut will start waking up in the night, almost purposefully, to get us to come in to her room. The disruption itself never lasts very long, and all we have to do is go in and turn her music box on and put her blanket over her again, and she goes back to sleep, but after years of her being very efficient at putting herself back to sleep (we're talking 30 seconds of crying max before she grabs her bunny and drifts off) we're finding this regression a wee bit trying because we know that the waking up has very little to do with the needing of comfort and everything to do with the habitualness of it. (I should make it clear here that we are not talking a dirty diaper, night terror or other waking that most definitely requires comforting. We're talking the waking up, whingey half-cry that toddlers do just to get you to move. Entirely different than true nighttime neediness.)

So, we've instituted a plan here. If Peanut sleeps throught he night she gets one pony sticker (yes, those ponies.. my daughter is nothing if not a true girly girl... but that's a whole other post) to put on her chart. After three stickers she gets one of these:

(Cheap parent that I am, I picked up a couple of boxes of these on clearance and I totally opened the package so she can earn ONE of these at a time.) She's done really well so far, earning herself the first pony after the first night to get the ball rolling, and subsequently earning herself two more stitckers (although she missed one last night). She actively talks about earning her "poh-ee sticker, POH-EE STICKER!", and couple of times she woke up over the last few nights you could hear her grumbling to herself before settling down again.

Thus far our first foray into the bribery reward system appears to be working swimmingly - indeed, its been even better than we could have anticipated. What about you? Do you use rewards to influence behaviour? Have I succumbed to the dark side of parenting? If so, it seems to be nice and cozy over here - with a lot more sleep.