Choices - A Follow Up

I wrote a few weeks ago about some difficulties in getting our children to sleep. Actually, there have been a couple posts about it...I guess this is just the season we're in. Anyway, I found something that really works that I thought would be a good follow-up, and hopefully worth the share.

Katie and I have based a lot of our parenting style on the Love and Logic books, which seem to be doing pretty well for us. One of the big things that they preach is giving your child choices, all of which result in situations you are okay with. This is done in order to make your child feel like he or she has some degree of control of said situation, putting forth that many of our battles with the little ones are about control. So naturally, giving control away should help alleviate the problem.

We have done it with our oldest, but I didn't think the younger one was ready for it yet. However, when trying to get her to nap, it seems that the best thing that works has been to give her lots of choices during the nap time process. "Do you want this blanket or that one? Do you want your socks on or off? Do you want to lay on this side or that side of the bed?" All of these things are inane decisions, but it gives her several ways to control the situation based on a decision she has no control over: whether or not to take a nap.

I have been surprised at how well this works, even for a one year-old, and so I thought I would share. I hope it helps!