Wednesday 28 October 2009

Small child + Stickers...






Well rather on her than on me as she decided to do yesterday whilst Phoebe was having her swimming lesson. She decided I needed a Waybuloo inspired make over, as did the glass display cabinet and the swimming pool (a hydrotherapy type one, not sunk into the floor). What inspires small children to stick stickers, well everywhere?

We are not dissing the wonder of stickers in our house though. 2 reward charts have proved very useful in this house. They only have 4 things they have to complete daily to get a gingerbread man before bed, they are to eat their breakfast nicely, eat their lunch nicely, eat their dinner nicely and then to help tidy up. Phoebe is a faddy eater, and on occasion a non eater. However blow me down with a feather but the threat of not getting a sticker has inspired her to eat 3 meals a day for the last week and a half and they positively LOVE helping to tidy up now! Now when I say "meals" what I actually mean is a very small limited variety of food. Dippy eggs, sausages, marmite sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese on toast (only when microwaved as "it not right" if I do it in the grill), pizza, chicken nuggets, baked beans, toast, apples oh and of course any variety of pudding or sweet thing. The plan is once I have her eating meals then the sticker reward will graduate onto trying new foods, first off for "kissing" the food and then for eating it. Hopefully the slowly slowly routine will encourage her to widen her pallet without a full on battle of wills over food. Well that is the theory anyway!

Hopefully it will have the bonus side effect of getting Clara to eat nicely too, she has a wider pallet than her sister but she is a pest for food dodging (she tries to feed it to others instead with a very firm "EAT IT!"). She has been pretty well inspired by the sticker chart too, today she didn't eat her tea so Paul ended up being chased through the house with shrieks of "maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan", she was hideously over tired mind so we whipped her into bed as fast as we could. Poor love was excited after their bestest buds Rowan and Lexi came to play. Still they all had fun and it was fab to catch up with my friend too!

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