Thanks for always being so candid with your life. Please don't change that because you're afraid of the land mines.

I overheard a conversation recently where somebody said they knew somebody who just lets their baby scream. Both people involved in the conversation were completely appalled. But I was thinking "What if it works? It might work." Since I don't even have my own children, of course I was too chicken to say anything.

I'm glad you decided to do what works for you AND to not be a chicken and share it with us.

Bed times always non-negotaible. No drinks of water read me a book etc. Just worked for ours.

Our first is almost 12 months and we're getting up 1-2x/night. I've read, reread the Healthy Sleep Habits book and agree with most everything (except his writing style leaves something to be desired for tired parents). She goes down early and awake, but still wakes up sometimes 11ish and 4ish, sometimes only 2ish. We feel like we've tried everything to lose the middle of night wake up - but we've only lasted 4 nights. So, thanks for your words as it encourages us to keep trying, be patient and wait her out.

You know... you do what you have to do.

I don't see anything wrong with what you did. Stressful for you, yes, but wrong? Not even a little.

Thanks for being so candid, Heather. It helps others in similar situations when you are, especially given that you have such a widespread audience.

My daughter was sleeping all night by 4 weeks. (ALL LUCK no parenting skill involved) Then she lapsed at about 6 months. I did something similar, but I started sitting on the floor...then by the doorway...the out of sight. I wanted her to know I was there, but it was not time to get up. Seems so easy looking back, but I remember silently sobbing with my hand through the crib spindles rubbing her back... sobbing on the floor outside her room fighting the urge to scoop her up. Within a week the pattern seemed to work. As she got older if she did cry in the night I would rub her back but not pick her up. So many of my friends have "family beds" ...it just didn't work for me. Even now she is 6 and the few times I have let her in my bed (sick, bad dreams) she always finds her way back to her bed. The downside of this is she NEVER falls asleep unless in a bed. Not in the car ((even when I got her up at 4:30 am to go to travel 10 hours to St. Louis...even in front of a movie if I am sick or she has a sleep over) Rereading this post I feel like I sound COLD...I feel like I have to prove how much I love my daughter and nurture her on many levels....and give in to her other ways ...but it's what worked...and I am sure my next baby won't sleep for years and everything I said will backfire!

you shouldn't be worried. like you said, whatever works. mine is 16 months now and has been sleeping the night since one month. we were really fortunate that she just did it on her own. occasionally she does get fussy and wakes up in the middle of the night or just won't go down. in those cases we do the very same thing and just let her cry it out. rarely does it go past 5 minutes before she gives up and goes to sleep. be tough! don't let them take advantage of you! :)

Our almost 13 month old sleeps at most about 3 hours at a time right now. A month ago she barely slept 1 or 2 and my wife would essentially nurse her all night long. In a lot of ways this is a result of how we chose to parent ("attachment" parenting as they say). We nursed our first two daughter until they we 18 and 24 months respectively. About 3 weeks ago we decided it was time for a change with our current little one. Now, it is soley my job to put her to sleep at night, first by walking around holding her until she fell asleep, then trying to lay her down without waking her up. Just in the last few days, I have been able to put her in her crib awake, and she flops and crawls around for about a half hour or so, then falls asleep. At first, I would go get her if she woke if it was before midnight. Now that she is sleeping a little longer, I get her if she wakes up before about 2 or 3 a.m. It's working. Slow progress, but progress, and there has been no crying involved. Thanks for letting me share our story, and thanks for sharing yours.

Was this comment too long?

Wow. Little people are scary - mine arrives in less than two months and kicks me every two minutes to remind me of this. Hopefully he picks up a sleep schedule quickly (and stops kicking me) because I doubt I could be as proactive about regulating his schedule as you and Jon were with Leta. Thanks for sharing.

I got four hours of broken sleep last night. My eight-month-old daughter was up at 4 a.m., and we left her in her crib till 5:30 a.m. She didn't stop crying, whining and hollering for more than .3 seconds. Her almost-three-year-old brother rises daily at about 5 a.m.
They go to bed between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.
We tried the "Let them cry it out" thing, but we apparently didn't have the wherewithal to follow through to a successful conclusion.
Twelve hours of consecutive sleep every night?
I imagine the sensation I feel while envisioning such a thing is similar to the craving a reformed heroin addict feels when thinking about smack.

That this would be considered Land Mine Territory is equal parts fascinating and disturbing to me.

I don't have kids, but when friends and family members started having them in the last couple of years (I'm at That Age), I was surprised to learn that there was all this controversy over How to Get the Baby to Sleep Through the Night. The Ferber method vs. the Co-Sleeping vs. the Loud Shushing. And of course each camp is appalled by the other camp's approach and takes every opportunity to note how harmful the other thing is to the kid and how THOSE kids will suffer grave psychological damage due to their parents' misguided tactics.

When I used to babysit, 15ish years ago (DEAR GOD, has it really been that long??), making $3 an hour to get clobbered in the head with Tonka trucks all day and then watch MTV after the kids went to bed, the default procedure at bedtime or naptime for every family I worked with (and endorsed by my mom, the Child Development World Leader) was to stick the baby into its crib, do something soothing for a few minutes (like rub its back), and then leave. And never come back, no matter the screams or the violent crib-shaking that might ensue.

So I've always thought this was The Thing to Do, just what people did. It's cool that people have come up with other theories or methods, but there is no question that you HAVE to do what works for you. The baby is a baby and will adapt; you are a grown human being who has to function and Get Shit Done in the world.

But my main question is, given the landmine remark and your hesitation in discussion this when it happened, how can people judge each other over stuff like this? Especially moms vs. other moms - I don't get it...women need to support each other in this crazy world - why we gotta be such bitches to each other?

Anytime the topic of a second child comes up, I think "I have to have another, for no other reason than to put to use everything I learned from our first child."

We practiced cospleeping with my daughter, now 18 months.

(talk about a landmine)

When she would stir I'd nurse her back to sleep. So many people were unsupportive, would say "you'll never get her out of your bed", etc. Well, she eventually did get out of our bed, and she is able to get to sleep without nursing. I have no regrets. I actually quite enjoyed having her nestled next to me. And she slept like a champ from the very beginning. More importantly, it let ME sleep. I really believe that those first few months post-partum are traumatic enough for a new mother, certainly for me. I didn't see any reason to compound that with sleep deprivation and a pissed-off baby. When the time finally came to wean and sleep train her, of course there were tears. But by then, I was emotionally prepared for them.

Congratulations on following your heart on what's best for your child. That is one of the hardest parts of parenthood.

Oh the screaming! I almost couldn't stand the screaming. But it is so much worth it now to have a child that sleeps so well so that I can sleep so well. I am a much better mother when I have sleep. My question is, do you have to go back to step one with Leta (the screaming!) every time something out of the ordinary screws things up like a fever or thunder storm? Or does she *know* that things go back to normal the next night? I seem to have to go thru the screaming stage and start over again at least every couple of months. My ears hurt as much as my heart.

You are a brave, brave woman for telling your tale. I'm going to be releasing my first spawn in three months and am scared that I am going to have NO CLUE. Thanks for the candid insight. :)

Kudos to your for sharing this story! I hope it gives others the courage to do the same (if necessary.) I did pretty much the same thing when my daughter was 6 months. Like you, my ped told me that at this age she no longer needed to eat at night -- she was just waking due to habit.

Uh sorry didn't mean to repeat post!

We used the Healthy..., Happy...blah blah blah, too. It was hell. Love the book even more now that my 20 month old is a model sleeper. Worth the tears. Worth the Prozac to get through the tears.

Oh, this makes me want to cry and cry. We are STILL going through the sleep training that I started when my boy was about seven months old, he's almost ten months now. We have only one time had two "good" nights in a row, and that was just this week. I read and follow Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and I follow it completely. At first I put him down for naps unswaddled, five minutes at a time, then I would go in and pick him up. Then I went in every five minutes but wouldn't pick him up, then ten minutes, then fifteen, then an hour, for naps. At night we did the same thing but then we stopped going in. I have wept and wept and wept over this - I hate it so much that the way that I let him know that I love him and that he needs to go back to sleep is to leave him alone, but it is all that has worked for us. I do love him so, but my GOD has this child screamed enough in the past ten months for a lifetime! He was very colicky for his first, oh ten years or so. No really about 14 weeks were horrible. I have never been so miserable or so tired in my life and we are just now getting back to normal, even though my husband and I still go to bed sometimes at 8:00, right after the baby. With my next baby, if I have one, God help me, I will start much earlier putting them down and letting them fuss a little bit and not freaking out and running to them every time they make a peep, which is what I did with the first one. He still uses the pacifier, and I am hoping to start weaning him from it when he turns one, but God knows if I'll make it. He might go to school with one.

My son Hugo just hit 6 months old. Until last month he had been sleeping through the night, 11+ hours since he was 2 1/2 months. I wish I could take credit for that, but it was all him. He was just that good of a sleeper.

Then, about a month ago we all got sick plus he started teething. He now wakes up for comfort 5/7 nights per week. Some nights he wakes once, other nights he wakes 3 times. I feel like it is the Flowers for Algernon phenomenon- sleep sucked, became heavenly, and then, before my eyes, I could see it going back to suck and it was out of my control. Bye bye rest, hello naps in the bathroom at work.

Right now we're trying to only feed him once and then if he wakes up again we go into his room to comfort him- without picking him up. It is hard, though because here we thought, all along, we had it made in the sleep department. But it is good to know that it gets better and that there's hope that Hugo will go back to his regular routine. Thanks for that.

My husband and I are about to have our first child in a few weeks and I'm terrified about the upcoming sleepless nights.

Thanks for the honesty.

Hey Heather! Remember that time when you posted on the internet that you let your baby cry and then the internet freaked out and called you a hating rotten hateful baby-hater until you finally shut down comments and went back to feeding Leta broken glass?

No? Shit. Well, we're only 15 or 20 comments in. Give it a few minutes.

I waited until my kid was almost two to really sleep train him. If you think hearing a baby scream is a nightmare, wait until your baby can BEG YOU WITH WORDS to stop killing them. It was unreal.

I was determined that baby #2 would never be allowed to get to that point - but baby #2? SLEEPS. He was born knowing instinctively that sleep is wonderful and magical. He sleeps far more than his older brother, no thanks to anything I've done differently. From what I can tell, he's just a nicer person.

My first child? I was a stay at home mom and he was a great sleeper - NATURALLY. But, the few times it was an issue? I let him cry - and I didn't go soothe him either b/c it made it worse on both of us.

My current baby? I'm a working mom and the guilt from letting her cry eats at my soul so I'm raising her spoiled-rotten and she's sleeping in our bed. And waking up every two ours (at the LONGEST). *sigh* I'm currently reading The No Cry Sleep Solution - we'll see if I use any of those methods and if they work.

But I agree - whatever makes you FEEL BETTER.

I forgot to add. Our son is now 5 and just this past week quit taking 2-hour naps and sleeps at least ten hours at night. It's glorious.

Let's hope it works out that well with #2 (due in May).

With our first child, our son, we ended up doing a good job after three months of constant waking up. He was quite a screamer at night. We made a good decision early on for not using the pacifier very frequently and almost never at night. This helped a lot. Then, one day, we decided to let him scream in his crib while we ate dinner. He made his first mistake: he cried himself to sleep. We knew that we had him then. We knew that he was physically capable of crying himself to sleep, and all we had to do was just get him to learn to do it at night. Luckily, he learned to do this the week before my wife went back to work.

As for my daughter, we got lucky. She has been a fantastic sleeper all along. It's so great that we had the relatively poor sleeper before the good one or we would have been blind-sided. Our daughter is ten weeks old, and she sleeps for seven hours at night usually. We're currently trying to extend that.

PS. Heather, is the Armstrong Media, LLC verbiage at the bottom the reason you had a pow-wow with the lawyer, or has it always been there and I'm not observant enough?

Well, I don't have kids, but I still applaud your honesty. Don't let anyone tell you you're a bad mother because you did the thing which was better for you and Leta, even though it was hard.

I know that my mom did the same thing. We went down at bedtime and she let us cry ourselves to sleep. My sister, who has a two year old and a week old baby let the oldest child sleep with her and her husband until the new baby was about to be born. Talk about traumatic for my oldest niece. Now, not only does she have to sleep in her own bed at night for the first time ever she also has to contend with an attention sucking younger sibling. I'm thinking this will be a very hard time for her.

Oh, yeah, I can see the land mines from a mile away. You give your child gummy bears?! You awful mother! They're full of SUGAR and uh, GUM and, well, I'm sure you'll rot in hell for that!!!! OF FRANCE!!!!

But since I'll be burning along next to you, I'm just wondering: Have you heard of Gummy Vites? I got a huge jar of them at Costco for about $10. But then you have to figure out how to not let your kid OD.

Thanks for sharing, particularly because it is such a landmine issue. I'm pregnant with our first and it is so hard to get people to share their experiences because they are afraid of being judged.

Congrats on the sleeping success and good luck with the gummy bears!

i don't have a baby of my own, but i do have a niece that refuses to sleep in her own bed and will not go to sleep without a movie being on. she's 3. i have seen that my sister-in-law always gives in because she doesn't want her to cry/scream/wake the sleeping 1 year old in the next room. (although to be completely honest i think that she doesn't take serious action because she doesn't want to feel like a "bad mother"...) and maybe that works for her, who am i to judge? but i am very happy to see that you did what was difficult not only for leta but for you as well (harder for you really, because she will never remember those rough nights and you'll never be able to forget them). i hope that when i have kids of my own i will keep in mind what is best for EVERYONE and make decisions that make sense for the "long term", not just "right now". that's what you obviously did.

I breastfed for the first four months and for those four month I slept with Amy next to me so that I could just pop my breast in her mouth if she woke up hungry. When I started working I pretty much stopped nursing, Amy moved to her crib and my husband and I made a terrible decision: we introduced her to a pacifier. After that we went throught pretty much exactly what you did, Heather. She would wake up throughout the night because she would spit it out and couldn't find it again. Both my husband and I were working full time and we just couldn't deal sooo we took away the binky. I think it took her about a week to get over it. After that she became a wonderful sleeper, much like Leta, sleeping 12 hours a night and taking two 1 hour naps. Now she's three and she still sleeps 12 hours a night but takes no naps.

At the advice of another Mommy Blogger and good friend Ada, I went with the 'Healthy Sleep Habits...' book.
My daughter was colicky and we had a number of issues with her sleeping and I was always concerned that it was her colic bugging her so I was hesitant to let her scream -it seemed so incredibly cruel and I hated myself. But once she was 7 months old and seemed to be over the worst of the colic, I forced myself to endure her screams and after a week or so (The books say a few days: dirty liars, they are) it was over and she learned to 'self soothe'. It was amazing how different she was -much calmer, happier, brighter.
She's now 17 months old and has learned to appreciate how wonderful sleep is, to the point of pointing at her crib and saying "eep!" in the middle of her stories if she's tired and doesn't want to bother with the routine. I can't even begin to describe how awesome this is to me. She recognizes that she's tired and she knows that sleep is a good thing.
She sleeps 12-14 hours through the night and has a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon.

With our first we used a little bit of advice from the Dr. Weissbluth book, some co-sleeping and lots of time. Our second is a different story completely and even the duct tape and sedatives have not worked so well.

My son (now 4) has always been a great sleeper...we were very lucky! He had a pacifier but, although he needed it to fall asleep, he didn't seem to notice when it fell out of his mouth at night. It was harder to get him not to use it all day, every day, right up until he was 2+ years old and I finally cut the nipples off them. Once he was cognizant of a routine, as long as he had his "mok" (the same word he used for milk) and a baby washcloth in each hand he was happy. He always slept 11-12 hours a night and, until he was just over 3, he took a 3-4 hour nap every afternoon. Oh, how I miss the naps! He still sleeps about 11 hours a night and I can definitely tell when he's not getting enough rest. He has allergies and before we knew that and started him on medication he wasn't resting very well and those were some terribly grumpy weeks. I think the biggest factor in our success was having a definite schedule and sticking to it, no matter what. He sleeps so well because he knows what to expect...the same bedtime every night, the same routine - and we rarely vary it, even if it means leaving parties or cutting short a road trip so we can check into a hotel and put him to bed. I'm so thankful for his schedule when I hear friends of mine talk about how their kids never want to go to bed, stay in bed - what do they expect?

Oh god, the sleep issue. What parent hasn't thought long and hard about it?

I had no idea what I was getting into when I had Finn. The hardest and worst part was the sleep issue and no book prepared us. I figured we'd be up a few times a night for a month or so, then he'd start sleeping and life would go on.

Boy, was I in for the biggest shock of parenthood.

Finn was up every 1-2 hours in the beginning. I read "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and told myself it would be over soon and I could handle answering his cries. Fast forward three months; same no-sleep schedule. The lack-of-sleep was making me crazy! I never had more than four hours of sleep in a row. I decided to branch out and read "Healthy Sleep Habits" and "The Baby Whisperer". I created a hybrid meathod of letting him cry sometimes and going to him when I thought he was hungry.

Of course that just made it worse.

When we finally decided to bite the bullet and let him cry, he cried for ten minutes and fell asleep. He still wakes up once a night, but I'm willing to deal with it now that I'm getting at least EIGHT HOURS OF GLORIOUS SLEEP IN A ROW.

You have to do what's right for your family and I knew that I wasn't a good mommy when I was resenting my baby for keeping me up all night.

i predict you get 7 gabrillion comments on this post, because the thing about trauma, psychoanalytically speaking, is that it begs for the presence of a witness. and there is nothing untraumatic about getting yoru child to sleep at night.
we more or less let our duaghter scream it out too. our problem was less frequent wakings (at first) and more waking as soon as we put her down in her crib, and requiring 3 hours opf attention before she settled in for the night. once she figured out how to put herself to sleep, THEN she started waking all night. we also did the gradual time extension thing, and I probably only started the process because of all the guarantees that it would work itself out in 3-ish days. 22 motherfucking days later, our daughter slept for 10 consecutive hours. that was around 6 months old. now (8 months) she sleeps anywhere from 9-12 a night, btu naps are real spotty. she is, by all accounts, a totally lovely infant.

i've recently decided one of the reasons that process was so hard was that so much of the lessons of new parenting are about trusting your instincts. and for better or worse, when i listened to my daughter scream, i had to suppress every instinct i had to rush in and scoop her up.

You are right about the blocking mechanism that leads us parents to the "fuzziness of memory." My kids are now 8 and almost 11, and I can't really remember how we got them to sleep through the night.

I just want to tell all the new/expecting parents out there that every baby is different. You just have to do what is right for your baby and your situation.

And if things are bad, just know that it does get better.

My son is 1 year old and has been sleeping through the night since he was 9 weeks. I read the Weissbluth book, too, but was very lucky not to have to get to the "cry it out" stage. But from the time he was a few weeks old, I followed to the minute Weissbluth's advice of getting the baby to sleep after he had been awake for two hours -- and getting the baby to bed on time. He just seemed to progress naturally from there; as his alert time got longer, so did his naps. (And when he hit that stage of getting up in the middle of the night at about 4-5 months, we worked to soothe him back to sleep instead of feeding him.) Now he sleeps 11 hours overnight with two two-hour naps. We have worked very hard to respect his bedtime, and it has paid off.

My now 14 month old son sleeps 12-14 hours a night with usually 3 hours of napping during the day. I know that I am extremely lucky. I had the same pacifier problem that you did in the beginning. When Ashton (my son) was 4 months old he started rolling over really really well. There was no way to keep him sleeping on his back, he could amost sit up on his own and any attempt to get him sleeping on his back he would just roll over in a few minutes. Once he started this and sleeping on his stomach often he slept through the night from about 6 months on.

Part of me wishes that I did take away his pacifier then and tough it through the rough nights. He has gotten old enough now that he doesn't at all need it but instead is emotionally attached to them. I need to get him off of that but I feel so bad doing it. He loves them.

Every baby is different, I can't complain about Ashton's habbits.

The one and only baby book that I live by - my baby bible is called "The Happiest Baby on the Block". The techniques in this got him to sleep withing 3 minutes until he was old enough to fall asleep on his own. I would recommend it to anyone.

Okay...you may not read this but if you do here is what i have to say.

I have no children, but I learned this from my mother. When my brother was a baby she was young like 26 years old or something ( i don't know she's ancient to me now LOL), and well he was colicy. She just about went out of her mind, because he would cry and cry and cry. She finally just left him in his crib shut his door, went to the bathroom and shut that door, and cried with him.

The point of my story here is: My mother states that just to let them cry and scream themselves to sleep. They have to learn that they can not be the boss of you. She had a daycare for 23 years. And let me tell you even though I do not have children I went insane, when it was nap time with those babies that were screaming their heads off. Because they were in the room next to mine.

So what you did is what my mom recommends. Just let them cry they will eventually tire out and realize it's not worth their energy and go to sleep.

Take care!

Holly Crap Heather, you just stuck the internet equivalent of a 'kick me' sign on your own back. You are a brave woman.

Under normal circumstances, i would never, ever, let my kids CIO but as someone who also had severe PPD, I wish I could have seen past my attachment parenting ideals enough to realize that it probably would have been the right thing to do at the time. I do not believe that sleep training is a good parenting choice for all the usual reasons but all of that goes out the window when you need to do everything possible to preserve the little bit of sanity you have left. Good for you for recognizing that. I wish I had.

You know, I don't have kids yet, so I can't say with certainty what I'd ultimately end up doing. When I first heard about the ferber method, it just sounded so cruel. I mean, letting your child scream like that. But that's just me. But the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense. I mean, like you said, what works for some, might not work for others. I don't really view it as cruel. I mean, hell, technically I do the same thing with puppies. I give them a week to be sleeping through the night. I might be a tough whore, but I'm a tough whore who's sleeping through the night.

So in the end, I can see myself getting on board with the ferber method.

I have three, but I only had to do it with one. Yep Ferbered the middle child. Did it for my sanity. And would do it again.

Before I had my child, my best friend gave me three pieces of advice: keep them warm, keep them fed, and keep them on schedule. We always followed the same routine for bed time: bath, book, and breast, starting at 6:45 p.m. If we didn't start at that time, it was next to impossible to get a decent night's sleep. Family and friends would beg us to stay at gatherings and we would refuse, knowing what would happen if we upset the routine.

Our child slept through the night at five weeks, and I breastfed on demand, although the little sucker set a regualr schedule during the day pretty quickly. When teething and growth spurts set in, and there was howling, we always followed the same routine. There would be ten minutes of crying, followed by a quick duck in and a pat, and then we'd leave again, but each interval would be longer: start with ten, then fifteen, then 20 etc. I don't think we ever got past a 20 minute interval before peace reigned, and he'd sleep through. SAt the most, we would have one upset night about once every three months.

The only time I didn't follow my rule was when I noticed a different sound to the cry. My baby was nine months old, and it was the weirdest wailing. I stayed with him and about an hour after, he developed a raging fever.

Today my child is almost seven and is the soundest sleeper. We kept him in a crib until he was three, and we insisted on daily naps until he was 4. It never ceases to amaze me that we always always second guess what we do as parents. I say don't knock it until you try it. I know I couldn't be a good parent if I didn't have enough sleep. It's not like you were hanging her out the window ala Michael Jackson.

You want to try landmines? Try walking in a busy city with your very active toddler child in a harness -- I am not interested in repeating the abuse I heard, but let's say I am glad I did it, instead of losing him to a truck!

What worked for me: co-sleeping.

I loved Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and loved it because it seemed to fit with my son. The information about brain activity and how to recognize the optimal nap time was a life saver.

I think because I co-slept for over a year, I didn't really notice a lack of sleep. I'm pregnant now and will likely co-sleep again if it works for baby number two. I agree with just about every other commenter here that you do what works for you and your child.

I hate CIO. I hate the term. I wish I could erase it from our collective consciousness. We all do things to help our children learn to sleep. It's a continuum, not a switch. My eldest daughter (now 4) slept with us until 18 months when I had completely had it. I didn't want to night-nurse anymore. I wanted time with my husband. We explained our intentions and then dug in. While there were some tears, I still don't consider it CIO. I know others would, and that's why I just can't stand the term. Bung it in a bin liner with "attachment parenting" and just call the whole thing "parenting" and let us all get on with it.

Getting her to sleep through the night wasn't hard, it wasn't painful. At 18 months she wasn't a tiny vulnerable baby feeling pain or abandonment, she was a pissed off toddler. Realizing this set me free. We used what our favourite British expert calls the "rapid return" method. She'd get out of bed, we'd put her back into it. We were boring and sleepy with very little conversation. Within two days she realized it wasn't worth trying to get out of bed.

We will use the same method with our new baby who is now 8 months. She still sleeps with us and nurses on demand. This ensures I get maximum sleepage as I can doze through her nursing. Soon (much sooner than 18 months) we will start the rapid return method. We don't intend for her to cry a lot, but every time she falls asleep we will put her in her cot. This "no-cry" method (total misnomer, as whimpering noises are interpreted by some as settling and others as crying) takes longer, but should be gentler on all of us.

This is a topic is my life right now. For the first time, my 10 month old son just slept for FIVE DAYS IN A ROW ALL NIGHT LONG. I am so happy, I don't know what to do with myself. I want to tell everyone I meet, "Hey...you see this kid? He sleeps like a normal person! Isn't that great? Isn't it?" (thanks Heather for giving me the opportunity!).

It took me months to get him down to just eating once a night (only after four in the morning...if he woke up any earlier, I would wait it out...that sucked). I was torn about stopping the night feeding because my son is underweight, and I figured that he could use all the calories he could get. But now it seems like he's phasing out the feeding, which works for me.

With our next child, I would like to get the night feedings out of the routine as soon as possible. I have found that its not how many total hours you sleep at night, its how many hours in a row that really makes the difference.

I did basically the same as you except I waited (insanely) until 10 months. By then she was able to put the binky back in herself and she still gets it at nap and bedtime. I'd do it again in a heartbeat except I would do it earlier. You have to do what works for your child whether others agree with it or not!

With our oldest daughter, it was really easy, she was already doing about 8 hours a night on her own, and once we moved her to her own room and started sleep training her (i.e. training her to go to sleep on her own by crying it out), she took to it pretty well in a couple of days.

When we moved her to a toddler bed to make room for the new baby, she did well for the first month, and then completely regressed. One night our heater went out, so we let he sleep with us, and it was all down hill from there. It took us two months to get her back to a normal sleeping schedule, and it involved a lot of stuff you see on SuperNanny, et al.

We also just got through sleep training our second child a couple of months ago. She was different in that she was a lot like Leta, she woke every two hours. Sleep training with her was also harder, in that her crib was in our bedroom. She has her good nights and bad nights still, but overall the results have been good, if she wakes up at all, it's only once, and usually before we are asleep. In another few months we're probably going to move her in with her sister.

I can totally understand sleep training sending you over the edge, it's one of the most stressful things you have to go through as a parent. That's why it always makes me laugh when people think babies bring couples closer together. If you have a strong relationship they do, but if you have a weak relationship, I think the tension and stress would only make it worse.

The most important thing is what you said at the end, Heather: you do what works for you, and what works for you might not work for someone else.

We are cosleepers. Again, I concur, it's not for everyone. But it's how I got the most sleep. What we have mostly done, and what we are doing with our youngest (almost 16 months), is to set up the crib next to our bed with one side removed, like a toddler bed, but with the open side against our bed. I nurse her to sleep (yep, works for us!), and then lay her down in her bed. If she's not teething, she can easily go four, maybe even five hours before waking up. Then when she does wake up again, I bring her into our bed and nurse her back to sleep. She does sometimes wake up again, but I barely notice, just latch her on and go back to sleep.

First I have to discuss the first topic at hand...GUMMIE BEAR

Oh My God, my child may not be OCD after all!!! I love that I can read your blog and find that my child may be normal after all…otherwise Leta and my daughter are just one in the same!

Gummie Bears….are Fishies in our house. We used to have Nemo fruit snacks, hence the name. My husband used to give her 5 packs at a time b/c it made her so happy and content. I fought him on it b/c there was no way she needs 5 of anything!!

Then one fine day it happened… Blue Play-Dough looking pooh! No More Fishies! She screams and throws endless fits over the fishes….but we are TRYING to play as if we’re all out. It works less than half the time….but it’s a start. I’m trying to have my husband only use them as reward for good behavior…but it’s still not working- with him!

When you find the alternative, please be sure to post it!!!

We used healthy sleep habits, too. I've got TWINS, so it was imperative. At three months old, unless my hubby took a shift, we would have had NO sleep, and so we decided to try letting them cry, but using judgment about going in to comfort one of them, since they sleep together. Even now, at 14 months they take two naps and sleep 11 hours straight at night.

What really worked for me was regulating their naps and feedings, getting them on the same routine, so that I wasn't constantly half-naked. When I was able to synchronize their naps, it was HEAVEN. Imagine being able to put my boobs away. By six months we stopped BF, but I don't think I'd have lasted another week if we hadn't done the "SCHEDULE". Now, even my husband lives by it - and he's the most time unconcious person I know.

I appreciate the fact that you share as much as you do about being a mom. Your honesty is refreshing, especially when I see my friends enveloped in the pre-pregnancy parenting-will-be-bliss fiction. Everybody is different and I can totally see how you would feel apprehensive about sharing your experiences with the world the way that you do on this site. Your candor is the reason I read your site and the reason I keep coming back. Thanks!

The Ferber book saved my life. My 10 yo wouldn't sleep unless someone was holding him and he ate every hour on the hour. He was also dreadfully stubborn. But we used the strategies in the book to "fix" him and from the beginning with my 5 yo. There are many times that he plays in his room after I put him down, but when he's sleepy, he climbs into his bed on his own -- in the mornings we find puzzles, lego creations, who knows what else. He knows once i say goodnight, I will not come back in until morning.

It means so much to our marriage to have time for each other after the kids are in bed instead of fighting with them to get them there.

We used the Feber method on both of our girls (5 yrs and 18ms) at around 6 months. They were ready to sleep through, I could tell by the hearty greeting and giggles I got when I would check on them. It worked great, both girls were sleeping through the night after a week. I got some horrified looks and a lot of nasty remarks from some moms in my playgroups. This was my response.

Kids have to learn to cope on their own with a lot of things without you to comfort them. It starts with sleeping, and moves on to dealing with playground snubs and mean girls in high school. You do your children no favors by coddling them when they are capable of handling it themselves. Additionally, a tired mommy isn't a fun mommy, and who wants that?

AND, repeat after me, "Crying isn't fatal".

Sometimes it's the only exercise those little babies can get. It's irritating, heartbreaking and just plain funny sometimes, but it is not fatal, and don't kid yourself, they will not remember it one bit, but they will remember their well rested happy parents!

Cheers!

I have a 3-year-old and an 11-month old, and (don't hate me for this) they both began sleeping through the night at 2 months old. I can't exactly say what it is about our lives or habits that enabled this miracle of babyhood, but I do think that two factors had a lot to do with it: formula and food

I did not breastfeed either child (for personal reasons - I know that choice is a hot topic for many) -- and they do say that formula-fed babies are more full than breast-fed babies. So that is factor number one.

Factor number two is that I began giving my children a tiny bit of rice cereal (we're talking like a tablespoon) right around 2 months of age, just before bedtime. That teensy bit of food does indeed fill their tummies and makes them feel fat and happy and sleepy. I got some flack from my pediatrician about it, who told me I shouldn't give an infant any solid food until six months of age — (which I find ridiculous -- my children had 5 teeth at that age) but I went with the advice of my mother and my mother in law (all of us turned out okay after all) which was that a full baby is a happy baby -- and one that will sleep better.

And for god's sake, it actually worked.

Brave woman, and I'm just SHOCKED that the anti-CIOers haven't descended upon you yet. Everytime I've seen this particular mommy-war issue come up, it's gotten U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, it's ugly, it's ugly.

Not seein' the ugly here really, so they must be askeered of you, Heather. ha!

I have five of them and I did use CIO with #4 because, well, the child NEEDED sleep and we couldn't figure out another way to help her get it... she didn't like the rocking or cosleeping or any of the bits that worked with her older sisters.

Seems to me that no matter what you do when they're babies, they all eventually turn into no-good teenagers who want to sleep all day and then you're trying to figure out how to WAKE THEM UP. Ha, just kidding. My children are all ANGELS. And I only have to administer the dramamine every 4 hours to keep them like that. :)

I have found that there are people who love to judge others. I stopped worrying about what other people think after my 3rd daughter was born. She will be 2 in May and sleeps in our bed. It is the only place she will sleep. Because we have embraced her sleeping with us. And when people feel the need to comment I usually practice patience and smile sweetly and say "to each his own" But there are other times when I let those judgemental people know that the reason we have her sleep in our bed is because she has had 2 open heart surgeries, will need one more and could drop dead at any minute. She lived in the hospital for the first 3 months of her life and almost died so I smile every morning that I wake up with her next to me. She sleeps 12 hours, takes naps in her own room and someday I'll make her sleep in her own bed at night - I'll cross that bridge if I get there. That usually shuts them up.

As in your case Heather, you just never know what secret hell other people are experiencing - which is why I try not to judge the things other people are doing anymore - you just never know.

Dooce, thanks so much for posting this. I think this issue is as heated as the "Stay at Home vs. Go to Work" debate. My daughter is seven months old and has been sleeping through the night since she was four months. Luckily we never had to let her "cry it out", but I certainly was ready to employ that strategy. What worked for us was the rule, "Everyone sleeps in their own room, in their own bed." I think this is just healthy for our daughter and for our marriage. Let's be honest, how can you have a healthy sex life with your husband if your child(children)is in the bed in between you. I just don't see how it works.
I have very strong feelings about this issue because I keep an eleven month old girl during the day whose parents do not encourage healthy sleeping habits. As a result, I pay the price during the day when it is naptime. This child absolutely will not sleep on her own because she is used to sleeping in a bed right next to her parents. Consequently, she fusses and screams most of the day due to her extreme fatigue. She wakes her mother every two to three hours to nurse each night. From my standpoint, this is no way to live. Everyone needs sleep to function and even if it means a few weeks of agony, much like what you endured Heather, I think it is worth the benefits to the whole family in the long run. I know some will vehemently disagree, but this is just my opinion based on my experiences.

I assume you're asking because holding my little girl gave you a bad case of baby fever at Halcyon. :)

Lillian started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. It hasn't been perfect since then, but nothing worse than a bad night every now and then.

We read Baby Whisperer, which told me that:
1. she isn't necessarily hungry just because she's crying
2. don't nurse her to sleep
So we started feeding every 3 hours (as soon as she woke up) and when she got fussy we used "happiest baby on the block" to get her to sleep until the next feeding

We also decided at 6 weeks that she would get a bottle of formula before the final bedtime. That gave me a chance to pump a little milk for bottles too. Well, that very night was the first time she slept through the night and we've done it ever since.

Around 3 months we decided that since she could sleep all night, we would avoid nursing when she woke up. We just used the Happiest Baby techniques to get her back to sleep. Sometimes it seems that I have the only breastfed baby who doesn't nurse at night and that's perfectly fine with me!

Most recently we read No-Cry Sleep Solution and are using its techniques so that the times she does wake up, she will go back to sleep on her own without our help.

We don't have the stomach for CIO, but there's no reason to feel guilty if it worked for you!

our son is eleven and a half months old and still wakes at least twice every single night. sometimes five, six, seven times. he has never, not once, slept more than six hours since birth. the only way to reduce awakenings is to let him sleep with us. for now, he goes to bed in his room fairly easily and then around midnight comes into bed with us.

this is not so much a solution as a survival technique.

We have two daughters, now almost 3 and almost 2. When the older daughter was 10 weeks old, she was down to waking up once a night. I knew she didn't need to eat and was just waking up out of habit. We had heard about the glorious results of crying a baby through from some friends of ours and had heard my mother's tales of woe. When my siblings and I were littler, my mom responded to our every cry at night and as a results none of us slept through the night until we were over 2. That was clearly not an option, and I was heading back to work in a few weeks so we decided to try crying our daughter through.

The first night was horrendous. She was still crying after an hour and I was beginning to crumble. I wanted to go comfort her sooooo badly, and felt like a horrible parent. Two hours passed while my husband and I laid in bed with our pillows over our heads listening to that gut-wrenching cry on the monitor, praying she would go to sleep soon. At that point, I desperately wanted to to comfort her. My husband stood firm -- no going in her room. After 3 hours of the most pitiful "you don't love me" wailing you've ever heard, we turned off the monitor so we could get at least a couple hours of sleep. I felt like a complete failure of a parent and thought my daughter would surely want nothing to do with me in the morning.

The next morning I was amazed to find my daughter chipper and happy as usual. She seemed to have forgotten the whole thing. I think that was my first glimpse into the resilience of a child. That night, she woke up at the usual time, cried for an hour and went to sleep -- I began to get hopeful. On the third night, 20 minutes! And on the fourth night -- hallelujah -- she slept for 12 hours straight. I felt like a GENIUS. My husband and I were quite pleased with ourselves.

It's true that every kid's different though. It didn't go nearly as smoothly with our second daughter, due in part to the fact that we didn't have a third bedroom so she slept in our room. It's much harder to let a baby cry when they're right next to you. Eventually, at 6 months, we put her in a pack and play in the kitchen of our tiny apartment, tried to soundproof my older daughter's bedroom as best we could, and let the baby wail. It worked, but she needed to relearn to sleep through several times after that. She's a much different and more delicate sleeper than her sister, but at this point she puts herself to sleep and sleeps through almost every night.

We have some friends who have an 18 month old and the mom still nurses her 2 or 3 times a night and drives her around in the car so she'll fall asleep for her daily nap. The parents are so exhausted all the time but can't bear to let the child cry. It's taking a toll on their relationship with each other too, since they are always so tired and get short with each other quite a bit. I'm sure it would take awhile for an 18 month old to cry through, but I think it would still work. If they only knew how much happier sleeping a full night would make them. I can only imagine it would be a rebirth of sorts!

We did something similar. Our daughter wasn't so good with the sleeping the first few months either and naps were awful. I was rocking her to sleep everytime and sometimes it would take forever. When she was about 3 1/2 months we tried the put her down and let her cry and stay outside the room method. She cried for 2 hours and I cried for 3. So the next night I just sat next to her crib and talked to her until she fell asleep. I took about an hour that night and every night it took a little less time. By the end of the week she was going to sleep on her own, without being rocked. She was still waking up about once a night, but by 6 months she was sleeping 12 hours as well and taking great naps. I agree everyone needs to do what works for them, but I know people who spend half their day trying to get their kids to sleep, because they didn't train them to fall asleep on their own at a young age. Yes it was hell for a week, but I'm so happy that I went through that one week of hell when she wouldn't remember it than months of hell when she would remember us leaving her to sleep on her own. She's such a great sleeper now, and I really attribute it to what we did all those months ago.

We had to train both of our boys to sleep by letting them cry it out. And we have to re-do it after they are sick or teething. But sleeping parents make the world a better place. We're expected a third, and I'm sure at some point we'll have to let him or her cry. A few days of screaming is SO SO WORTH IT.

Our daughter sleeps 10-12 hours a night and still takes a 2 hour nap in the afternoons. Thank God she is such a good sleep cause I NEED sleep! New baby coming in the next month so my days of sleeping till 8am are numbered. She had a paci till she was over 2 years...cause I'm a pushover. Even now if she finds one (new baby's) she will sneak one and I will find her sitting in the corner with it.

You have to do what works for you and your baby. We mostly used the SuperNanny method when she was introduced to her toddler bed (18 months...she's 3 now). Coudlnt' keep her in it. That took a couple of weeks of getting her to go to sleep without one of us sitting in there with her. Again it wouldn't have taken so long if I wasn't such a softy. Like a PP said..you have to go through a week or two of hell to get them trained. It's so worth it now!!

On a side note: Maybe the Gummy Bears will be good for potty training? We used Skittles...only cause I don't really care for them and if I had sat a jar of M&M's on the counter they would have been gone in a hour!

Well, I haven't read most of the previous posts, but I'm guessing they go a little like mine...

You could have been describing our exact experience with our now-20 month old son, except for the follwing:
- the hardcore sleep training didn't happen until maybe 7 or 8 months
- I did let him nurse once at around 5am every morning and then we all went back to bed
- and we didn't get to 12 hours a night plus a completely awesome 2-3 hour afternoon nap until about 12 months (I guess he had a morning nap at that point too...)
- I didn't have a stay in a mental ward, although I truly came pretty close...let's just say I'm experiencing better living through chemistry...

But essentially a similar experience. Ferber is tough, but it works like a charm. The other book works also, but I found it invaluable for it's detailed info and anecdotes.

Our son now goes to bed and down for his nap like his crib is the most fabulous place to be, like he's been waiting for this ALL DAY. He usually wakes up happy and joyous. It's pretty great. The tinfoil on the windows doesn't hurt either ;) Seriously, that was a great tip.

We're trying for number two right now, and I figure now that I've figured out how to get a difficult baby to sleep I'll end up with a perfect sleeper and no way to re-use all my skills.

Both of my kids slept through the night at 10-12 weeks. I did the "cry it out" method, too, but of course at 11 weeks babies are much less determined and have much less perserverance than a 6-month-old. So, "crying it out" for us consisted of three nights of "aahhhh..... aaahhhh," for a couple minutes, and then they'd conk. (I'm knocking on wood right now... I'm about to have my third baby, and onyl hope it goes as easy.)

I do remember those first 12 weeks seeming like hell, and now in retrospect it seems like not a big deal at all. Even though it was six months for you, I'm sure you, too, are feeling like, "That was nothing! Especially compared to [whatever hardship you're going through right now - mine is lying and talking back]."

The thing so many of my friends did (I live outside of the People's Republic of Boulder, Colorado - Hippietown, USA) was co-sleep. It wasn't worth it to them to endure the crying out, so the boob was available all through the night, and it got to the point where the baby could find the boob without even waking mom up. I say whatever works! I don't judge either method. I, personally, treasure my sleep FAR too much to wake up several times in the night if I don't have to, or to even share my bed. (Hubby's lucky I let him in.) ;-)

Now, regarding landmines, I would like to quote (ok, more like paraphrase) something that Vivki Iovine writes in The Girlfriends' Guide to Toddlers. (A great, funny read - a must get if you haven't already.) She says that it's a huge misconception that kids are like a fine, delicate souffle... one wrong ingredient or one misstep, and you've ruined the whole dish. In fact, kids are like a crockpot stew. You can cook it as long or short as you want, and put practically anything into it, and you're still going to come out with good stew.

I really have to tell myself this little quote all the time to get through. And, I think of how many "inappropriate" ingredients my parents might have thrown into my crock pot, and I still turned out to be a good stew. (Ah, heck - who'm I kidding? I'm a GREAT stew!)

My parents raised 5 children using the method you shared. No landmines here. You did good.

I wonder if you will ever read past comment 129.... I can only say that before we had a baby every time someone said things like "he was yelling so much I felt like throwing him out the window" or things like what you have just confessed we DID pass judgement on these people... only after you have a baby do you understand and are able to empathize with these comments..... My 10 month old is napping at the moment therefore I have a few minutes to catch up with things..... but only a few.....

We have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Fortunately for us, we didn't have to wait too long for our 3 year old to start sleeping through the night. It was perhaps 4 months or so. Our 1 year old is another matter. She bounces between sleeping through/waking early and waking up during the night. At night she wears little orthopedic shoes that are connected by a huge metal bar. She's had either full leg casts and orthopedic shoes since she was 1 week old. After a surgery and another round of casts, she's had to wear the shoes and bar since about 5 months old, So anyway, we were convinced that the lack of mobility due to the shoes and bar was a major contributing factor of her waking up during the night. Unfortunately there were three reasons we couldn't really do any drastic techniques to get her to sleep through. 1) She's one of those babies that when she gets herself worked up, she makes herself sick - major barforama. 2) With our other 3 year old in the other bedroom, one screaming baby would lead to two awake children. That was something we wanted to desperately avoid. 3) Well frankly I felt sorry for her. I mean *I* certainly wouldn't be happy if someone strapped my tiny feet into little uncomfortable shoes, tie them so tightly that I got bruises (necessary to prevent them from kicking them off), and afix a cold metal bar between the shoes so that I couldn't alternately kick my legs, move around, OR turn over. So we lived with it and tried other methods of getting her to sleep. One of the main ones was major temperature and environmental control in her room. She LIKES being pressed up against me when she's being nursed to sleep. And she generates some severe body heat. So my thinking was that the difference in temperatures was something that could possibly contribute to her being uncomfortable enough to wake up. Well that pretty much did the trick. We finally got the right temp, the right amount of blankets, the right ambient noises, etc. We put on a fan that we have facing the wall so that it doesn't generate breeze but it does make a heck of a lot of white noise. The only other thing that I'm convinced helps is something I feel that any parent should know. When your child wakes up, DO NOT treat it as if it's a play time. Your baby will know the difference. If you keep it quiet, do what needs to be done (diaper, nursing, bottle, holding, whatever), then that indicates to your child that it is still bed time and it is NOT time to wake up and play. Just hold the course no matter what.

Kudos to you Heather, for figuring out what works best for you and yours and to have stuck with it for so long! :)

Heather, thanks for posting this. We used Ferber for our two year old son and were so thankful we did. It resulted in about 4 days of misery (he hated the pacifier and didn't want feedings, just comfort when he woke up) but by 7 months he was sleeping thru the night. During teething and stuff we would be flexible but my son is a good sleeper (except we are dealing with the sun now - gotta try tin foil).

Here's a funny, I remember one night him falling asleep and I went in to check on him and couldn't find him in the crib! He had fallen asleep sitting up in a corner of the crib holding on to the rails. He was so squished up that I didn't see him at first. It was really cute and I even woke my husband to look.

Hey there.. this is my first time commenting-- and I have been reading your site for over 2 years!!! I love it.
What worked for me... I was a single Mama when I had my son 3.5 years ago... At first we co-slept, easier for nursing. Then I began putting him in his crib for naps, and by 9 months he wanted to sleep in his crib at NIGHT! Go figure. (He also weaned HIMSELF at 17 months little bugger!) Jade was a good sleeper, tho I also made the grandiose mistake of giving him the hellacious "paci"- he STILL likes it at night- 3 'ahhem'- of them..yikes.
I couldn't do the "cry it out" method at first- I picked him up whenever he needed it... He slept well and nursing never made me tired bc he was in bed with me. When he went to his own bed at 9 months the mursing in the night stopped. He "cried it out" for all of 10 minutes maybe a couple of nights then that was that. THANK GOD!
He now sleeps 12-13 hours/night.
My secret is that I have never compromised on bedtime. Even when Jade was tiny. That's what I know-- that my adult time begins at 8pm. SHARP.(Used to be 7- I miss that! But my job doesn't get me home in time- imagine!) Jade works well with consistancy. So what worked with me was that- doing the same thing every single day. He came to expect it.
Even eating meals at the same time worked well. It all seemed to go hand in hand.
Now-- if I could just get him out of Pull-Ups at night.
that would be phenomenal. Oh yeah, and off the um-paci.
Heather- your posts are amazing. I look forward to your honesty and your edge every day. And you are right- if it works for you and your kid then why mess with it??? :)

We used a modified cry it out method with my son when he turned about 8 months old, maybe sooner, I don't remember exactly. It became necessary when the only way he'd go to sleep was to either rock (and rock and rock and rock) and then we'd pray he'd stay asleep when we put him down. I couldn't handle doing that any more, he was getting too heavy, and combative sometimes. By modified, I mean, do the normal bedtime routine, then cuddle and rock and put him in his crib. The first nite, of course he cried, we waited five minutes, then went in and calmed him and laid him back down. Then if he cried again, five more minutes. First nite it took about an hour and half, until he finally fell asleep. Second nite, we extended the time we let him cry, to seven minutes. Only took 45 minutes for him to go down. Third nite, we were up to ten minutes inbetween going in, and it took half an hour. By the end of the week, he only fussed slightly for a few minutes, and we wouldn't really have to go in for calming. As he hit milestones, like new teeth, or was sick or something, there would be a few nights he'd fuss and we'd have to go in after ten minutes or so but again only when something was going on. He sleeps about 11-12 hours a night now. Incidentally crying it out has never worked for naps for us. He'll nap for his sitter with no problem, same with my parents. My dad will take him into their bedroom, lay in bed with him, and he'll go to sleep. That totally never works for us. I have to rock him to sleep for naps on the weekend unless he falls asleep in the car. Phew. That was long, sorry.

Incidentally, I took the pacifier away cold turkey at 10 months with no trouble. He never seemed to miss it at all.

I'm glad you found something that worked for you. I've told numerous people that the cry it out thing for bedtime sleep was absolutely the hardest thing we've ever had to do , but the best thing for him as well. This mom gig is the hardest thing I've ever known, hands down.

Love your site and your wonderful family.

Normal lurker in South Carolina,
Beachgal

The hardest part is for the parent's to agree on how long to let the kid cry. I am a softy and would on a regular basis go in to comfort my son."What if he is having anightmare? we should comfort him"

It took me longer to realize that he needed to figure a way to sleep on his own. Our other problem is that our son has been (from eight months) and still is a jumper in the crib. When he wakes up he immediately starts jumping.

You are right, different approaches for different people.

Dear God in Heaven.... it's the Gummy Bears that I'm worried about!

My son is now 9 months old and sleeps for 11-12 hours a night, with TWO (count 'em, TWO) hour to an hour and a half naps a day. I am always hearing people talk about the troubles they have getting their little ones to go to bed at night... But with ours, we just lay him down in his crib and walk away, and we don't hear from him again until morning- not a peep. We were lucky enough that what we did when he was around 4 months old- put him down in his crib, walked away, and let him scream it out till he fell asleep- worked. As we all know, every baby responds to a different approach in a different way.

I love your blog, by the way- it makes me feel like I'm not the only one when it comes to discussing at length my baby's pooping habits.

Ditto almost everything you said. We had to endure HOURS of screaming from our younger child. They said it would take a few days, but those crazies had never met the force that is my daughter. Nonetheless, I saw it as a short-term/long-term situation. The short term was hideous, and I thought I might lose my mind or someone from social services would come and rescue my baby from the clutches of her evil parents, but neither happened (close on the former, though). In the end, she learned to love her crib, just as she loves her bed now.

Also, it certainly is true that what works for one child isn't necessarily the answer for another. Our first child found his thumb at 4 months and so began a beautiful relationship. He soothed himself to sleep and stayed that way all night and every afternoon for 2 hours. And fortunately for us, he did not walk into Kindergarten sucking his thumb. He started doing it only at bedtime when he was 2, and when he turned 4 (I mean on the DAY he turned 4), he quit cold turkey.

We had one that used his thumb and one that used a pacifier, and I know people had positive and negative opinions about both. Fortunately for us, I figured they could do whatever worked for their kids, and we would do what worked with ours. If we all raised our children in the same way, this world would be so boring. Besides, then I'd have married someone exactly like myself, and I'd be divorced by now.

With my first, we had the same problem because she was premature. We were forced to wake her every two hours for feedings to get her to gain weight. Obviously hell ensued, and we virtually used the same method you used to get her to sleep through the night.

With our second, I basically sat on the floor, crying, banging my head on the wall until my husband would take the screaming urchin and shut him up. It was awful.

The third, just slept. He is very obedient, was even born on his due date, and during the day, I often forgot about him because he just sat in his bouncy, looking around. Which, perhaps explains why at 6 years old he's content to just sit at the dining room table quietly eating cheerios all day.

It was a lucky day when I gave birth to that one.

I fought the "cry it out" technique for probably the first 8 months of my son's life (he's only 11 months now). I thought, "I will NEVER do that. There has to be another way." Maybe there is, but after my son started waking up every two hours after our first vacation with him, I gave in. By some miracle, it only took one night (my pediatrician said be prepared for two weeks of hell). I thought I was going to pull my own hair out and pass out from sobbing, but it worked.
I wholeheartedly agree that what works for some may not work for others. In my short time as a mom, I definitely think that each family has to find their own way.

My daughter sleeps like Leta, except her naps were three hours long until recently. Other mothers used to ask me, with desperation in their eyes, what I had done to get her to sleep so well. I always felt terrible when I answered, "absolutely nothing". I co-slept and she had a pacifier and she nursed on demand once a night until she was 7 months old, and then she slept straight for 12-13 hours. The parents who were asking for my advice were doing the same damn thing, but their kids would wake up multiple times a night. I guess the one thing I was willing to do was let her cry for 5 minutes after I put her down, but no more. This is how I learned that so much of what my kid is has nothing to do with my parenting. She's a mellow kid that is happy to lie in her crib looking at books and playing with toys until I get her up in the morning, so whatever I did would probably have worked just fine. Some kids won't learn to sleep without a fight, and some will, so you have to do what you can to keep your sanity. I have to admit I've had fun with people who are sanctimonious about what should be done, on both sides of the CIO debate, with my story.

Oliver is 11 days shy of being a year old and still doesn't sleep. We've got him down to waking twice a night but this is truly ridiculous. I haven't slept more than five consecutive hours in 14 months. (He put his head on my bladder at the 7 month mark and didn't move after that.)

We've tried all the books. The doc says they sleep when they are ready. Lovely. I'll go jump off a bridge now.

We had Jackson very nicely trained until two things happened: the diapers came off and he got a big boy bed. Then, free to roam the apartment in the middle of the night in search of a toilet, he inevitably ended up in our bed. Still does. Oh, well.

Okay, this decided it. I'm sleep training my five month old TONIGHT!

She's been an awesome sleeper, sleeping through the night starting around 3 1/2 months, but in the past couple of weeks has started to wake once, maybe twice a night. It's coincided with her realization that she can make wonderful high pitched screaming noises.

And we've been "bad" parents -- replacing the pacifier, bringing her to bed with us.

No more, I say. Sleep will be had!

And thanks, Heather, for sharing. As always, you inspire me.

Thanks for putting this out there and leaving comments open. It's an issue that most parents go through and there aren't many places where you can find actual results to the theories without people preaching that their way is the only way. Wow, run-on sentence.

Also, thanks for the tip about foil on the windows. My daughter has been waking with the sun the past few weeks.

I am so freaking happy...I held my breath thinking someone might say something mean to you...all the way down. Why? dunno. Except when I think of brave, strong, authentic women I know, your name comes to the top of the list. As many have said, the next baby could be totally different...my first, daughter, loved to sleep, and so soundly I checked her constantly because the silence worried me (you know why, that dreaded thing no parent will name out loud). My second, boy, mexican jumping bean just like Leta, still when the silences came, checking him to make sure he hadn't maimed himself with the force of his howls. Luv ya!!! Go for it y'all :)

Reading this post of yours has brought back some horrible memories for myself. First off I read your site pretty much everyday for the fun of it. Your posts are hilarious because I myself have a little one about the same age as Leta, but let me tell you this post is just all TOO familiar! I use to have the best pediatrician in my opinion ever...until he miss diagnosed ear infections and we ended up with a hearing loss (that was repairable but still). All in all he told me to do exactly what you did. My husband and I would put my son Christyan to bed at night and we would have to go and sit outside because he would scream not just scream BUT SCREAM for what seemed like forever and yes it was forever. It also took more than just a few days but in time he finally slept. I love my son more than life itself but the thought of having another one and having to go through that again i am just not sure...Now we are learning to use the potty and let me tell you he is doing so well except for the fact that he is now waking up again having to go potty so no water or anything after 7! I can handle this definitely better than the screaming! It sort of gave me a momentary lapse of how horrible it was having to wake up night after night.

a shot of burbon in the bottle.

i'm kidding!

sort of.

I feel like I should be slapped for saying this, especially after reading some of the comments about babies who took forever to sleep through the night, but...

My son started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks. And without much of a fight either...

HOWEVER... the pacifier-weaning didn't go well. i kept giving in and giving it back to him until one day i just threw it away. IT WAS HELL.

We were somewhat lucky. My son, now 6months old, was a screamer by day and a sleeper by night. He got a cold at 6 weeks, I gave him some tylenol for a fever, and he slept 12hrs. I figured it was a fluke, but he's still doing it. I guess he liked it?

We did make good use of the Healthy Sleep Habits book because of the "screamer by day" personality that he carried around with him. I finally got him on a great schedule and he still takes 2 2hr+ naps (most days).

I don't understand the "controversy" in getting your child to sleep. It's your kid, and as long as you're not harming it, what's the big deal?

I let my daughter sleep with me from day one in the hospital, drove the nurses nutty, but once I got the hang of nursing her without actually waking up, it was like not even having a baby at all. As a single mom, I decided "whatever works is good enough" and now she's a happy healthy 5-year old who still occasionally ends up in my bed in the middle of the night, but whatever. Pretty soon she'll be a teenager and the thought of wanting to share my bed will be a distant and repulsive memory to her.

Hi Heather,

I just found your blog the other day and I love it. I only wish I would have known about it 2 1/2 years ago when I had my first son. I am due any day now with my second child and am terrified of going through the sleep issues again! I also used the HSHHC book and now my son is a model sleeper.

Anyway- I remember when I was going through the tough times someone said to me "your childs' life is so long so in the grand scheme of things, 9 months to year of sleep deprivation isn't that bad. Soon they'll be heading off to college and you'll miss those days when they needed and wanted you." My response?......

BULLSHIT!

Side note- her child is 37 and still co -sleeps.
Just Joking! ;-)
Dina

My 2 year old son Philip was the exact same way when it came to screaming: attending only made it worse. He is still like that, as well. No cuddles or feeds or rocks or play or anything helped, and we had some crying-i-out as well. I think sometimes women who have non-screamers really just don't get how some other babies are genuinely born with other personalities. They are born with the ones they'll have when they are 40, for the most part. Loud, likes or hates physical contact, likes or hates personal space invasions, likes or hates independent thought... and so on.

Anyway, we used the Baby Whisperer technique of dream feeds. He woke up like clockwork, at 3 months old, at 1am and 5am. At midnight I'd wake up and go feed him in his sleep. He never woke up, there are specifics in the book on how to accomplish this. I did that for a few weeks until he had gained a few more pounds, then stopped. He was old enough and fat enough to sleep through the night (her rule was 10 pounds and having around 30 oz during the day) and so by feeding him in his sleep for a little while, and not much mind you, only a few ounces, it was enough to trick him into sleeping through. He didn't wake up because he wasn't hungry, and for HIM, that was why he woke up.

Also, we REALLY encouraged thumb sucking. We had his pacifier for 2 months and went through the same thing about waking up all the time when it fell out etc, but he wouldn't sleep without sucking. Once he could *physically* such his thumb again (we'rd how they can do it in the womb but then they forget or something) we encouraged the hell out of it. Putting his thumb in his mouth for him, things like that. THAT was the big kicker. When he woke up in the night, he could soother *himself*, and started sleeping 12 hours.

Now that he's 2 he sleeps 10-11 hours like a dream, and I have thanked my lucky stars to havea thumb sucker no matter what anyone else says.

Well, I didn't know until today that the different ways to get your kid to sleep in their own bed, through the night, had names. Apparently, I am a CIO mom, myownself. I learned it the hard way when my firstborn was almost a year and a half old. She was already talking in sentences, and would break my heart with the tears and sobs and "Please mommy... I want mommy... I love you mommy" coming from the other room, but we toughed it out, and thus my sanity was saved.
Worked for me and my little family, but I think it really is different for each kid and each parent. The real bitch-on-a-stick is when two parents in the same household can't agree on the right approach (that was Kid # 2, and I am still scarred to hell and back from that scene).

I'm not a parent, so I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for you and for any parent who is trying to get a child to sleep. What I have observed, however, is that whatever methods or tricks you end up using, the START of being able to solve the sleep problem is when the PARENTS decide they've had enough and they take firm steps to change the situation. Once the parents give themselves permission to do whatever they need to do, the rest seems to fall into place after that.

I saw this with my friend and her two youngest (she has 4) both of whom had difficulty going to sleep in their own cribs if mom or dad wasn't in there with them (they didn't put their kids to bed until 9:30 or 10pm, and let their kids sleep in their bed if the kids wanted to, or they would sleep on the floor in the kids rooms if the kids couldn't sleep... I never agreed with that but kept my mouth shut). My friend seemed to agonize over not wanting the child to be upset or cry a lot at bedtime, and I think it was her ambivalence that was the problem. Once she, as the mom, got on board and made up her mind, those kids got with the program amazingly quickly. And now everyone sleeps fine.

In my sister's household, in contrast, neither of her kids ever once put up a fuss about bedtime, and I think that was a combination of their own personalities (they have the "cooperative at bedtime" genes) PLUS their parents being very firm about bedtime. Bedtime was always about 8 or 8:30pm when the kids were young (so they'd get that 10-12 hours of sleep, plus naps, like Leta). They also rarely, if ever, let their kids sleep in their bed... the kids had their own crib/bed and their own rooms and that was that.

Even as a non-married non-mommy, I always enjoy your writing, your photography and especially your candor. Never censor yourself because of the critics out there. Until someone has walked in your shoes they have no right to judge.

well, I guess I'll have to be the first one to say it...

I think Ferber and his training method is terrible and traumatizing to babies. Just because something "works" doesn't mean it is good parenting to do it. Spanking or even beating your kids might work to make them stop their misbehavior, but it will have long term impact.

I truly believe that letting your baby scream bloody murder (or even as Ferber says, crying to the point of throwing up repeatedly) to teach it to sleep is a long term mistake, with potential short term pay off.

that said, obviously if the choice is between PPD or even complete exhaustion and the bad parenting that flows from that, then I understand trying this approach out. but there are other alternatives that don't cause the unwanted psychological effects.

also, the ped that thought babies should be routinely sleeping through the night at 4 months is off his rocker. Likely many of his patients formula feed, which makes sleeping through the night easier because the food is so dense. But when you are breastfeeding the reality is they need to feed more often.

anyway, I love your site and am not a troll, I just happen to strongly believe Ferber etc. are misleading parents and I am saddened to think of how many people are about to go out and buy this book after reading about it here.

My son is 22 months and he's never had a problem sleeping through the night. I think it had to be this way or I would have gone mad since I had to get up at 430 every morning to get ready for work. His schedule is sleep from 9pm-730am and nap 12pm-3pm. The one downside is that he'll only sleep in his crib.

i have a friend who told me her six+ month old still sleeps with her and her husband. i was surprised since a) i don't have a baby and no nothing of child raising etiquette and b) the only things i know about babies i read on here and you had gotten your baby to sleep 12 hours straight at 6 months! but you already knew that. yes, everyone's different, but if i ever have children, you will definitely be the example by which i live.

p.s. did you take your baby out in public when she was a month old? i have another friend who just had a baby and she and her partner refuse to expose it to the light of day lest he catch a deadly disease and wither away to dust.

Okay, I see the land mines starting to explode here, so let the Bad Parenting Accusations begin, huh?

Here's the thing: Applying the Ferber method is not "bad parenting," just because you disagree with it. And doing something that ensures your child will have better sleep in the long run is hardly akin to spanking or hitting. I have not done any research, but I would be interested to know of any long term studies that corroborate claims of psychological damage strictly due to the Ferber method. Clearly, Leta is a happy and healthy child, with very loving parents. Can we expect to see otherwise healthy individuals who do something questionable as an adult using "Ferber Method Syndrome" as a defense? This is comical.

Reading through these comments makes me wonder who are the people who ARE judgemental about how a child sleeps/nurses/eats/goes to school (or while we're at it whether mom works or not, right?). I'm honestly so sick of hearing about these so-called "Mommy Wars." It seems like most reasonable people know that the only real expert on any given child is that child's parent(s)!

So, right on, Heather. I'm glad that you are enjoying the fruits of your hard work with Leta. I couldn't endure the crying, and my son slept in a cosleeper and then in a toddler bed next to mine bed for three years. He's six now and sleeps fine in his own room. Whatever works right?

We did just what you did, with perfect, wonderful, restful results, and now I have a second who is 4 months old, and I'm so scared because I know we have to do it again. It was so painful.

I meant to share my wisdom when you asked for comments about Stay at Homes vs Workings, and here it is now:

Every Family Gets A Different Right Answer.

We all have different kids, needs, pressures, priorities. We do the best we can, and we rely on each other.

Essentially, it has gone like this with all four kids:

--first feeding to go was the Right Before Bed one

--get up w/baby up until it was one night feeding and *at a specific time*. The time thing was/is key. Once it was every night at 3 am for a week or so, it was routine--not hunger. Between four kids with very different personalities & needs, it has always hit right around 4 to 5 months without fail.

--let them cry it out at that time. longest it took was four nights, shortest two (depending on kid)

We also have a very "bare bones" bedtime routine, no elaborate schedule for it as some do.

Whatever works for your family is the best answer.

We slept with ours until we'd had it. Then we did cry it out. And I was the one crying on the other side of the door.

Now they both sleep for 10-12 hours a night, no problems. We also read and rock for a long time. Or we do family read if one parent is out of town, and then rock each child in their room. I will rock my sons until it's their feet pushing the rocker.

first rule of fight club, is don't talk about fight club. ARE YOU CRAZY?! im all for talking about taboo subjects but some things are just sacred... like my sleep.

Mmmm... not as many holier than thou comments as I would expect. We hired a sleep consultant (The Sleep Lady) out of desperation at 6 mos (she's got a book out now, Kym West) and she was the best. She espoused what everyone else is saying, that kids have different temperaments and you have to roll with what works. Anyways, we were in the attachment-parenting, cosleeping camp until 6 mos when our child was waking every hour AND couldn't go to sleep unless we were doing deep kneebends with her in our arms, bouncing rhythmically, in the bathroom with the shower on. You may think I am joking. I am NOT. Anyways, since we were basically practicing what we liked even then to call Attachment Crying with our colicky, reflux, undiagnosed allergy baby, we decided to try the Pantley No Cry methods to see if they worked. Turns out our kid is just as stubborn as her parents (!) and it ENRAGED her that we would be nearby and not doing as she CLEARLY was communicating (pick me up, nurse me, and then START BOUNCING). The Sleep Lady found this very amusing, the karmic joke of the laid back, Sears-lovin' bfeed on demand, slingwearers breeding a child craving Hitler's train schedule. But life is life. So we did what they call extinction -- shut the door, don't come back. It happened to be Halloween, so I passed out candy to little kids on my front porch sobbing that night, also hushing them if they got too loud! But I was lucky, my daughter cried only 20 mins that night and maybe 1/2 hour the next and that was IT. Naps she was a little grumblier about and took until after 9 mos until the right sleep hormones kicked in, and she's never been a LONG napper but we get between 1.5 - 2 hrs/day even now at 3. But she didn't sob about naps, just complained. Every child's different, and in general, I feel like unless you have a difficult/sensitive child, it's hard to recognize that a)a lot is just hard wired and has nothing to do with parenting ie if they're good sleepers they will sleep and b)we all feel MUCH better when we've gotten enough sleep. I guess that's in response to the age old back and forth about this issue. Let other people parent their children; we're all trying our best (otherwise why would we be analyzing different sleep methods?!) and you are not morally superior just bz your child happens to respond better to one parenting method over another. Also, to tie it right into gummy bears, if your child wanted to eat 100 gummy bear vitamins (which we love but your dentist might not) you would flat out say NO no matter how much she cried bz it might kill her. Not sleeping enough might not kill you but it don't make you grow up strong and healthy. Oh, and I don't think the above posters want to seem this way, but saying "I hate this method but I had PPD" is just a little bit of a cop out. Come on, folks, let's agree just to say -- parent how you see fit. And if you are traveling and want a quick blackout, they sell blackout cloth at Country Curtains and you can bring a roll of painter's tape with you. Plus, white noise machines really *are* the best. And routines. And, apparently, the fact that our bfeeding-on-demand monster (12+ times a day until weaned after 2) would never take a pacifier despite our desperate best efforts. Thanks so much, Heather! You truly throw it all out there, so honestly. Appreciatively...

Wow. I'm so glad you had the balls to venture into this minefield, because I did a month ago and there were casualties. Well. Specifically, casualTY, as in, I'm now down one friend. One friend that I admired and trusted, and she has chosen to cut me off because I wrote a post about sleep-training my child.

I like what one of your posters said - "Why we gotta be bitches?"

You do realize that Dr. Sears and his AP disciples have probably taken out a hit on you. They're also probably studying every pro-CIO poster here and listing names.

I say, whatever works. It worked for me. I can't say it was easy. But ultimately, I believe that continuous sleep is healthy for both child AND parent, so a couple of nights of crying are a small price to pay for long-term rest and health. Just my opinion.

Heather....you ROCK for your honesty. Thanks for your site. I really look forward to reading it every day.

At some point,and this is me pontificating because I'm not a mother, but I have been a nanny, but at some point you have to train your kids to realize that you cannot be manipulated by tears and tantrums. And it is hard. But better for all parties in the long run.

But yes. It is painful to hear your kid cry like that and know exactly how pathetic and sad they look with little tears leaking out their eyes. But they learn, and at this point in their lives? Won't remember this experience, but the learning part of it will stick.

Oh how I wish I had a crystal ball and could see that the next day, next week, next year, etc. that my kids would be just FINE despite the fact that I let them cry a bit, because they always are. I have two kids (4 and 1) and I know they'll be fine and yet I still will hold my pee until I put the littlest down for her nap because I don't want her to cry while I run to the bathroom. All kids should be so lucky that their parents love them so much.

Twelve hours?! I didn't realize that was possible. My seven-month-old sleeps from about 8pm-4am, then about 4:30-6:30. We've tried the let-her-cry method to cut out that 4am wakeup, but one of us always caves in. This post was encouraging; maybe we'll try it again. I have found, though, that teary-eyed pleas do not work on babies. But I'm sure I'll be trying that again, too.

Lord, woman! I'd go crazy too! All that screaming. I'm so glad life is a lot better now. And what a lucky girl - having both parents take her to the dentist for the first time. Wow. Looking at that picture I realized I could NEVER imagine my dad doing that when I was a kid.

If you back in history, people used to work at or near home - the whole family in one place. It's odd that now we go off in separate directions and think that is normal... and desirable. I'm happy to see that you've found a way out of that trap.

Hmm sounds to me like maybe the best solution is to use the "Let Them Scream" method, but introduced and ingrained by a nanny or relative while the parents (especially Mom) go to Hawaii for 7-10 days. That way, those who are the most emotionally involved don't have to white knuckle and sob their way through the worst part, get a restful post-partum vacation, and come back to a perfectly sleep-trained angel!

Seriously, I can't let my puppy cry for two seconds. If I had to go through this, I'd totally hire a professional! :)

We totally did the CIO thing with our twins. After all the m/c and the loss of our daughter, then 8 and 9 weeks in the NICU, I didn't have the brains to start working on it before 13 months old. Only when my hubby and I were about to divorce, and I realized I wasn't safe to be alone with the kids from sleep deprivation, did I resort to it. I had always been one of those, "I will never let my child(ren) cry." people. Boy, I sure changed my tune. I would sit in the living room, crying my heart out while they cried in their room. I was physically ill during that time from it all. I wish someone had given me Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child when I spent those 4 long weeks in the hospital before they were born. Thank goodness I had one of each because I was scarred enough from that first year I will NEVER have another child. However, they are now 3 and I am enjoying the hell out of them. While they never took a pacifier, they did end up getting milk during the night when we bought our house in Sept and moved. So, since we are about to potty train (which I look forward to as much as teaching a baby to sleep through the night) I have to break the bedtime milk habit.

You are right. We have to each do what is right for us, and for each child. No two kids are the same. Thank you for sharing your experience.

PS- props to all of you for simply trying to be the best parents you can be. I work all day in juvenile court in a major metropolis- where parents don't exist and the situation is only getting worse. Doubting your parenting skills? Think again. Your kids are blessed.

Land mines abound, yes. I'm sure you will get mail from co-sleepers, from attached parenting practicers, from "whodoyouthinkyouarelettingthatchildscream"-ers. But what really matters is that it worked for your family!!

I wanted to be a co-sleeper. It did not work. He kept falling out of the bed, despite all the co-sleeping articles I read that said, "That never happens!". Well, let me tell you that the first time he fell out and bonked his head on the night table, after I stayed up the rest of the night watching him breath, making sure he didn't have a concusion, I thought...never again!! He was six months old, waking up consistently at 2am and 4am for feeding. He was also eating at about 3 hour intervals throughout the day, which means mama didn't get more than 3 hours of sleep at a time for roughly 6 months. If I had known I could check myself into a mental institution, I would have done it just to get a good nights sleep! You are so brave! At the 6 month check up the pediatrician said he should be able to sleep through the night just fine. Oh, really?

We basically did what you did. The first few nights were the worst. He would wake up and cry, I would go in, give him a bottle with water in it (yeah, right), then pat him on the back (no picking up) and leave the room. The rule was, let him cry for 10 minutes, then go back in, sooth him, and leave again. For 8 or 9 days we didn't get much more sleep than normal, but miraculously, he figured it out! After 14 days he was sleeping through the night, at least 10 hours at a time. We never did get a 12 hour night out of him that didn't involve cold medicine of some kind. *snark*

Now he's going to be 6 next month, and we're dealing with nightmares. He's back to wanting to sleep in our room again. *sigh* If it's not one thing...it's another!

Thank you for sharing your stories. You are doing a great service to mothers everywhere.

I looked at the Harvard Gazette article and found the referencing research paper with the claims sited by blogger101.

The paper said this as well:

"...although there is considerable work on early emotional learning (during the first 6-8 months), there is little work explicitly and directly relating this early learning behavior to later behavior. This paper will conclude with some suggestions for doing so."

In essence, these researchers are making presuppositions, along with sweeping generalizations about parents neglecting their children.

Of course, anyone anywhere can conjure up something to support any claim.

What it comes down to is what someone else mentioned above: that everyone does not have the same right answer.

Accusing Jon & Heather of bad parenting is ridiculous and illustrative of an incredibly black and white method of thinking.

Disagreeing with their method is one thing; going to an extreme and turning that into a bad parenting accusation is another.

I only wish that all children had parents like Jon & Heather - parents that consider them in every aspect of all that they do - who foster learning and independence and couple that with unconditional love and nurturing EVERY DAY.

If this makes a bad parent, then count me as one too.

Heather - you have a great site and I read it daily. My kids are now 23, 21 and 16. With our first I would get up and breastfeed her and then try to put her in her own bed. I suffered with that idea for about 3 months when I was told it was ok to bring your child into your bed. We practiced "The Family Bed" from that time on. We were warned that our kids would never be independent but amazingly we only have one left at home! I was lucky that I was able to sleep while they ate and they didn't really wake up at night after the first few weeks. My oldest daughter had her first child in December and they are also using the family bed. The thing for everyone to remember is that each child is different and has different needs and each family is different and has different needs. Keep up the great writing.

I have a two-year-old who still doesn't always sleep through the night (he's in a big boy bed now) and still uses a pacifier. I applaud anyone who can do the sleep training--I just couldn't. I'm due with boy #2 in 2 months and we are vowing to do it differently this time. We'll see!

We also did the family bed thing with the 2nd and 3rd child. Feberized the first one. The oldest will be withn us forever I fear. They other 2 I feared would be too attached to us - quite the opposite. They are very independent. I don't know if this has any thing to do with the sleep method we used. I just went with whatever way I got the most sleep. I think the best parents are well rested ones.

I recently self-published a little sleep book and mainly for my family but it was about this issue directly. I know you did what you had to do and I know many people who have to go that route. I love the fact that you can say here is what we did, you don't have to like it but it worked for us, so there.

For me, my children were much easier to sleep train and my 3 year old still sleeps 12 hours and takes a 2 to 2 1/2 hour nap. My one year old sleeps the same 12 hours (they are in bed by 7pm at night) and then takes a small nap on top of the big nap when his brother does. I don't think it is exactly anything I did (my book gives about 100 ideas) and I don't think it is the fact that you let Leta scream...I think it is more of a temperment of the person (little person) involved.

Anyway, if you are interested in reading my few thoughts on sleep training, I'd love to send you a copy of my thoughts....*hint hint*

Grace is almost 32 months old, and this may be my very own brand of fuzzy math, but I think she and Leta were separated at birth. I laughed hard at the gummy bear incident, 'cause Grace's version goes something like this: she asks for more of (insert favorite non-organic sugar source here) and I say no; at which point she uses sign language to show emphatically, "MORE!", as if they only thing standing between her and said sugar is my inability to process her request.

Your posts keep me sane. Really. Keep 'em coming!

This brings back so many memories, and helps remind me that I lack the energy needed to do it all over again. My son is almost 11 ... it's all about farts, armpit noises and video games. He does manage an "I love you mom" from time to time. They grow up too fast.
An enjoyable read - thank you.
C
http://journals.aol.com/rapieress/Aweekinthelife/

Other moms, including you, will probably hate me. My boy is almost 5 months and he has been sleeping 8-9 hours ince he was 3 months old. He is a big boy, in 90% for height and 60% for weight, litterally is always hungry. When he was just a few weeks old he would eat every hour. He never slept more than 30 minutes either. Then, when he was about 2 months old he stopped taking naps during the day, but was still eating every hour or so all day long. I was losing it. One night, after reading BabyWise at 3am, I decided I wasn't going to get him when he woke up hungry again. Not until 6, so make him sleep for 3 hours. Of course, when he woke up at 4:15am he was screaming for food. The pediatrician had told us at his 2month exam that he could go for 2-4 hours at night wihtout a feeding, so I was trying very hard to stick to it. I got up at 6 to go feed him and he was asleep. He woke up around 7, and ate and then did his normal routine of eating every hour or so.

But, at night again I made him sleep for at least 3 hours before he got another feeding. By 3 months old he was sleeping through the night. Now, he still doesn't nap during the day, but at least now he will eat every 2-3 hours instead of every hour. I hate that I had to let him scream at the time...but it was so worth it.

My first was awake screaming for the boob every 4 hours, round the clock for at least 6 mos... and noone ever told me that was not "correct".... That on top of me following the "manual" like it was the only way... "once you feed baby on one side, change the diaper..." ooops, except that wakes up the full belly baby... grrr... feed on the other side... then I'd cringe because It said I had to change the diaper... OH MAN! What a time. I didn't know any better. Next baby comes along 20 mos. later and it was oooh so much better. Feed the baby on one side, and if the diaper wasn't leaking, G'night, little one! It did no harm, she was a happy, chubby baby and my sanity was far better off. I chalk it up to experience and common sense, which I was seriously lacking with #1. Didn't mean to get so chatty... but, yes, you're so right. One must do what works for them, all these "experts"... uh, take their advice with a grain of salt!

You do what works for you. My son did not sleep through the night completly until he was 18months old. I thought I was doing something wrong, but no, it was our neighbours. We moved and within one night he was sleeping through the night. I did use the "No Cry Sleep Solution" and it did work for us for the most part. He did go from waking every hour to every four. Now at 2 1/2 he sleeps 10 hours a night and 2 hours every day. It's great :)

Thanks for sharing your story.

My son was born one moth before Leta. I have not idea if my wife and I went by a book, but we were not breat feeding. Had some troubles and found it was better with formula because that meant I could get up in the middle of the night and feed the boy. Yeah!

Our basic method was to make sure that he ate an entire 8 ounce bottle before he went to bed. Made him finish the whole thing. That was all it took. He was sleeping through the night.

One of the big problems we read about pacifiers is that they fall out of the mouth and the the kid wakes up without it and freaks out. We stopped using that very early.

I breast fed baby #1 for 18/12 - no pacifier. At 6/12 i had a similar problem as you, she couldn't fall asleep without boobie. We did the controlled crying thing- it was AWFUL but effective. Along came baby #2 2.5 years later.He was breast feed but also had a pacifier. He sleep 12hrs from the start & had 2hr naps.

Lesson 1. Your babies will be different.

Lesson 2. What makes Mum happy makes baby happy.

Lesson 3. They are now 16 & 14yrs and have no memories of their baby years. ..Luckily!

I don't have kids, but I am writing that down anyway! I think this is exactly what my parents did with me. It was very hard on my mom too!

Have a great weekend!!

Proverbs, or King Solomon, or whoever that was in the Old Testament, was correct in stating that there is nothing new under the sun. When my son was born in 1962 my husband and I were college students, neither of whom had ever even baby-sat for an infant, and we were living far from either of our families. I had been brought up to believe that one could learn how to do anything from a book. So I bought Dr. Benjamin Spock's book, the original Baby and Child Care, and used it as an owner's manual. Everything he said to do worked, and I became a confident parent. I haven't read these undoubtedly more up-to-date parenting books, but Dr. Spock said to put the baby to bed at bedtime and leave the room. He said the baby might cry for a while but would eventually go to sleep. He said that the next night the baby would cry for a shorter length of time. He said that more than likely by the third night, the baby would not cry at all. I am simplifying for the sake of brevity, but what I have described is exactly what happened with my baby.

I could cite dozens of examples of how his common sense approach to child-rearing worked like a charm with my child. No doubt what helped to make it work was my faith that it would. A man doesn't have to have his book included in the Bible to create believers. Dr. Spock was much-maligned and misquoted in his day, but not by anyone who actually read his book and did what he advised. I recommend him.

I have two boys, 15 months apart, so I have been through countless sleepless nights. We tried a few different methods of getting our boys to sleep through the night. What worked for us was showing them we loved them and comforting them when they were scared or upset. It seems to have worked, the both now sleep through the night.

We allowed both boys to have pacifers when they were young. They called them "fyers" (paci-fyer). Anyway, when we decided it was time for them to give up thier fyer, we told them that the 'fyer fairy' (think tooth fairy) was going to come one night and take their fyer from them and give it to a baby who needed it, and leave them a gift.

The oldest wanted and got a Spider Man blanket and the youngest wanted and got a stuffed dog. We never got one complaint about them being gone.

I feel I was very fortunate in that I had a friend with a difficult baby and I learned from her before my first baby was even born.

As it turned out, my first baby was a champion sleeper. She could have won a prize at the state fair if she'd been old enough for 4-H.

Then my second baby was born.

And she was such a constant screamer, such a non-sleeper, such a difficult baby, that - God help me - I began to understand what drives some people to the point of frustration where they do something mad. Those were dark days.

And then I remembered about the whole sleep-training thing. A lot of people thought I was horrible. But what they didn't know was that it was either sleep training or me holding a pillow over her face, God help me some more. The sleep training worked and I don't give a flip abou the people who say I should have worn a baby sling and kept her Boobie Buffet open all night long, bla bla bla. What they didn't know was the alternative and I wasn't about to share that deeply.

She's ten years old now, beautiful and funny and I love her so much it hurts. She sleeps through the night with no trouble.

When our first was four months old I told my husband, "Somebody's going to be crying tonight, but this time it's not going to be me!" We did the Ferber thing with all three of our kids, and it got easier each time because the 2nd and 3rd simply HAD TO WAIT (i.e. learn to self-soothe) while the older kid(s) demanded all sorts of attention once the new baby got home from the hospital. Thanks for sharing your story!

Oh.

Um, I have three members of the pre-school mafia. With my first, I may have been a bit over the top with the whole "oh my freaking GOD what if I'm creating bad habits?!?!"

By the time I had my last, the barnacle boy, I was much more comfortable with letting him have the pacifier and I breastfed him at night a lot longer than my older two; however, it was probably because I couldn't cope with the crying, and honestly? I just didn't see the harm. My last baby slept with us in bed because I was too lazy to get up and nurse him in a chair. Totally serious. I got a lot more sleep that way.

The fact that you feel you have to preface your post with "I would have been judged by my decision" absolutely blows my mind. Only because I can't believe other moms, *real* moms, could possibly judge another mother. Don't we all know the insane short cuts we take? Aren't we all human? Additionally, in our hearts, we do what's right for our families.

I was an active member of several online new mother communities, and this "debate" always slayed me. Because who the fuck CARES????!!!!! I equate it to something like - you sleep on your side and I sleep on my back. I'm going to judge you for that? Please.

No offense, but this is a really tired topic for mothers of older kids. Once you get past infancy, you're dealing with much bigger issues.

The first three months of my boy's life he slept about 9-10 hours a day. The other 14-15 hours, he needed to be jiggled, swaddled, bounced, walked, and gently persuaded to please--please!--not scream his head off so mommy had enough time to shower, eat and even try to get some sleep herself.

I was going out of my goddamn mind.

I finally just put the guy down and let the him cry for a while since he was crying anyway. For an hour or so (sometimes more) he would howl until he fell asleep. It took about three or four days, but the change was epic. The same guy who would wake, howling every two hours was suddenly sleeping seven hours at a clip. He napped, He was cheerful. He was a different kid.

The problem was he was sleep deprived. Letting him cry it out helped him get the sleep he so badly needed. (Me, too.)

"HOW DOES YOUR CHILD SLEEP?" MAD-LIBS:

Well, when my twins were _______ months old we ____________________. Then we had to ______________ again from time-to-time. And of course, every time they _____________ or _____________ we have to __________________ all over again.

We never had to ___________________. They seem to have come pre-programmed on that so we were lucky. But OMG, they wouldn't stop ___________________ for months, MONTHS I tell you, so we were phillips head screwed on that.

Thankfully at _______ years old, they still __________________ and ___________________. So of course we're brilliant parents.

And if we have more kids we'll definitely _________________ because otherwise I think I'd have to stick my head in the oven.

my first child had horribly allergies and colic so much so she had an embilical hernia. at 3 months after trying everything we left her cry in her crib for hours it seemed. there was nothing we could do other than let her sleep in her swing and she did plenty of that for the first year.

to ease our nerves, my husband and i would go to the patio and drink wine and smoke--every night, reminding ourselves that we will look back and hopefully, not remember how painful this all was.

the second child, everyone was drugged...

You're a brave woman, landmine, landmine. I did baby-whispering. Mostly b/c she insists on sleeping in our bed. She was never a real problem sleeper to begin with... if the pacifier disappeared in the middle of the night she certainly wouldn't freak. She'll sleep the night in her crib, but she still won't quite fall asleep in there alone. That's the next great hurdle. She's 15 months old now. The good thing about baby whispering is that the baby doesn't have to scream much. The first night or two you need to be on speed and ready for a lot of work. But then (at least I was) you're basically home-free. The whole deal is that you set them down in their cribs and when they start crying, you pick them up again - wait til they're calm again, and put the child down again. Repeat until baby accepts its fate. Your back suffers, but there's a whole lot less screaming. For anyone who tries this, make the chiropracter appointment in advance!

The truly funny thing about this post?

She put her guard up expecting a frontal assault regarind her child rearing skills and instead she's getting sucker punched over the damn Gummi Bears.

Internet people are crazy like that. :P

I have a 17 month old daughter, and I also did the "Ferber Method", when she was 6 months. I would agree with the going in and out to soothe them, it only makes matters worse. I was very lucky, by day 3 she was sleeping through the night. I have talked with other Moms who have done this and I will admit that not every mom says that this has worked for them, but for most of them it has. As you said each situation and baby is different, but I think this method is worth a try.

I have a 5 month old son who wakes up anywhere from 2-4 times a night. I remember thinking this was the norm, and looking forward to some magical age or weight when he'd graduate to all-night sleeping, and being incredibly pissed when I found out that metabolically, babies are supposed to be able to go 10 hours from the time they're 10 lbs or so.

I was all about the attachment parenting at first. It's such a holier-than-thou approach, it appeals to a book snob like me. I thought, "I'll never have all those problems other people have, because.." Because what? I'll love my baby more than them? Whatever. Anyway, suffice it to say that slowly my attachment parenting creds all went out the window, from breastfeeding to co-sleeping and finally to letting him cry it out.

Ironically, my husband was all about the cry approach at first, when my poor son was just a week old, 8 lb blob. Now that I'm ready to let him cry, hubby is all, "Are you just going to abandon him in there?" But I am SO READY to get more than 5 consecutive hours of sleep, and to go to bed at a more grownup hour than 7 pm. I've referrenced your Binky posts many times and hope to convince my husband to give CIO a try sometime soon.

Right now I am doing a hodgepodge combination of putting him to bed in his crib, letting him fuss a bit to see if he'll put himself to sleep, and then when he wakes up that first time around 3 in the morning, I take him to our bed. I know I'm going to kick myself for it later, but it's the only way I can get enough sleep to keep myself sane right now. He's a 30 minute napper during the day, so catching up on sleep with naps is not an option.

Thanks for going into your experience in more detail! I always wondered.

I cringed when I got to the end of this post and saw how many comments there were. I thought "Some people are going to leave nasty comments and comments will get closed again, and i'm enjoying them so much." So I read or scanned all 271,(because I have no life) and was pleasantly surprised. Apparently none of the more fanatical mommies I went to LLL with read you. Or they got deleted? Which is your perogative. Anyway, yay for comments, and yay for us, for being civilized.

My sleep rules with little babies changed with my two children. I was a firm believer in no-Ferberizing with my first child. And, yet, she has always had a hard time going to sleep -- particularly by herself. We did finally have to get tough and let her cry it out. For me, I had to leave the house. My husband could handle, I could not. So, we'd set the timer for 15 min and I'd wait outside. She was always asleep before the 15 min were up. My son always prefered to sleep by himself. Even as a newborn, he'd finish nursing and make it clear he wanted to be put down. He was always able to be put into his crib as an infant and put himself to sleep. Magical. We had very few cry it out sessions with him. Once they were older, I had a policy of "as long as you stay IN your bed, you can read or play or whatever." It works! They are happy in bed and rarely come out to bug us. Since there is no "you will now sleep" pressure, bedtime isn't so bad. They are almost always asleep within 15 minutes and when they aren't, they wouldn't have been anyway. We also have dimmers on both their lightswitches. It works for us. They go to bed with the lights 1/2 way and then I dim them WAY down once they are asleep. But, if I need to go in at night or they need to go potty, we can all see where we are going and they don't have any scared of the dark issues. It works great.

Oh my gosh- I am dying laughing over the person who did the Ad- Lib! That is so freaking funny!!

I agree with the PP - I think all of our comments have been very civilized!

Re: the gummi bears- they have lots of Vitamin C!!

Dina

Ah, the whole sleep issue. This is probably one of the biggest debates amongst parents because everyone seems to have a different solution.

I used the same book - Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. It had step-by-step instructions, which is what I needed with my first child because I had no clue what to do. She was awake all the time. Didn't nap. Didn't sleep longer than 30 minutes. I was absolutely exhausted.

With my second I vowed to do the whole attachment parenting thing because I felt so guilty about sleep training my first. But once my son was mobile enough, he didn't want to sleep, no matter how comfy and cozy our bed was. But why would he want to if climbing over me and doing a nose dive off the bed was so much more fun?

My daughter is now 5 and my son is now 2. They are awesome sleepers and have been since she was 6 months old, and he was 9 months old. They aren't scarred emotionally from that first night we decided to do the 'cry it out' method. The way I see it is, the whole family was being affected by this profound lack of sleep. Something had to be done. I was a basketcase, I was spending most of my day trying to get my son to nap while my daughter watched tv, and my husband couldn't do much of anything unless he sprouted boobs so he could help out with the breastfeeding.

Now with my third, she is in the bed with us, which is how our first 2 started out. It works for now. But I'm also a completely different parent now in that I go to bed at 8 p.m. (sometimes earlier) so the first nightwaking at 2 a.m. isn't a problem. Plus she naps wonderfully by herself (which the first 2 never did at this age). And, well, she's probably my last baby so I am trying to relish every second of this.

Every parent struggles with these things. It's important to know that most don't have it any easier than I did.
My kids are now 23, 16 & 12. As a new parent I think I did just about everything wrong with that first one and she didn't sleep well til age FIVE. That's probably why the next one was born when she was six.
Maybe because I was in therapy I realized that I should make some parenting changes. The last two grew up with clear limits, consistant routines, and tons of loving praise for everything they did right. I let them cry themselves to sleep just a few times and it really worked. They love to sleep. They love thier beds. We are all so much happier. It was very hard, but most important things are.
It might have been a little easier for me because I knew how awful life could be if the problem did not get solved.
At that time there was no forum like this where we could learn from each other. I read so many books trying to understand how to be a good Mom.
In the end I realized that my personal problems were getting in the way. Once I figured out how to be a good me I gave myself permission to listen to my heart. To trust myself. That it was okay to make mistakes. Required, even.
If I had a time machine, I would go back and do a better job for that first kid. But who knows? Maybe she would be too perfect for this world if I hadn't screwed her up a little.

Hi Heather, thanks for sharing this. You asked what worked for your readers... So I will tell a short version of my story.

Before Alex was born, I think Chris and I had a vision in our heads that kids went to sleep at about 8pm and then the rest of the night for parents would be like it was pre-baby. HAHA! After the first few crazy days with Alex at home, I realized that my sleep and life had just drastically changed. And that rather than having any answers or pre-conceptions, I would end up just rolling with it and figuring things out as they happened. This is how we started cosleeping, and I have ZERO regrets.

In our situation, it worked out great. I had a really hard time getting breastfeeding to kick in. I felt inadequate, powerless, completely devastated that such a simple 'natural' thing wouldn't work. They're boobs after all, and isn't their mission to make milk?! Anyways, this combined with not being able to sleep unless Alex was right there, gradually morphed into cosleeping. The side benefit of this is that nursing became immensely easier, and I had MUCH MORE SLEEP than I would have had if I had nursed and then put Alex down in a bassinet or crib. I also didn't have to get out of bed, so once we got the hang of things, I could pretty much sleep while nursing.

I remember the other women with babies of a similar age talking all the time about being so tired and remember thinking, 'hey, we've got a good thing going here'. For us the pros of cosleeping definitely outweighed any of the cons of any of the other methods.

Even though I don't sleep through a whole night myself (and haven't in over 2 years) I'm generally really well rested and high functioning. My son is super happy and engaged with the world, he sleeps lots of nights on his own (without any crying), has giant naps, and we get to sleep in together on weekends.

For anyone who is uncomfortable with the CIO method, or wondering about sleep in general, I'd encourage them to read some things online. James McKenna has great articles about his research into mother-baby sleep and the why cosleeping is the preferred method of 'sleep training' worldwide. It's been wierd for me to know that I am in the minority on this topic, but I'm posting here because cosleeping has worked really well for us, and I'd do it all again in a second.

I'd only just gotten used to sleeping through the night for the first time in almost 4 years when my youngest came along. And unfortunately he was was just like his sister with the waking every single night - multiple times. Luckily mine weren't screamers. But I wish I had known then how to get them to sleep through the night for more than a couple of hours! Talk about torture.

I'm relieved they are older now. Both of them have slept soundly for 12 hours a night since they were 3 1/2 or so. And they have never given me a problem with going to bed (it's *never* been negotiable - the same with carseats, meals, etc.) - even as babies.

I get good sleep now finally, but I definitely haven't forgotten all those night where I thought I might lose my mind from sleep deprivation.

I suffered a terrible, black post partum depression with my last child, which lasted over 2 agonising years. The sleep deprivation didn't help (putting it mildly). Blessedly my husband is an angel and helped me through it. All is well now. But it was hell I tell you.

It only gets better as they get older. Take heart - anyone who is going through it now.

After my son's colic passed, he was sleeping through the night pretty quickly. He'd sleep anywhere from 12 to 15 hours a night AND THEN took two or three naps during the day. This had nothing to do with any special training on our part. I think it's genetic b/c both husband and I love to sleep, and sleep late.

My Mom had an issue with it and told me I should take him to the Doctor. I told her basically to go fuck herself, b/c she was just jealous :)

We have a 17 month old who still wakes up 2 or 3 times a night. He takes a 2 hour nap (usually 12-2) everyday. I put him to bed at 8pm. He SCREAMS at 11pm. Then SCREAMS again at 2am. Then SCREAMS again at....Well, you see where I'm going with this. I WANT TO CRY NOW.

We are cut from the same cloth as I also felt the back and forth aspect of the Ferberizing was torturous for all of us. In the end we had to let my son cry it out. Naps were still an issue and I actually paid to speak to Dr. Ferber himself over the phone. (Did you know you could do that?) My son never fell asleep on his own in his crib for naptime. He would fall asleep in the car, but when I tried to return him to his crib he woke up. Ferber said, "Who said he has to sleep in his crib?" Well, this was HUGE for me. I began to make a little nest of pillows on the floor where Frankie would take his afternoon naps and it was GREAT! He would relax and nod off during a video or I would bring him in from the car and put him down there. It's all about what works for you. All this talk reminds me of why I had 2 children and my husband had 1 vasectomy.
Cheers! J.

Thank you for writing this post. I belong to a mom and baby group and it seems that every time the topic of sleep comes up, I see three camps: 1) the naturally good sleepers, 2) the by-the-book CIO-ers, you know, 30 minutes the first night, 10 the next, bliss by night 3, and 3) the suddenly quiet moms. I belong to group #3.

My daughter is 8 months old now and I've been wanting to CIO for a long time. At her 6 month appointment I actually lied when the pediatrician asked how she was sleeping. I said she got up to feed every two or three hours. My doctor was appalled. Of course, what was even more appalling was that my daughter actually got up even more often than that. But what has stopped me was I KNEW that my baby was not going to be one of those 30 minute fussers, and I couldn't find anyone who would admit to letting their baby scream for hours. I tried asking the doctor if there was an upper limit to how long we should let her cry. She gave the very unhelpful answer "it depends on the parents. Some parents can only take 10 minutes. Others can take an hour." We had actually tried to CIO at around 4 months and after one hour the baby had just begun. At that point, we decided she was too young and that we would try again later. But I had a hard time convincing myself to do it because I couldn't find anyone who would openly admit, yes, my baby screamed for hours and hours for many, many days, and she wasn't damaged.

So anyway, this is a long way of saying thank you for telling your story. You made me realize that 1) I don't have some sort of super-willed child that the world has never seen before, and 2) she can scream and scream and, in the end, she will be fine.

We actually decided we would CIO last weekend and ultimately gave up. The first night she screamed bloody murder but eventually fell asleep (actually, literally did a face plant into her blanket. I was worried about suffocation but my husband convinced me to let her be.) For the rest of the night she woke up SCREAMING every 30-45 minutes. We let her scream herself back to sleep everytime. The next morning I heard her rustling about so I decided to go in. The moment she saw me she started screaming. I picked her up and she screamed even more. It was the only time she has not been at least a tiny bit comforted by me holding her. On top of that, she looked like a mangy, uncared for dog: her hair was sweaty and matted, she had huge circles under her eyes, and her eyes were bloodshot. I was horrified and just started crying while holding her tight. It also didn't help that I only slept for 20 minutes at a time that entire night.

I thought to myself, this isn't what's supposed to happen. If she falls asleep without my nipple, isn't that suppose to make her sleep in longer stretches, not shorter? And isn't she suppose to be happy to see me the next morning?

The next night was better. She screamed for a bit less when we put her down, and only woke up every 2 hours of so. SCREAMING, but every time she eventually went back to sleep on her own.

The third night was awful. This time she knew what was coming. She started screaming as soon as I picked up her and turned towards the crib. She clung on to me as I tried to put her into it. And then she screamed and screamed, longer than she did for the first night. At that point I didn't know what to do. Everyone always said it gets progressively easier. What happens if the third night is worse that the first? So I gave up and took her back to bed with me.

I think part of what has made it so hard for me to convince myself to CIO is that she is not sleep deprived. Yes, she needs my nipple to fall asleep, but she barely even wakes in the middle of the night when she roots around and cries for it. And as long as she has my nipple, she takes great naps, two two-hour naps a day. The problem is that it's not so easy for me. I fully wake up every time she roots around at night, so I get very fragmented sleep. Also, a lot of the time she won't let go of my nipple after she falls asleep, especially for naps. So, even though she takes 2 hour naps, I have to lie there with her for the entire 2 hours.

So for me, it was the guilt of prioritizing myself over my baby. She was getting plenty of sleep, so CIO would purely be for me to get some sleep and get some time to myself. I can't even say to myself that she'll be happier because she'll be well-rested. She already is well-rested and a very happy baby. It would all be for me.

After reading your post today, I've decided to give it another go. Maybe I'll post again later and let you know how it goes.

I've always cringed whenever I hear about or witness the circus some parents go through to get their kids to go to sleep - the going in and out of the child's room and this and that, repeatedly trying to calm or sooth the child to sleep... I'm of the opinion that children need to learn how to self-sooth themselves and they CANNOT do this by falling asleep in bed with mom or dad or being rocked, coddled or sung to sleep or whatever. Bedtime is bedtime; it's time to sleep! and if you teach your child that's what bedtime is, they'll get the drift and you'll have a child that goes to sleep at bedtime. I think you're right on, Heather. And all other parents out there, CONSISTENCY is KEY! IT IS THE RULE!!! You may feel like a complete ogre at first - the worst parent alive - as your child screams and screams, but hang in there. It'll work.

We co-slept and breastfed. It's hard for me to say when he started "sleeping through the night" because our awake/breastfeeding times consisted of my rolling onto my side and breastfeeding for a few moments till he was back asleep. Luckily for us, neither of us were awake for much of it...I'd sleep through it and he'd really only nurse for a couple minutes before falling back asleep. He's four years old now and moved to his own bed on his own accord.