I want that pony too! Except mine will like gardening instead of vaccuming.

We’re in the same shit. CIO attempt the other night? FAIL. Oy.

GOOD FOR YOU! I was the same way – I was able to use my “anger/frustration” feelings as a buffer to my pangs of sympathy. And I quickly realized that me going in to soothe her actually made her more angry, and therefore scream more, so for us, it worked better to leave her alone.

She was sleeping 10 hours in about 3 days, and the she slept 12 hours for a long time! Wait til this happens. You will cry with happiness.

I’ll be at SXSW! But I’m not getting there until Sunday. Bummage! We’ll be like two booooooooooping ships passing in the night.

I’m telling you, put some bumpers on the bed and put him in bed with Riley…the warm body is totally going to trick his ass into thinking he is there with you!

Also, to solve the bottle situation, I found something to distract my son while he was fussing. For him, it was pulling the hair ties off my wrist and fidgeting with them till he fell asleep again. Now, I go in, lay between the two boys when the baby cries, he instinctively grabs for the hair tie, screams at me a little and then zonks out in about 10 minutes. Co sleeping with brother totally kicks ass!

We are on night 3 of weaning from night feedings and then going full on CIO. Sleep is like crack to me. I need it, I will do anything for it. Whoring myself? If you can get my kid to sleep, I’ll at least give you a second glance!

Have been wondering throughout the day how last night went for you. Am glad you’re holding strong (and, you know, leaving town)…

I had a *ahem* cassette tape years ago called “babbling brook(WTF????)” and it was awesome. That was a long time ago and I sooooo wish I could find it on cd to listen to now.

I don’t have any advice, but I’m pulling for you. And don’t let any CIO haters bring you down; you know what is best for your family.

And I would also like a vacuuming pony, please.

We are most definitely on Day One of CIO at nap time. Not nearly as stressful as lack of nighttime sleep, but boy would it be nice not to have to drag a crabby, screaming baby around with me in the afternoon, or sit on the couch for two hours holding her while she naps. Good luck!

Good Job! Now all you have to do is soldier on. DO NOTE CAVE. Even once will land you back in hell.

Have fun on your trip!

Hey I live in Austin – it’s kinda like Mardi Gras for us – all the natives leave town. Glad you are making progress with the sleep – the end truly justifies the means.

Still sending good luck wishes your way!!!

CIO worked for me, with both kids. Keep it up – based on his reaction last night, I think it will work. I’m willing to bet tonight will be the same, or maybe a little better. But not worse. (Boy am I gonna feel like an ass if that turns out not to be true. But it won’t!) And then the next night? Should be nothing but up from there.

Be aware that if you are anything like us, you will have to repeat the CIO process after any time your child is “spoiled”, sleeping-wise… a visit from the grandparents, maybe, or sickness. We always let the kids sleep with us when they’re sick, and then there are always one or two rough bedtimes once they come out of it. But also know that the first time is the hardest – the “retraining” episodes usually only last one night.

Totally worth it for a sane mommy, in my view. Good luck!

I’m a firm believer in doing what works for you… when my daughter (now four) was about two months old she had this maddening habit of not wanting to eat, but just wanting to be held from about eleven p.m. until 2 a.m. every night. So I couldn’t even feed her and put her back to bed — she would fall asleep if I walked around with her or rocked her and wake up screaming if I put her back in her crib. Anyway, all of this is just to say that my pediatrician laughed at me when I told her about it, and said to just let her cry already.

The first night she cried/screamed for an hour and a half.

The second night she went on for about half an hour.

After that there were a few nights of about fifteen minute screaming.

BOTH of my children (son now one), as babies, seemed to need to howl for a few moments just to let me know they were pissed I was walking out of their rooms. The one-year-old sleeps through the night fine (barring illness or major teething) but still screams for a minute or two after I put him in bed.

Hang in there – I think this will work for you!

OMG, without even reading any further…I worked 13 hours yesterday (without so much as a break for lunch) and what I need today is TOTALLY a hot-stone massage with an epidural chaser.

I need that ocean soundtrack. The Boy doesn’t cry often in the night anymore, but oh! it would be wonderful when he does.

Remember, Dylan will benefit from getting uninterrupted sleep as well. I was reading in a book yesterday–try telling him what’s going to happen–“Dylan goes to sleep, Riley goes to sleep, Mommy and Daddy goes to sleep. Dylan will get a bottle in the morning when its light outside–we don’t have bottles at night. Mommy and Daddy will give Dylan hugs and kisses if he needs them, but bottles are for the daytime.” Can’t hurt, might help.

good for you for comforting him when he needs it. it must be hard for him to change his expectations at night. sounds like you are making positive changes gradually with love. good stuff.

I want that Ocean soundtrack to for the beach! :) He’ll be all good within the week I’d guess. Have a great time at SXSW!!

Laughing so hard about the pony that I think I just blew out some stitches…

Good work and hang in there!

In CIO hell week with you!!! 1st night cried 40 minutes then slept till 7 am. Second night was weird.. she slept all the way through. 3rd night was 20 minutes wailing, reprieve than 20 more minutes wailing then slept till 7am. 4th and 5th nights slept all the way through! So don’t be surprised by some strange patterns. I agree with Jean, we don’t go in unless the crying is horrible, she only seems to get more pissed off. Here is to eight hours of blissful sleep. What a difference in my bitchyness. Even my workouts are better!

we were idiots who waiting until TheGirl was TWO before we took away bottle (yes my 2 year old child still took a bottle at night both to fall asleep and if she woke before morning. Just shut up, OK. SHE IS MAH BABEEEE) the first 3 nights were VERY MUCH like what you had described. but after that I think she finally got it because now (2year 6months) she sleeps through the night – she was acutally sleeping through the night before the end of the second week of that special little sleep-training hell. she’ll occasionaly wake, but now she can usually put herself back to sleep. And f she DOES really need us, she says “I REALLY NEED YOU MOOOOOOM!” (hard to deny that)

good luck, Linda. Not that I think you need it because really, it seems liek you guys are moving int he right direction. and hey! at least you are smart enough to do it before he could scream “NO! I say git mah BA! I NOT SLEEP IF YOU NOT GIT MAH BAAAAHHHH!!!!!!”

You got through the first night! You did it! You can do the second night. You don’t have to worry about anything else. Just this one more night. Keep in mind he might have a bit of resolve tonight, some “I’ll show HER this cannot go on another night”.

YOU CAN DO IT! DO NOT CAVE!

I know how hard the CIO thing is, but sometimes there are just no other alternatives. Both of my kids did the CIO thing and with my youngest we HAD to. If we went in to comfort her? She’d just get that much more pissed off. And that was self-defeating.

We’re in a similar boat with the interrupted sleep right now. We had gotten into the habit of going in and settling her down because she’d settle pretty easily, but now she’s crying even when there’s nothing really wrong, just that she wants us to stay with her. The bummer drag of it is that she and her sister share a room, so BOTH my kids are awake a lot in the night. We’re on the 3rd (I think) night of “You’re on your own, kid” and she was only up once in the night. I blearily stumbled in there when she started crying because I was SOUND asleep, but then didn’t hear any more from her.

I hope that Dylan’s adjustment goes quickly for you.

Eight uninterrupted hours of sleep is way better then a pony that shits gold. Waaaaay better.

Kudo’s to you for doing the right thing even though it is clearly the “hardest” choice.

I forgot to mention that we use our bathroom fan to block some of the screaming. Our master bathroom is attached to our bedroom and the ventilation fan makes just enough white noise to drown out the worst of the crying while still allowing me to hear what is going on. Dunno if that would work in your house.

I’m so getting that ocean soundtrack for when my second is ready to sleep train (thinking ahead already). Stick with it! Eight uninterrupted hours is heaven, better than a gold ingot shitting pony.

Danger! Danger Will Robinson! The following will not make you happy: My son (now 3 1/2) USED to sleep beautifully. Yeah, we had to do the CIO, it sucked, but it worked, and our lives were MAGICAL. And then, at about 3 years or a bit older, he started the ANNOYING habit of leaving his bed, climbing into ours and protesting WILDLY if we try to put him back. It’s been going on for months now. We don’t get very much sleep. Oh, and he doesn’t just sneak into bed with us…no..he gets into bed with us and has to constantly “massage” our noses. WTF?

We keep putting him back, and he keeps a comin’ (poor little guy)

Hi!

I think I will be in Austin for SXSW and would love to meet you. Let me know…you can email me :)

Sounds like progress! When my baby wasn’t sleeping through the night, we did CIO and eliminated the bottle and it worked. For what it’s worth…when my pediatrician suggested eliminating the night feeding, I mentioned that I had heard that watering down the bottle works. He advised against it and said that their little kidneys aren’t ready for that much water. Good luck!

yeah!!!!!!! Go Team Sundry!

Also helpful…the white noise app for your phone.

I hope I am wrong but in my experience night 2 is the worst. BUT! 3 is marginally better and after that is fine. And I hope last night was the worst. HOPE

Glad to hear you’re taking action…your sleep struggle reminded me of our potty-training struggle with our three-year-old. I was doing a hell of a lot of complaining about the fact that he wasn’t interested in being potty-trained, but wasn’t *actually* really working very hard (ahem) at potty-training him. As soon as I decided to make it a priority to me, he was trained in a week. Good luck tonight!

Your plan is perfect – and I say this because this is what we did and it worked beautifully. I nursed/bottle-fed at night and the kiddo showed no signs of wanting to sleep through the night, so we did the weaning in stages. First, get him used to waking up in the night and NOT having anything to drink. This made the part 2 CIO much easier, because we were dealing with 2 issues separately. The actual CIO part only lasted a couple of nights. Keep going, and as some of the other commenters have said, DO NOT cave. Once you start to go down this road, stay on it until you have the wondrous sleeper through the night that you want/need. I can’t wait until the post that you will inevitably write in which you say how you honestly didn’t realize how tired and spacey you were until you got a few nights of uninterrupted sleep.

In unrelated commenting – can you please do a post on what you are doing to train for the stairs? I jog up 3 flights of stairs to my office every day and my legs feel like jelly at the top. I really want to hear about what you are doing to get ready for it.

We did this with our first but it was more the Sleep Lady approach to CIO, and it worked great, but there were still the first few nights of much noise. My question to you is, how do you keep him from waking up Riley? We are about to begin this whole thing again with the second but Im worried those first couple of nights of endless screaming will wake him up to. Our house is not that big, there is no where to hide from The Screaming.

Hang in there, it may get worse before it gets better but it WILL GET BETTER.

when I went through this with my boys, a friend told me ‘stand your ground and don’t give up. Keep reminding yourself that if you go in there and cave he will have cried and fitted for nothing… at least if you stick with it you will have taught him how to soothe himself back to sleep.” that really helped.

It’s also been my experience that the 2nd and 3rd night are even more hideous, but stick with it, because again, I promise, it will get better. It’s like childbirth… hideously painful in the thick of it, but awesome when it’s over.

I am so with you on the sleep! My husband’s company sent us to Palm Springs last year, all expenses paid, spa treatments out the wazoo, five pools, all the alcohol I could drink, and a Starbucks in the lobby. Wanna know what I was most excited about? SLEEP. That’s right. Beautiful sunny Palm Springs and I took a loooong nap EVERY day, then maybe another by the pool, and got at lest 7 hours of sleep every night. BLISS. I wouldn’t even have cared if H was there with me, honestly.

CIOing with you. Night one = survivable. keep fingers crossed.

Marge: Homey, I appreciate this, but I’d really like to get some sleep.
Homer: Oh, of course, my sweet. I’ll just make some soothing ocean sounds for you.
[wooooosshhhh, wooooosshhhh] (waves)
[ehhhohhhhh, ehhhohhhhh] (foghorn)
[SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK!!!!] (seagull)

My little pony would have a really high powered/well-paid job and would pay me to lay on the couch all day.

Oh how glad I am to be past the CIO stage. The twins used to get bottles (of formula. TWINS. FORMULA. GAZILLIONS OF DOLLARS) every night at around 2am.
One night, I took two bottles of water, threw them in grenede style and took off running. Sat in a corner with my hands over my ears while in my happy place.
TURNS OUT THEY WERE JUST THIRSTY. And we were feeding them full meals, which woke them up. From then on, a sippy cup of water in the bed with them each night, and I got to sleep.

Good luck with Dylan. It’s totally unfair how they are so cute and pleasant during the day…and then the sun drops and they become little assholes.

Sometimes having a plan that gives you hope is just enough to get you through the pain of sleep issues. SXSW, sigh. Moved away from Austin two years ago and still miss it. Go to Mi Madre’s for the best breakfast taco EVER. Even if you went out too late the night before, it’s still worth it.

So jealous of your trip to SXSW. We used to drive down to Austin from college every March in the early ’90s!

Hey,I live in Austin! Thought about doing the SXSW Interactive this year, but just didn’t commit the money. Loved it when I went before – great panels. But there was a lot of gaming stuff that I just wasn’t into.

So, if you would like a skilled chauffeur to a fine eating establishment that is less likely to be mobbed, or anything else, let me know. Ignore Powazek’s “guide” – we have more than TexMex and BBQ. Maybe there are enough Sundry readers for a mini-meetup if you’re so inclined?

Yay for you! Yay for Dylan!
So glad to hear you and JB are both chipping in to do this, too. Don’t cave, by the time you’re back hopefully Dylan will have mastered sleeping through the night.

@ChelseaLI — twins here too. Even the inexpensive BJ’s brand of formula got $$$! I’m not sure gallons of whole milk are too much cheaper, but whatever.

We leave little sippy cups of water in their cribs too. BabyB often gets thirsty. Some nights the cup is like a lovey — she’ll wake up fussing, but you hand her the cup, she cuddles it close and she’s back out.

Andrew Bird twice? Lucky.

Good for you, and I’m so glad it went better than expected. Soon Dylan will be rehabituated and you’ll be getting the sleep you absolutely need.

I imagine Dylan was his usual bouncy, happy, playful self today, too.

Babies are constantly growing and adapting to change, in their surroundings and in themselves. People who view this kind of change as “abuse” are ridiculous, in my opinion. Perhaps they’re afraid of, and don’t know how to cope with, strong emotions in their children (like anger). It’s unpleasant, certainly, but concluding a child will be traumatized by reasonable change seems to be more projection than anything else.

Babies can not only handle change that is lovingly delivered, they need to know their parents accept their expression. Sounds like you did all the right things to lovingly affect the change, without caving.

I’ll climb off my rant box now :) Crossing fingers, it goes well tonight.