CIO and quitting the bottle cold turkey

On Tuesday, Mommy and Daddy decided enough was enough with Holly not sleeping through the night. She doesn't need formula anymore, she eats enough and drinks plenty of milk during the day. She also loves using sippy cups and has absolutely no need for a bottle. Aside from the addiction to it. So, against her will, she quit the bottle cold turkey.

Tuesday night she slept pretty much through the night, but she had gone to the doctor that day and probably was a little drugged up from the vaccines. Wednesday was terrible. We put her down around 7:15 and she cried for maybe 5 minutes. She woke up at 8:00 and screamed for more than an hour. I didn't want to go in there, but we were putting Ella to bed at 8:30, so I wanted to see if I could calm her down. I couldn't. She screamed and yelled in my ear, so I gave her some tylenol and laid her back in her crib. Luckily, Ella was able to fall asleep during the scream fest. I balled my eyes out downstairs. I know that crying-it-out works, we did it with Ella, but it's really hard to listen to your child scream and not be able to fix it. She woke up again around 2 and yelled for about 20 minutes, then again at 3 for 10 minutes. Each time was shorter and shorter, and a little quieter. All signs pointed to it working so far. Thursday night she again woke up an hour after being put to bed, but this time only cried for 30 minutes. She woke up a couple times during the night but just moaned rather than screamed. I didn't want to listen to it, so I turned off the monitor. Then at 3:15 she let out a blood-curdling scream that almost made me fall out of bed. But - just the one scream. Jay and Ella slept through it. Jerks. Friday night rocked. We put her to bed and she woke for her 1-hour-post-sleep-scream, but it only lasted 5 minutes. Then she slept until 7:30 a.m.

CIO may be a little mean, but it's working so far and she won't remember it. She wakes up so happy in the morning and jumps up and down laughing and smiling when she sees me. I don't think there will be any permanent damage done. And oh yeah - we did it to Ella and she sleeps through thunderstorms and Holly's rampages. :o)