Starting CIO tonight with 14mth old. Advice PLEASE!!!

[newnana]

Hey Everybody,
DH finally convinced me to give up our dirty little secret: the good-night bottle. Yeah, DD is way too old for this and I should know better, but it has worked for us and is the only one we give her.

DD has one heck of a temper, and I'm afraid that if we go in to soothe her at all she will start the process all over and it will be counterproductive, so we're thinking of just letting her go.

I'm going to put away all the bottles before she comes home from day care and show her they're gone when she gets in. Throughout the evening, I'm going to mention that she will not have bottles any more because she's a big girl. We'll do our normal routine of dinner, bath, pj's, story, and then...

Do I rock her at all to calm her down before bed or is that a bad idea?

We also won't be going in in the middle of the night if she wakes up.

The ped said cold turkey is the best bet.

I'm begging for advice how to get through this everybody. Thanks in advance and wish us luck!
Michelle

[hudsonam]

I wouldn’t follow any hard and fast rules. If you feel the need to go in to comfort, do it, but what we did was let him cry for 5 min, then 10, then 15, and so on, in between going in to pat him on the back. We did it much younger then you are, so that will probably make a bit of a difference. It's really hard, but totally worth it in the end. Good luck! Go with your instincts, but do try to resist going in and picking her up, even though it might be really difficult.

[BaileyBea]

14 mths is too old to do away w/the night bottle? Really? DS is 16 months and still takes his night sippy cup. He has 16 oz of milk per day and that's what our Dr recommends between 16-18 oz of milk per day.

I never did the CIO method. We did what you do have a normal routine: dinner, playtime w/Dad, bath, pj's, give night sippy cup, read story, brush teeth then we both hug DS, tell him Mommy and Daddy love him and kiss him good night. We plop him into bed and walk out.

When we started this routine he would cry once or twice, but I would go back in there put him back down on his back tell him he has to sleep and goodnight and walk out. No eye contact. He caught on quickly and the CIO was virtually non-existant.

Sometimes when kids wake up and cry in the middle of the night it's because they have nightmares or they are sick. So if the crying goes on for more than 5 minutes, go in there calm them down w/o picking them up from the crib if you can. Pat them put them back down on the bed. Tell them everythings okay and to go back to sleep and walk out.

As for switching from bottle to sippy cup, we started w/lunch meal, then we did breakfast, then dinner and then night sippy cup. We did this over 2 weeks and he didn't notice he didn't get the bottle instead of the sippy cup. He was so used to getting the sippy cup by then he didn't have a problem w/it.

Good luck. I know i probably didn't give you the best advice, but I think that establishing a good routine and making her feel secure would probably be the best transition w/o having to do the full fledged CIO. Listen to her and to yourselves in finding the best solution for your family. ;-)

Good luck!

[Piglet]

I am sorry, but I respectfully disagree with your DH - bedtime bottles are not dirty little secerts - billions of babies have a bedtime bottle or BF. I also am concerned with "explaining" to a 14 month old that the bottles are gone. My DS is a bit older than your DD and there is NO way he would understand "no bottles". I could tell him all night until I was blue in the face, but he would still expect a bottle - he just doesn't get concepts like that. They are too abstract unless he is in the moment.

It just seems to me like a lot of transition for your DD - no bottle, no middle of the night comfort, no milk. I guess my attitude is - if it ain't broke, why fix it? My DS1 has been a great sleeper (still naps for 2 hours a day and he is turning 5 this Friday). My DS2 is a less than great sleeper, LOL. I have done the exact same things with both of them and only now am I seeing progress with DS2's sleep habits, but he still gets a good-night bottle and we will go in and comfort him if needed in the middle of the night. CIO worked with DS1 and has never worked with DS2 - he would cry forever and he would get angry, not sleepy. Some kids just need to be comforted in different ways. I am not sure that doing CIO and ditching the routine are a good combination (heck, for us, CIO was a bad idea on it's own, I wouldn't dare mess with the bottle too).

[ribbit1019]

Well the bottle thing I might build her up to it. You might throw her into a tailspin between throwing out the bottles and then sticking her in her crib alone for the night. Do you already CIO?

With Maddy I took one thing at a time, bottle, the paci then BFing. Though I was willing to continue she weaned herseslf. Then after all that was done I gave her a week and then we did CIO. She wasn't hungry and just wanted comforted. I went in at the 5 min intervals adding 5 minutes each time. It took a while but she eventually learned how to put herself back to sleep.

We stuck with a bed time routine, I believe this was essential ultimately. She eats her dinner (or snack if it was an early dinner) takes a bath, gets her diaper and PJs on, then she brushes her teeth, we read 3 or 4 books, then I rock her while singing songs to her, then I put her in bed wish her a good night and leave the room.

Some nights she still has a meltdown, but lately it has been getting better, the bad nights outweighed the good for a long time. For the most part she goes to bed really well now with very little to no fighting.

ETA: DD was about 13-14 mos when we started weaning her from things.

Christy
My Waterbabies
http://b3.lilypie.com/uVw3m4/.png

http://b1.lilypie.com/tbvhm4/.png
http://www.tickercentral.com/view/6p3x/1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/steitzsmith/Other/jump.gif

[sbjf]

baby on lap but DITTO!!! My 15 month old still gets his bottle cause he likes it, big deal, he's a baby. my ped said it's fine.

[BaileyBea]

I agree w/Christy on the one thing at a time. I guess that's what I was trying to say in my PP. Don't lose her trust in you now. 14 months is still very young to give up the night bottle or feeding.

I personally would just build on the routine. I know I am just not a big fan of CIO. Sorry!

[megs4413]

oh Michelle! That's my dirty little bad mommy secret, too! i knew we were kindred spirits! It's always DH saying we need to "break" her of it....but i was just glad she started sleeping on her own.

Our situation is even worse, though....DD usually wakes up once a night for another bottle! i know it's crazy....but....i've been sleeping for 5 months now! It's AWESOME. Plus now that I'm pg...I really need the rest.....

Let me know how things go with DD...i suppose i could copy your system if it works???? Good luck tonight!!!!

[lmintzer]

sorry--double post

[lmintzer]

I'm all for letting babies stay babies. There's nothing wrong with a bottle before bed. If you are worried about her teeth, you can just re-arrange the ritual slightly. You could do something like bottle, teeth, books/songs, then night-night. Consistency is the key. There's no reason a little one who gets a bottle (or who bf) before bed can't learn to sleep on his/her own. I nursed Joshua before bed until he gave it up at 23+ months. And although he was late to sleep through the night, we finally helped him do it at about 19 months (before that he'd been waking up once).

I agree with the pp who said there's no way your dd could understand why bottles are gone or that she is a "big girl". If you really want to take the bottle away, I'd definitely build in a nice bedtime ritual first, with nice soothing activities. That will make the transition a little easier.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[mamato1]

Can I also urge you to think again about going cold turkey on all of these things at once? My ped urged us to start CIO at 6 months becasue I was still nursing in the middle of the night and he was going down after I nursed him to sleep. I casually mentioned in the office that we wouls start on the following Monday after he was past the yuckiness from his vaccinations. She told me to start that night ahd that there would always be an excuse for putting it off. Well, it was the worst night of our lives and I will NEVER defer to the pediatrician over my gut judgement again. Do what feels right to you, do not blindly follow advice just because soemone has an MD after his/her name.

Getting off of soapbox now. (Where is the sheepish smiley when you need him?)
Chris

Mama to Brendan (aka Boomer) 01/16/04


http://b3.lilypie.com/FnI6m5/.png

[crl]

Hmm, DS was TWO when he finally gave up the last bottle and he still has a sippy cup of water in bed with him every night. If you decide to go a more gradual route, you could try watering down the formula (if that bottle is formula) first. That's what I did. After his formula bottle I would hand him a bottle with just water in it. When I got to about half a scoop of fomula in an 8 oz bottle of water he finally just gave me a disgusted look and went straight for the water. I switched to a sippy cup with water a couple of months later.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

[nov04]

It sounds like you're not in complete agreement w/ dh. Maybe you can both come to a compromise that will fit well w/ dd??

We did away with bottle right before sleep because she needed to brush her teeth and she seemed to be vomitting because of it. We still give it relatively close to bed, to wind down and give her a few calories to get through the night.

She gets a sippy cup of water to quench thirst right before she sleeps. We've tried various things over time to help her sleep (whatever works!) without direct use of bottle.

Right now we're turning out the light and we play quietly in her room until she decides she's sleepy. Then we cuddle together until she's asleep w/ her gloworm. Our next project over time is for her to fall asleep completely on her own. She sleeps straight through 10+ hrs/night.

She's always progressed so well on her own, we just guide her in the right direction.

GL!!!!

[newnana]

Thank you all so much for your advice!!! You are all right. DH and I are not in total agreement, but everyone he talks to says that cold turkey is the way to go. I needed some encouragment on my side of the fence and knew you guys would have some sane advice.

We talked last night and will be talking more tonight about this (and I'm sure many others). Here's what we decided last night, but it might change tonight and every other night until we start making a real change. I really didn't want to do this last night for many reasons, one of which is that I have an informal interview today and would like to shine... or at least not look more frazzled than I already always do :)

We put 6 ounces in the bottle instead of her normal 9. When it ran out she screamed for about 5 seconds before calming down in my arms. I let her fall asleep in my arms, which took about 2 more minutes. As usual, she opened her eyes when I layed (laid?) her in her crib and they were closed again before I finshed swaddling her. So I rubbed her belly gently to get her to open her eyes again before I left the room and she never maid a sound.

In other words, we're going to keep the bottle for now but put her in her crib semi-awake.

She woke up this morning at 5:10 and didn't go back to sleep even after I made a bottle and gave it to her, but it was getting light out.

She will typically sleep from 7pm to 6am either sleeping all the way through or waking up once at 2:30 when we'll give her a bottle to get her back to bed.

Over the next few days we're going to discuss the middle of the night wake ups. DH thinks if we cold turkey those after she's been putting herself to sleep she'll learn to sleep through since she does most of the time anyway. I think she sleeps like I do with her mouth open and wakes up with burning throat from all the fluid she's lost by drooling (attractive, I know). I think she just wants a drink.

Megs, you bring up our big concern with this. We've been discussing TTC maybe starting in the fall and our fear is that we'll be getting up with both of them in the middle of the night and not getting any sleep.

Thank you all so much for your encouraging advice. She's my baby and I think we should let her be. After putting her to bed awake maybe we'll switch to a sippy. Just ease her into this. I can't thank you all enough!!

Michelle