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!

Question: somebody told me that they had read that it was important to attend to every need for the first year - not to say that they would need feeding, but that they would need attention. I'd heard the opposite, as in setting boundaries, but this person said that this first year was important so that they established their sense of safety or something like that... Thoughts?

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