The short version? No more bottles and sleeping through the night!!!! We're well on our way to having a full fledged big girl in this house (well even bigger than she already is). I randomly decided one night to take away her bottle before bedtime and wham. It was done. It needed to be spur of the moment and it needed to be unplanned for me - I just didn't have the guts to hear her sad cry when she didn't get one at night. Yes, we did the bottle thing at night for maybe six months. It's what worked for us and I have no regrets. Everyone got sleep and that's what counted.
So how did it go? Well, seeing as though Alexys normally has a bottle to go to sleep she was none too impressed when we took her bottle away. We put her to bed without one and explained what we were doing. I simply told her that little tiny babies needed the bottle (we didn't name names...we thought that she might get angry at whoever we named) and that we had to give them all away and that we didn't have anymore. We gave her a sippy cup of milk before bed (which she didn't drink that first night) and a normal bedtime routine. We told her it was important that she learn to sleep like a big girl and have a consistent bedtime.
Consequently? She screamed for a good hour and a half. But I didn't give in. I went in just once to make sure those sad, sad tears were just sad and not hurt...I just reiterated what I told her before. She eventually fell asleep. She awoke a few hours later and once again screamed for hours. It was a long, long night. I went in and told her the same thing as before and eventually she slept again. What a noble concept to have a dry baby in the morning and not having to change the sheets and the whole shebang every single day!!!
The next night was slightly better. She drank her sippy cup of milk before bed (phew!) and only cried for 45 minutes. It got better and better and eventually she began to sleep all night.
Now? I find that some nights she does ask for her sippy cup for when she's falling asleep and I do give in some nights if she hasn't drank much before. Some nights she needs that extra little lulling herself to sleep. She does wake up once in the night some nights still and I usually leave her for a bit and if she doesn't settle herself she can have some water in her sippy cup.
My
kortney elise xoxo
2 comments:
We never did do bottles at all with Finn - mainly because I nursed him until around 19 months and partly because he has a soother and that was already something I didn't look forward to getting rid of - but he did really well weaning and we just give him sippy cups and never in bed (unless he wakes up in the night really upset, like bad dream or something, to distract him).
We're starting to transition him to a big bed since he won't go in his crib anymore (meaning he's been sleeping in our bed), and then maybe after his molars come in we'll get rid of the soother!s
i'm glad that shes sleeping better for you! I only wish I could reason with my child.
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