New habits begin

My kid has no self soothing skills. My kid hates pacifiers. She can only be calm sucking on a bottle. I have never been able to bottle feed her. She likes it propped. She is also a snacker and does not eat full meals. She sleeps in her carseat(habit developed from needing to sleep semiupright for her stomach).

Today is the end I decided after loading her up in the stroller and walking into Barnes and Noble only to have her have yet another meltdown over nothing. She is either sleeping, "eating", or flipping out......

I have 2 options. I can break each habit slowly over time and put both of us through misery, or I can break them all at once, have some super hellish nights, the both of us, and then live happily ever after. I chose the 2nd.

Tonight we will be using the Ferber method to get her to sleep. I dont have the patience or the energy to do this over time.....Supposedly, this is the fastest way to get her to sleep on her own. IF you can tolerate the crying. And I can. I have pyched myself up for it.

So like any reasonable parent, I put a bunch of Coors Light in the fridge, and got myself prepared for the allnighter I was about to pull.

My goal was to feed her at 7pm, to be in bed by 7:15...asleep....ideally 30 seconds later, but that is not realistic.

She was freaking out for her bottle at 6. So like any normal parent, I rapped old Beatsie Boy albums to her.

By 6:20 she was so over me. I thought now is the time! I have FINALLY annoyed her to want to go to bed!!

So I put her in Pj's, and I sat down to feed her. (By the way, I upped the nipple size as a special surprise to her - no sucking but not eating...she is going to eat!)

And then

She ate

and ate

and ate

and ate

5 1/2 oz she ate!

This seems like nothing for her age BTW....but for her she pigged! She rarely eats 4 oz.....usually it is like 2 oz over 3 hours.

I felt like parent of the year already....so I put her in her crib and said goodnight.

Of course instantaneously she freaked out. So I set thetimer for 5 minutes and let her go. 5 minutes later, I went in, rubbed her belly for a minute, and left.

seconds later, hysteria again. So I waited out 5 minutes, and went in again. Rubbed her belly, and left.

She is still asleep.

Oh.My.God.

She is in the crib, asleep, on her own! After eating a MEAL!


Not sure what the night has in store, but I feel semi accomplished. Last time I decided to let her cry it out, she popped a blood vessel in her eye after screaming for 15 minutes. And the screaming not getting softer, but louder....You would think she would have gotten tired but not my litle bundle of joy!

Anyway, I will be going to sleep crossing my fingers.

And for the record, I only had 1 Coors Light ;)