I vowed when I was 12 that I wouldn't be nursing a child who could walk over and ask for it.

Q started out an incredible sleeper. I'd put her down when she was sleepy, and she'd fall asleep.

Then around 6 months she started getting a little more ... active. So I encouraged the nursing to sleep. Which worked very well. Very well indeed. She never really had taken to a pacifier, but she definitely took to the nuring to sleep. Loved it. She still loves it. Naps are a definite, and bedtime is a sometimes.

So ... over the past year we've slowly been trying to get her to sleep on her own again. With some success. She did learn to fall asleep on her own for naps and at bedtime. Mostly because we did a lot of pat-pat, talking, holding, reading, calming, sitting, and quietly leaving or telling her we had to check on ... C3 or something else.

Everytime we've tried Cry It Out it has blown up in our faces like this: tears, tears, tears, screaming, screaming, screaming screaming SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAMING!
And so we couldn't last.

But now that she is 2, Q2 is ready. I gave her the sleep rules (which we modified over the next couple of days):

Nurse Mumma
Get in bed & lie down
Be quiet - no crying
Close your eyes
Go to sleep
Get a red lollipop in the morning

Yes, indeed, that is a huge honking red lollipop at the end of that list. But whatever.

The first time I tried this was the night C3 went the emergency room with C39 for her concussion. It worked beautifully. Perfectly.

The next night ... not so well. And the night after, worse. Then, of course, we realized Q2 had a fever of over 101, so perhaps that was why it wasn't working.

Got that taken care of ... and gave her the rules again. And she started manipulating again. She's all for the rules before bed, but when it comes time to be in bed she wants pat pat. Then she has to pee. Then she wants to nurse some more. Then she wants to read. And then talk. And so forth.

[And ... she's been waking up at 4:30 am and NOT GOING BACK TO SLEEP.]

Finally, I said enough, and stuck her in bed and said goodnight and an hour and a half later she was asleep. When she woke at 4:30 am ... we ignored her until 5:45 (I figure wake time is 6:00 ... and she can't tell time yet, so 5:45 was OK).

The next night ... the same thing, except I put up with less (none?) of the requests except to pee and then I went out for a walk. C39 tells me she cried around 20 minutes. And woke up at 6:30 am.

Currently, she is not asleep. But, I put her in bed a bit ago, she cried (yelled at me actually) for about 2 minutes and now is just chatting.

So, I'm thrilled with the progression of things. Fingers are crossed that this actually was the right time to try CIO and sleep rules and she is ready to GO TO SLEEP ON HER OWN!

Next step: Naptime. And then getting rid of nursing altogether. I'd love that.