I am certainly not opening this post up for a debate, however, I did want to post a link from a blog that I read because to anyone who may read my blog and may find themselves in the place of sleep deprivation due to a baby (or babies!) who do not sleep through the night, I hope what this person wrote will bring you encouragement!

Meet Holly!

After a fertility treatment she found out she was expecting TRIPLET girls!

They just celebrated their first birthday on December 23rd.

The girls are doing FABULOUS, except that they were NOT sleeping through the night. Holly was getting up sometimes FIFTEEN times a night to go in and give bottles to the girls!

Talk about exhausting.

She was against CIO, at first. She had read the research about how CIO can “damage the parent/child relationship”.

But then she talked to a trusted friend who explained that giving your child the gift of sleep DOES NOT harm them!

Holly realized her girls were playing her. They didn’t need those bottles. It was habit. A bad habit that was making babies and mommy not get the sleep they needed every night!

Holly realized sometimes as moms we’ve got to do something that isn’t “pleasant”.

I LOVE her post about her experience with letting her girls CIO to learn to sleep through the night.

She explicitly explains her thought process:what she tried to get the girls to sleep that didn’t work, the issues in her own mind that were holding her back from teaching her girls to sleep, what motivated her to let her girls CIO, how she did it (she explains step by step) and the final results, which are astounding!!

These were her final words on her post:

I must say, I was completely and utterly in disbelief, totally against doing anything that might, by research accounts, "harm my baby" but let me tell you, I HAVE MY LIFE BACK and my children are NOT harmed the least bit! This is the most wonderful gift I have been given! I can't tell you how lucky I feel and how IT PROVES that I was the one HOLDING THEM BACK. I swore I would never do that and I was the one making this happen, not them. I feel bad for that. They wanted to sleep through the night, and I wasn't giving them the tools to be able to do so.

Here is the link to Holly’s CIO post.

As far as my blog, feel free to leave your positive experiences with CIO. Negativity on the CIO Debate is not welcome here. There are many other places for you to go and say your two cents on the matter. This is just not the place!

This post is simply meant to encourage anyone who may be on the fence about doing CIO. CIO is certainly not for every family. You have to do what is best for yours.

I hope Holly’s post will help you see that you will not “damage your child for life” if CIO is done simply to teach your baby/toddler to fall asleep and stay asleep.

CIO can be done responsibly and Holly’s story is a wonderful example!!

- Elaine