RE: NCSS
Your kids didn't loose it totally when you tried to remove the nipple before they were completely asleep? I sorta assumed DS was pretty normal about that... just that most people have more guts to push it than I do. If I recall correctly NCSS does discuss that some crying is ok, oh, now I'm all confused.
I still try, ocaisionally, but if I unlatch him, for any reason, at any time, it's a big fight. He will almost always unlatch when I ask him to, though not always instantly, I just can't do it unilaterally unless I'm ok with fighting over it (which sometimes I'm totally ok with). I pretty much have to wait till his jaw muscules relax when he's falling asleep, and he has to know ahead of time it's my intent to do so, or he'll wake up and cry when I move away (even if no part of his mouth is still touching the nipple).
To DS's view, it was exactly like ferber, because if my nipple wasn't there -- my arms, my voice, my breath, etc, the whole package -- but especially the nipple, he was alone and affraid in the dark. He still feels this way, only now he can articulate it. I didn't quite realize until he did start to be able to articulate it, though I certainly had some idea.
Timing nursing sessions was a similar bust, for similar reasons, he felt completely abandoned. He still does, if I try to limit nursing, though he's better able to cope with it now, especially when he's fully awake, rested, and basically happy.
He can fall back to sleep in his father's arms. So we've pushed that a lot. But if he gets too fully awake, that doesn't work either without a lot of crying. He _will_ cry it out in his dad's arms after 2-3 hours. And he can now go to sleep by himself, it's just really hard for him, and generally counter-productive unless he initiates the idea. He started trying hard to get himself to sleep when he was about 6 mos old, but I can't remember the first time he managed it, maybe about 18 mos, I know he did it once AT 18 mos, so within a year anyway. I'm actually incredibly proud of him for the effort and self-controle he has shown in trying to learn to fall asleep by himself. It's one of the reasons I get frustrated by the "teaching them to sleep" arguments... I KNOW how hard he tries, and how much he wants to be able to do it.
Meh. Blech. Yuck.
-Mich
