Not quite as nice as being diaper free, but our first few days without having bottles around has really been liberating. Needless to say, this did not come without a price.

Let me set the stage a little. Both of our boys sleep in the same room, and both would go to bed with full bottles in hand. We know it's not a good habit, but this is where we ended up. Our routine would consist of filling up bottles to keep them happy during the night. Not good for any of us.

Giving up the bottle was not a big deal for our 19-month-old. We "lucked out" that he was cutting a few teeth at once and couldn't take the pacifier or bottle. Since that few days of screaming, we have not had to worry about him needing any accessories.

Now the two-and-a-half-year-old, that is a completely different story. Mind you, he only gets the bottle when he naps and goes to bed. I have been trying to convince my wife that we needed to pull the bottle and pacifier from him for some time, but she is of the "he'll do it when he's ready" school of thought. Since she is the one home with all three kiddos, she gets to make those calls. Her idea was to set him up with a date and give him fair warning when we would take the bottle from him, so we set our sights on the new year.

When the big day came, the bribe (sorry, "incentive") of a trip to the "Goo Goo" store was presented. Translation: Goo Goo = Choo Choo = Train = The Hobby Superstore. I let him know that he could pick out a really big toy if he agreed to no more bottles. He was very excited and agreed while jumping up and down. After a quick scare that the store might not be open on New Year's Day (thankfully it was), he decided on Cranky the Crane for his wooden Thomas the Train set. I told him that he couldn't take Cranky out of the box until he had taken a nap and gone to bed without his bottles. That was the easy part.

I've heard about what it is like to see someone go through heroin withdrawal, and it can't be much worse than this. "I want my baa baa!" was the cry which would come from his bed for the next hour before we gave up trying to have him nap. He was fine the rest of the day, despite not having his usual rest. However it was no surprise that the same "I want my baa baa!" cry would dominate our entire sleepless night. We gave up keeping Cranky in the box around 2am thinking it might give us a moment's peace — no luck. We all tossed and turned, but he made it through.

We celebrated his success by building a huge train track on the living room floor for his new toy. Since then the cries have died down, and we are all finally enjoying a full night's rest.