Babies: 0 - 3 Months
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another sleep question, for those who have tried CIO . . .
sleep deprivation is making my brain mush, so forgive me for asking,
if we wanted to reduce night wakings in a 4mo by letting him cry, how do we do it at night? i want to let him eat every 4h, instead of the every 1-2 hours that he wakes up, but last night we ignored him, and he just cried for 2 hours until his next "allowed" feed time. i feel like i'm just teaching him to cry for 2 hours.
ready to give up and quit work until the 4 month wakeful is over . . .
advice?
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Re: another sleep question, for those who have tried CIO . . .
wow. that is a lot of waking but letting him cry for 2 hours is usually not the way to do it. Was he waking this much always or is it the 4 month wakeful? I think educating by reading a book is a good idea. my first question is why do you still want him to eat every 4 hours? Unless he is underweight that is really too much food in my opinion at this age.
As for the second thing you said- you are not teaching him to cry for 2 hours. For those that do a cold turkey approach like you, tonight should be much shorter and then night after shorter, etc etc.
Usually...they recommend a gradual approach. Let them cry, go check after 5 minutes, pat pack, leave for 10 minutes, pat pack, leave for 15, etc etc until they stop. That way, they know you are there but that the crying isn't going to give them the result they want adn it isn't worth it after a while.
Go buy a book about sleep training or read on-line.
BTW- a lot of people are going to flame you for letting him cry for 2 hours but sounds like you are at the end of your rope.
Visiting from another board... your DC is probably going through a growth spurt right now hence the 2 hour intervals. I recommend what the other PP said, focus on getting the calories in during the day. At 4 mo I wouldn't let a baby cry for 2 hours. DD is probably either wet or hungry. I tried CIO at 4.5 mo and it was a disaster because DC cried for an hour (I finally went in). We tried it again at 5.5 months and it was a total success.
Hoping this book I read will help out.
Ditto this.