Your CIO Results

maritimeme

On Monday we started CIO for naps and bedtime when necessary. For bed she will usually nurse to sleep but sometimes she doesn't and still goes to sleep just fine (most nights). This week I've been putting her down for bed before she's totally out and she just wriggles and settles right in. The first night she did fuss and take about 20 mins to go to sleep. Her nights are still all over the place. We had one magical 9 hrs stretch (which we have had a few times in the past) but otherwise still waking 2-3 times and I nurse her for 15-20 mins. I bring her into bed at around 5 when she wakes to get her to sleep until 7-730.

For naps she takes anywhere from 5-20 mins to fall asleep and fusses on and off. But they are still only 30-45 mins and she still wakes up crying. If I leave her she doesn't go back to sleep (but I've only tried up to 10 mins). For her afternoon nap she will sleep another hour in my arms if I nurse her back to sleep.

My questions are: am I putting her down too asleep? Should I not be bringing her into bed? How long do I leave her at night before responding? How long did it take for you LO's naps to lengthen?

I've read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and am now reading Ferber's book. Which did you like better?

Sorry this was so long! I am going to stay consistent but so far haven't really seen any results other than initially falling asleep on her own for naps.

watermellens

This has been our experience - DS was waking up at night anywhere from 2-5 times as soon as we stopped swaddling (we had to - he was getting out every time and rolling). He was also pulling his binky out with his free hands. So he'd cry b/c he took the binky out and couldn't yet replace it.
We were on vacation and had a week of awful nights - we couldn't let him CIO while we were away, so we started the day we got home (about 1 week shy of 5 months old). We decided to do everything at once-  take away the paci and CIO for naps and night. He had gotten to the point where he would ONLY fall asleep at the boob and since DH is home with him twice a week this summer, it was a big problem.

We're on day 15 or so and things are so much better. He'll go down around 730 and wake up at 7, waking only once to eat in the night (at varying times - between 2 and 5 am). He'll take about 3 naps a day, starting 1 1/2 hours after he wakes up. As soon as we started CIO he started sleeping longer than 45 minutes for naps. Some naps are only 45 and he wakes up happy, which is fine. Sometimes he'll wake up after 45, fuss a few minutes and then fall back to sleep. Sometimes he'll sleep 1 - 1 1/2 hours without waking and then wake up happy.
He still cries before EVERY nap and night which is frustrating b/c all of the books say that crying is usually stopped by like night 4. It's not like that for us. It makes me think that we might have started too early, before he was ready, but I didn't really see another choice and I'm still happy we're sleep training.
When he's awake, he's the happiest and smiliest guy you'd ever meet, so we have no regrets. And ditching the paci was awesome, but I wouldn't have minded him keeping it IF he would leave it in. Another issue we had was that he'd fall asleep with it in, he'd stop sucking when he was sleeping and it would fall out and then after 45 minutes when a sleep cycle was over, he'd cry b/c it was gone. So it was really interrupting his sleep.
Hope that helped in some way

maritimeme

Thanks for your reply. It is reassuring. What did you do when he woke in the middle of the night? Did ou wait before feeding him? Send in DH? Or did the one weakening just happen in time?

Also for naps - if he didn't go back to sleep on his own after 45 mins and was crying did you just get him up? How long did you wait and see?

watermellens

jko454 said:

Thanks for your reply. It is reassuring. What did you do when he woke in the middle of the night? Did ou wait before feeding him? Send in DH? Or did the one weakening just happen in time? Also for naps - if he didn't go back to sleep on his own after 45 mins and was crying did you just get him up? How long did you wait and see?

No, I just fed him. I figured one wake up at 5 months is appropriate at this point - I don't mind getting up once I honestly don't know how hungry he is though b/c he eats for 5 minutes, maybe less, and passes back out.
As for naps, I think I've let him cry for 5-10 minutes after his initial wake up to see if he'll go back down. If not, I'd get him up. I can kind of tell by his cry at this point, whether it's a tired cry or just angry

watermellens

Pinkie78 said:

How long is she awake between naps? Our son needs a nap after 2 or 3 hr of awake time. Maybe try putting her down sooner for the naps?? Regarding bringing her into bed, I think it's a personal choice. We feel strongly we don't want our son to think he can sleep in our bed so we never bring him in. I don't think there is anything wrong with it except you will either have to break it at some point or always allow her to do it. Regarding CIO, we put our son down awake and he puts himself to sleep. We started it close to 5.5 months and we have generally had very good luck. He started daycare this week so we are being a little more lax with it as he is making a big adjustment during the day. Before starting daycare we were lucky in that he was taking 1 to 3 hour naps for the most part. He started this within a few days of starting sleep training. He just took to it really well both for day and night sleep. Honestly I would just keep being consistent. Babies are always changing. Good luck!

DH is so much better at me about putting him down when he's tired instead of just watching the clock. It takes him so much longer to fall asleep if he's over tired. Usually, he needs a nap 1 1/2ish hours after waking in the morning. Then the next nap is 2ish hours after waking. He can be up about 3 hours between his last nap and bedtime.