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Houston Babies
for those who did do CIO
What age did you start this? What worked best for you guys in terms of checking on them or did you go full bore with it?
Also, I have heard temperment can affect what age some people try this, so... on a ridiculously subjective scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being extremely easy going baby and 10 being colicky), where did your DC fall?
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Re: for those who did do CIO
We started around five months. I started with her naps, then moved on to night time. I started by checking on her every five minutes (while she was crying) and then moved on to every 10 minutes as she got older. I'd go in, lay her back down if she was at the side of her crib, rub her back, and talk quietly to her. It didn't take long and now she does well with putting herself to sleep/back to sleep. Of course, we've had to re-do it a few times because of teething or a disruption in her routine, but it never takes long.
On a scale of 1-10, I'd say DD was and is about a 3.
We did it at 4 months. DD took to it amazingly well. Cried for about 15 minutes the first night at bedtime, then just a few minutes whenever she woke up during the night. Night #2 she slept straight through the night, and has been doing so since (except during teething or when she's sick...I still nurse her back down during those times).
Natalie is like a 1.5-2 on your scale. She has always been really easy. Teething is tough (we are just finishing up with tooth #8), but in general, she is just so happy all the time.
We started at six months and I'd say DD was about a 4-5 on the scale. Our goal was to teach her how to put herself to sleep. I can remember the first night we tried it, she cried for around 40 minutes. We just listened to her (it was excruciating) until she fell asleep, without going in the room. The second night it was about half that amount of time, and by the 3rd night she cried for maybe 5 minutes. Like PP said we had to re-do it a couple more times when she was older, but it always worked super quickly.
She's a great sleeper now and goes to bed really easily. She sleeps 11 to 12 hours usually. I know CIO doesn't work for everyone but it worked well for us.
when you go in, how long do you stay? does he calm down when you walk in, and then cry again when you leave? or is he crying even when you're there? ETA: also, what do you do when he wakes up in the middle of the night? do you start the process all over again, or wait to the longest interval you left off at?
sometimes i think we really need to bite the bullet and try CIO. i've left maddy before, but for only about 5 minutes, and immediately when i walk in the door, she calms down, and lays down, bc she knows she is supposed to go to sleep. but when i leave again, she is crying, and seems even more upset than before. sort of like she feels tricked, i guess?
i have a very stubborn baby as well...
We started 4-5 months. I've posted the following before, but thought it might be helpful to you and to the moms on here now. It's about cutting out middle of the night feedings and CIO methods. I originally posted this when DD was about 5 ish months.
When we went to DD?s pediatrician for her 4 month check up I talked to the pediatrician about cutting her night feeding and she gave me some pointers to help us transition her away from eating in the middle of the night. Of course we have to adjust this a bit for growth spurts/travel/being sick, but it?s worked well and hasn?t been too hard on us.We?ve been down to one feeding a night since about 7 weeks (varied a bit with growth spurts though). Our pediatrician said that the best way to get Amelia to sleep all the way through was to disassociate nursing (food) with sleeping. IE: remove mommy from the equation.
We have a pretty predictable bedtime routine: eat, bath, play, eat, read/snuggle, bed
She said that a predictable night time routine is one of the best ways to get her to soothe herself to sleep. We've been doing that for a while and never had an issue with her going down at night...yay, right?
Now how about cutting that night feeding. She told us it's ok to try a Ferber type method...
I am not typically a fan of crying it out, but with some clear guidelines and my pediatrician?s guidance I felt a bit more comfortable.
She recommended
cry for 5 minutes, check on her
cry for 10 minutes check on her
cry for 15 minutes check on her...continue this until she stops or reaches 1.5 hours. If she?s still crying at 1.5 hours pick her up and soothe her to sleep and try again the next night.
The KEY is that I don't check on her, my husband does. He goes in flips her back onto her back (if she?s on her tummy), rubs her tummy and tells her that she's ok. He leaves the room without ever picking her up. Amelia is crying for me, to nurse and get that comfort, not because she's really hungry. Her crying tapered down so much over the first three nights from ?inconsolable have to nurse crying? (1-3/4 hours) the first night to self soothing sleepy cry (20 minutes) on the third night.
Her nightly stretch is getting longer and her crying is getting shorter. I am not a fan of CIO, but I also don't want to have a child with a full mouth of cavities like me. Honestly I am a bit selfish too, I don?t want to get up at night if I can help it. She?s a happier baby when she?s well rested and I?m a happier mommy too.
It breaks my heart to hear her cry for me, but we?ve seen so much improvement with these guidelines. She now goes down from 8:00pm to about 6:30am without getting up to eat. I?m hoping to stretch it a bit longer, but 10.5 hours is fantastic so I?ll take it!
Amelia is a year old and consistently STTN from 6 weeks (meaning 6-8 hour increments) and then at 4-5 months we were able to stretch her to 10-12+ hours and from about 7 months on she has slept through consistently from 7:30-7:30.
One thing we learned in the middle of all of this is that we were putting her to bed too early. Gradually she moved her bedtime up from 9:00 to 6:30 (and then pushed it back to 7:30 as she got more mobile and curious). She would fuss and fuss in the evenings and it's because she was tired. The better she slept at night the better she napped during the day.
Amelia would go from happy, happy baby to crazy fool in 2 seconds flat. We followed a lot of the Happiest Baby on the Block methods and just rolled with the punches...sometimes crying at the end of the battle. I would say that she averaged out to being a 4 on the colicky scale. She had her moments, but wasn't always a fuss pot.
I hope this helps!!!
I think it was about 4-5 months. I did Dr. Spock's method and didn't go in. I listened to her cry and feel I can tell between a danger cry (for lack of a better word) and a "mad I've been put to bed cry." The first night she cried 20 minutes, the 2nd night less then 10 and that was it. Like pp said we had to do it again later (around milestones usually, when they realize there are better things then sleeping). It didn't work as well with napping.
Addie didn't/doesn't usually get up during the night so we didn't cio if it was a middle of the night cry. I usually gave it a minute to see if she was acutally awake, but then went in and gave her the pacifier and she was fine. She sleeps 11-12 hours a night. I think she's a 4-5 on that scale.
We started at around 5 mos. It is hard to judge on a comparative scale for me, b/c he is my only child. He wasn't extremely unhappy, but he cried enough to rip our hearts out.
We had one of our barstools set up in his room for awhile and we'd let him cry with us right there, shushing. Then, we worked toward being out of the room for a prescribed amount of time before going back in to shush. Then, we worked on staying away longer. (I remember 6 minutes - which was an eternity at the time.)
By 6 mos. he/we were better about bedtime. He did not STTN consistently until about a year.
I wanted him to sleep, and I needed to go to work. So, we worked at finding that balance between my sleep needs and his comfort needs. I remember it being tough, but necessary.
He survived, and is not an unhappy person as a result. He loves bedtime routines and has been STTN well since 10 mos. and great since a year. In those 14 mos. we've almost forgotten what it is like to have someone who won't go to sleep on his own.
We started at 5 months for real. We tried it before but it didn't take. We started by going in at 5 minutes to comfort (but not pick up) and stretched it to 10. We still go in at 10 if she needs it, but that's very few and far between.
Mia was a 10 on your scale. She was awfully colicky. but it was gone by 4 months. She is still an extremely stubborn and has her own mind about her. If we hadn't done cio, I'm not sure what we would have done, because she will NOT sleep if she can see people (still, will not sleep at all if we're with her) and she is just very stimulated by activity.
KelleyA is a LIFESAVER!!! ?She emailed this to me when I was at the end of my rope when DD was about 4.5-5 months old. ?DD was still waking up numerous times a night to nurse, even though she didn't need it - it was more of a comfort thing. ?I was exhausted and just wanted her to learn how to put herself to sleep, especially since she was going to be starting MDO when she was 6 months old.
I owe Kelley everything, seriously. ?We followed the above advice to a T and it worked great. ?Charlotte is extremely stubborn, and she knew exactly what we were doing, and didn't like it. ?So, it took her a while to REALLY get into a routine of putting herself to sleep, but she's a smarty pants, so she "got it" very quickly. ?It worked like a charm, we felt in control and like we could handle it, and it has been fantastic for all of us. She's a great sleeper for both night and naptimes, and I am thrilled with the way it worked. ?And she is not any less happy because of the CIO. ?Your baby will not feel abandoned or any of those things. ?I highly recommend trying Kelley's method. ??