Sleep training methods

NJLH

I know my girls are a little young but thinking ahead, what sleep training books/methods did u try? I dont think I can let the girls cry it out since they would wake each other up. I've seen mentions on this board of Baby Whisperer, No Cry Sleep Solution, etc. Let me know what's worth trying!

mommyof4boys

We use Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child but for the routine aspect of it not for the CIO aspect of it.

PianoPlayingSarah

You can let them CIO while sharing a room.  We did it with our girls and they will now ignore whoever is crying.  I've gone in there to find 1 screaming her head off while the other two sleep thru it. 

lajolla09.30.06

We don't let them CIO but we do sometimes have one wake up crying and it takes a minute to get to their room.... the other one always sleeps through it.  They sleep through a lot these days. 

I read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child as well and I think the general idea (they need a lot of sleep, every few hours) has been the most helpful to me, even though we haven't really used any specific strategies from it.

susanb

There are a ton of books, TV Shows etc. I kind of combined a few into something that worked for me and kept my sanity. It took 3 nights...

 Night one - put all 3 babies down AWAKE. You have to put them down awake. Do NOT wait till they fall asleep or rock to sleep or anything else. The theory is that if you put them down awake they know where they are and will not be startled if they wake up somewhere other than where they fell asleep... made sense to me.  Put them down with kisses, cuddles, leave room.  They cry - go immediately back in, pick up - give QUICK kiss, cuddle - don't wait for them to necessarily stop crying - put back down and leave again.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  

You will do this probably 200x the first night. The idea here is that you are training them that you are going to leave, but that you will come back.

Night two. Repeat night one - the good part here is that you might have to do it maybe 75-100 times at most.

Night three - repeat nights 1 & 2 - but if you have to do it a handful of times it's just because they want to keep you on your toes.

By night 4 you should all sleep well. They GET it.  Unless you've really managed to piss somebody off today, then they may cry just for revenge - this all depends on if you have a vindictive one. I had one of these. She didn't do it often - but every once in a while if she'd had a bad day - well she'd cry just to see if I'd show up - then she'd give me an evil smile and go right back to sleep....

gymrat

We used Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

We practiced everything he wrote about from 6-8 wks to 5 months (adjusted for my kids) from not letting them sleep in the swing to putting them down awake and not overtired to establishing routine. By the time we were ready to let them fuss or whine it out we were so in tune with our kids that they go down with very little crying at all. We're still working on the night wakings and short naps.

You'll start to know your babies' cries. We know that if Marshall is whining and generally fussing to leave him alone. He will go to sleep. It might take 15 minutes but it will happen.

Usually if they need a little help we pat them and that's all. Picking up my children and putting them back down will result in hysterics.

We don't let them all out CIO ever but there's been times when I'm trying to calm one child down and I think for sure that the other wake up and they don't. They have gotten used to each other's cries and sleep through them.

If you have to really choose what's going to work for you.

luvmagoldn

We used Suzy Giardano's method and it worked GREAT for us.   We started training at eight weeks and the boys were sleeping 12 hours by 12 weeks as promised!

CIO is NOT part of her method - teaching them to self soothe is.

https://www.babycoach.net/