If you did CIO...

sooosie

Did anyone do this in the middle of the night?  It's time for Max to learn that he doesn't need to eat at night anymore.  Just wondering if anyone has had to break this habit, and if so how long it took. 

Not looking forward to this...

CubbyMama

I'm about to try phasing out night feedings with E, too.  She usually has 2, but whenever she's sick or teething or whatever, she wants to nurse numerous times a night, and I let her b/c it's for comfort...but then she never wants to go back.  I just can't deal with being up every 1-2 hours anymore! 

Anyway, my plan is to do it gradually.  I know that if she's used to being fed a lot during the night, she's probably legitimately hungry (if someone offered me a buffet every night at 2am, I'd start to wake up hungry then, too!), so I don't feel like it's right to just suddenly let her cry hungry all night.  I'm going to start only nursing her on one side each time, and then after a few days try to comfort her in any other way in order to skip the first feeding, and then the same for the second once the first one is gone.  That's all theory...we'll see how it goes and if it works at all!

juniper19

I just posted about this on the BFing board...

With my dd I cut out all nursings but 1 using straight CIO.  To cut out that last nursing I timed how long it took to nurse and then cut off a minute each night until I got to 2 minutes and then I stopped going in.  That was at about 6 months.

My ds was much harder to night wean - we only recently stopped at 15 months (we were down to once per night - occasionally twice).  To do that I had dh go in instead of me.  DS was FURIOUS to see him - dh just picked him up and cuddled him a little and put him back down.  DS cried for a few minutes and then stopped.  It only took two nights and he stopped waking up.  It was MUCH easier than I thought it would be.

So those are two things you might try.  It just kind of depends on your child's temperament and age too. 

 

Ciarrai

We did with both the girls.  DD#1 was STTN at 13 weeks and then stopped at about 6 months between the 6-month growth spurt and Christmas and everything that year.  By 9-months, I was losing it and asked the pedi.  He recommended a straight CIO.  He said not to go in there at all (so no 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then...) or it would just be worse the next time she woke up.  Let's just say he was right about that.  Anyway, when we finally sucked it up and did CIO, it took three nights.  The first night was torture and she screamed for a while.  The second night, she cried for less than 10 minutes.  The third was maybe a minute or two of whimpering.  By night 4, she was STTN and so were the rest of us. 

With DD#2 was just did it at about 6 or 7 months (when we were ready).  She had a similar thing where it took about 4 nights, but we moved her into the guest room to CIO since the girls shared a room.  We'd give her a week or so to get her really STTN.  But every time we moved her back into her room, though, she'd wake up crying again.  We finally had to let her CIO in her room with DD#1 in there.  We explained it all to DD#1 ahead of time.  She woke up and cried for less than 5 minutes.  In the middle of it, we hear DD#1 saying "Mommy, Cal is crying.  Go to sleep Cal.  Mommy, Cal won't go to sleep."  Anyway, less than 5 minutes and one night to get her used to STTN in her own room/bed. 

ETA - FWIW - Our pedi told us that of course DD#1 was hungry and that's why she was waking up.  She was hungry in the middle of the night because she wasn't BF enough during the day.  She wasn't BF enough during the day because she wasn't hungry enough to be distracted from all the fun stuff going on because she was eating in the middle of the night.  It was like an endless cycle.  It wasn't that she wasn't really hungry so much as she needed to learn to eat during the day more so she wasn't hungry at night and she'd never learn that when it was so easy and convenient to eat in the middle of the night.

sooosie

Thanks for the responses - yeah I am pretty sure he just needs to eat more during the day.  We were going to try this previously (he had been STTN then stopped, back and forth) but then teething, illness, etc. got in the way.

I think we may try lessening what we feed him, til we get to nothing.  Of course, we were going to start this last night and he actually STTN lol.  Crazy.

CubbyMama

sooosie:

Thanks for the responses - yeah I am pretty sure he just needs to eat more during the day.  We were going to try this previously (he had been STTN then stopped, back and forth) but then teething, illness, etc. got in the way.

I think we may try lessening what we feed him, til we get to nothing.  Of course, we were going to start this last night and he actually STTN lol.  Crazy.

You're way ahead of us, then--E has never slept through an entire night yet.  Good luck!  I just don't like CIO in a situation like this--how is she supposed to know I arbitrarily picked tonight as the night I'd no longer feed her?  It just seems mean, so hopefully the gradual way works!