MrsJessNJorge--re CIO

taxbride

Hey there, sorry for the late reply, but I can't log on at work.

We didn't do Ferber, we did straight CIO, but only for night wakings, not for getting the kids to sleep.  They both went to sleep fairly easily.

Cedric started sttn at 2 months, but he started waking at night again at 6 mos.  I figured he needed to nurse, so I nursed him.  Over time, he started waking more and more.  I had enough at 8 mos.  He was hardly nursing much if any, and I was exhausted from getting up again every 2 hours.  So one night I was so tired I just ignored him when he woke.  I watched the clock, like Mel said, and after 7 minutes, he stopped crying and fell back asleep.  The second night, he woke and cried for 20 minutes.  The third night it was 45 minutes, but that was it.  He stopped waking and crying at night.  If he woke, he got himself back to sleep.  When we moved him to a bed in another room, he had other sleep issues, but that's another story.

Graciela didn't sttn so easily.  From day 1, she had a 5-6 hour stretch from around 7pm - 12am.  But at 5 mos, she was still waking 2 or 3 times a night.  When I told my pediatrician, he said, just ignore her.  I asked how long I should let her cry, and he said, "Until she falls back asleep."  So I did.  She cried.  Oh boy, did she cry.  I think it was an hour and a half.  But it worked.  I didn't go to her to nurse until 4 am or later (the arbitrary time I chose b/c that way, after nursing her, I could still go back to sleep until 6am--it felt better than waking at 5:30 to nurse and not getting back to sleep again).  That worked until she was a year old.  Then I did it again to eliminate the 4am feeding (which was sliding back to 2am sometimes, which sucked).  After one night of crying (again, over an hour), she started sleeping all the way until 6am or even 6:30am.  Aaaaaaahh.  So much better.

For both kids, I used a fan in the room (both for SIDS prevention and for white noise), and some of the nights when she cried, I turned on the a/c or the heat and closed both our doors and covered my ears with my pillows. 

I did try the Ferber-type method of going back in after 5, 10 and 15 minutes with Graciela (more b/c I was feeling like such a jerk that I HAD to check to make sure she wasn't caught in the crib or something--she was fine), but she put up such a scream when I left again that I felt even MORE TERRIBLE, and I went straight back to the CIO.  Now she sleeps from 7pm to 6am no problem.

Hope that's helpful!
Tania

mrsjessnjorge

Thank you for sharing Tania! This is super helpful.