CIO question

Kcaracc

I need to start doing this soon, however... my baby still eats every 3-4 hours at night... what do i do with that? should i wait until she no longer wants to eat at night? or do i feed her and let her CIO after each feeding? im kind of confused with that!  thanks mommies!

QueSrah

We do the CIO at bedtime and whenever she wakes up in between reasonable feedings (unless she's sick).  For us, that means she generally can go from her last bedtime feeding around 6:30 until at least 12:30 without needing to nurse, so we pretty much do CIO if she wakes up before midnight (which she does quite often). After she eats, I'll go back and pick her up once if she's crying just to make sure she doesn't need to burp.  After that, she usually falls asleep, but we'll do another round of CIO if she starts waking up between then and 5 or 5:30 when she next eats.

At least for now, CIO is helping us get her back to falling asleep on her own and to try to get her to sleep straight through between feedings rather than getting up every two hours whether she's hungry or not.  I'm considering trying to wean her from her middle of the night feeding using CIO (if I have to) only because that feeding is throwing off the last feeding before she goes to daycare.

Piranha54

in Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, Weissbluth says it's ok to have two feedings a night, up to 9 months of age.  We just started CIO last night (ugh, words don't describe it), but if she had woken up for her usual feeding at 3:30, I would have feed her.  She STTN though!  

Kcaracc

thank you everyone! im so anxious to try  this... it takes me forever to get my baby to sleep at night!!! she has no self soothing skills at all haha!