6 month appt and CIO

phillyfan929

DS had his 6 month appt today (we are a little behind, oops) and at every appt they give you this sheet that just gives general guidelines of what your kid should be doing developmentally, sleeping, eating, etc.

Under the sleeping section, it basically says that your baby should be sleeping through the night at this point. If not, here are some tips.  The 2nd bullet says:

"Try putting your child to alone and awake (it's italicized on the paper) and letting him/her cry to sleep. This helps teach them to not rely on you to go to sleep. This may involve a significant amount of crying initially, but once your baby learns to go to sleep (usually 3-4 nights), the crying (and the waking in the middle of the night) reduces drastically."

I was initially surprised to see this. I personally don't let DS cry for more than 5 minutes but we haven't had a need to. I'm not trying to start the CIO debate nor am I judging anyone who does this, but I'm just curious if anyone else ped supports CIO like this? Is this a common/normal school of thought for peds or is this more 'old school?'

wolson1988

Our pedi said that we should put him to bed alone and awake but to never let him CIO until 9+ months. 

I have never let B CIO until 4 am.. he was changed, fed, had been waking up once every hour, I'm sick and beyond exhausted and so I just put him in his crib and shut the door.  He cried for 10 minutes if that and fell asleep until 6:30.  I felt so guilty but I needed a couple of hours of sleep before I went to work a 10 hour day.

bigbear

It is on our sheet as well and our clinic/pedi supports it, too.

talitha712

Our pedi encouraged it too.  Luckily we rarely have sleep issues but neither of us is comfortable letting DD cry for more than a few minutes before we go in.

anhg80

I think it's a fairly well accepted method of teaching kiddos to sleep, even if it's controversial.  HOWEVER, I'd be disturbed with a parent doing CIO if that's all the information they give.  There are a lot of other factors to put into place first (good sleep environment and sleep routines, for starters).

namara5532

I'd def give my pediatrician the side-eye if they told me DS should be STTN, and he's crib trained.  Then again, your ped didn't actually say it.  They gave you a sheet that said it.  I wonder what they'd say if you asked directly.  Chances are the milestone sheet hasn't been updated in a while as most of the info is still relevant.

Even if your ped thinks LO should be STTN, in the end it's about what works for you and your baby.  If LO is in a sleep pattern you're comfortable with, don't feel the need to alter it based on a potentially outdated handout.

phillyfan929

Thankfully we have a good sleeper who does STTN and we haven't had to really struggle with sleep issues so I generally ignore this part of the sheet but I was just curious if was just our office or if others did this too.

jodywelsh

I think there is a big difference between a child who wants to be rocked to sleep or be held at night and one that wakes up because there is an actual need. My DS woke up once to twice a night from 4 to 6 months old because he needed to eat. He was hungry and was fed and back in bed within 20 minutes. In the last week he STTN 4 of 5 nights and on the one night he didn't he only wanted half an ounce and was back out so I don't believe he had a need, rather he wanted a drink and someone there. The Pedi said at 4 mo he should be STTN and we just need to let him cry, but he also wasn't there at night to see what the actual situation was either.

kmm2150

At our 4 month appt., the pedi asked how her sleep was, but didn't really comment on it, and at the 6 month appointment he didn't even ask. They have a sheet we fill out before the appts with boxes to check of things we'd like to talk about (sleep, food, baby-proofing, etc.), so I guess since I didn't say it was a problem, he wasn't worried about it. We haven't had any discussion with him about CIO, but i would guess he'd be supportive of some form of it.

That being said, I would HOPE drs would give parents more information that just a sheet that says "let them cry themselves to sleep" - I'd like to think most parents know that there is more to it than that, but it is amazing how little some people know about babies.  I can just see some young couple letting their baby scream for hours because that's what they interpret the dr.'s sheet saying they needed to do.

bigbear

kmm2150:

At our 4 month appt., the pedi asked how her sleep was, but didn't really comment on it, and at the 6 month appointment he didn't even ask. They have a sheet we fill out before the appts with boxes to check of things we'd like to talk about (sleep, food, baby-proofing, etc.), so I guess since I didn't say it was a problem, he wasn't worried about it. We haven't had any discussion with him about CIO, but i would guess he'd be supportive of some form of it.

That being said, I would HOPE drs would give parents more information that just a sheet that says "let them cry themselves to sleep" - I'd like to think most parents know that there is more to it than that, but it is amazing how little some people know about babies.  I can just see some young couple letting their baby scream for hours because that's what they interpret the dr.'s sheet saying they needed to do.

I would definitely not like it if my doc would just say "hey here is the sheet, it says to let your baby cry so if s/he doen't sleep let her scream". That would not be a good thing. On the sheet we got, it tells you about general CIO like OP said but at the end it says to talk to your doc about details and I think the doc will talk to you about it if you tell him that you have questions or concerns. That's what we did. Otherwise they just probably have it on the sheet as a guideline where your baby typically should be with development, sleep, food etc and just gives you general pointers.