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Attachment Parenting
Any APers end up CIO?
We're at our wits end and I'm considering CIO just to end the screaming and crying fits that happen at nap time and bedtime. I've tried the NCSS tactics, and we aren't getting anywhere. Has anyone done CIO and continued with AP? I feel so conflicted because I've always said we wouldn't go down this road, but our house is so chaotic right now because of this....I feel an awful parent and completely out of control.
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Re: Any APers end up CIO?
We did - and people can flame away. It was one of those things I said I would NEVER do, but when my child was screaming for an hour or more in my arms in the middle of the night and was waking up every 30-60 minutes all night, I had to do something. He wouldn't nurse, he was pushing away from me as I held him. It was awful. And we did it for months, all the while DH and I were stressed and at each others throats too. Ben would only nap for 30 minutes during the day too, so combined with his bad nighttime sleep he was always crabby and exhausted. None of us could continue like that.
I followed the Sleepeasy solution, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I sat outside his room and cried the whole time. But you know what? He woke up happy and smiling and well rested the next day, and it made it a little easier to continue.
So maybe that makes me a bad APer, but it was a decision that I do not regret.
I did. When she was younger I said i would never CIO and I couldn't understand how people could do it. Then I realized that she was about to turn 1 year old and was still waking at night as much as she did at 1 month old. I was too tired to enjoy her during the day and I felt like I wasn't being the best mother I could be.
So we did sleep training. It was a rough couple of weeks but it was one of the BEST parenting decisions I ever made. I'm happier. My child is happier. My husband is happier. We are ALL better rested now. She is not traumatized. She does not have attachment issues.
I still believe in a lot of AP concepts and follow them. But sleep training an 8 month old or 1 year old is not the same as doing it with a newborn. It really is best for some families. It doesn't mean you can't follow AP principles. Just because your child goes to sleep on their own doesn't mean they aren't attached to you or that you aren't meeting their needs.
I recently went to a LLL meeting and there were two moms with older kids than mine who were still nursing to sleep--one had a child over 2 who still could not go to bed or even take a nap without nursing. They both said how it was affecting their relationship with their husbands and making their husbands resent breastfeeding altogether. So that made me really happy that my daughter can go to sleep on her own now.
Thank you Iris (she's gorgeous, BTW!). My big fear is that we'll be fighting this same battle for the next 9 months until I wake up one day and decide to do it then. To get him down for his afternoon nap is a process that always ends with a nipple in his mouth. I'm not looking forward to doing this next week, but I'm happy to finally have a plan!
And I am not around much anymore, but as always I agree with you Iris
and also your DD is freaking adorable!
As of right now, I don't plan to do this until at least 1 year... and if I do, I would like to follow the jay gordon method of night weaning. I really like it.
"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."
https://www.drjaygordon.com/development/ap/sleep.asp
I have friends who have used this with success.
Thanks! I do plan on trying this..I just keep hoping she will get better on her own but I don't think she will..
"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."
I could have written this, word for word exactly (except my son's name is Seth!).
We used a progressive waiting approach (like Ferber) at 8ish months. He sleeps much, much, much better now. But he does not sleep through the night. And his sleep is still not what most people would consider good. Last night was an average night and we were up 4 times. BUT-- I could lay him down, turn on his music, and he would go back to sleep. I don't have to stay there and hold him or rock him or anything most of the time. He still doesn't go to sleep on his own though. I stopped nursing him to sleep around 15 months and for about a month he would point to his crib and say "please" and just go to sleep by himself, but randomly he started wanted to be rocked to sleep. So that's what we do now. We can't let him CIO anymore when he first goes to bed because he throws up every.single.time. He won't throw up after 11pm or so, though, interestingly.
Anyway, you have to do what you have to do for your family. I was resenting Seth at night and during the day, it was hurting my & DH's relationship, and I was getting very depressed (even though I wasn't depressed for the first few months of his life, so it wasn't like "normal" PPD). It just wasn't okay anymore and something had to be done before someone accidentally got hurt. We are all a lot happier now. I think we'll be even happier if someday he consistently STTN, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll take what I can get at this point!
Just want to throw it out there-- we tried CIO for naps when we were doing it at night and it would not work. He just wouldn't sleep. I dont know why, because he would sleep at night. To this day, he either falls asleep for naps in the car, in the stroller (which we stroll around the house to get him to sleep at night), or (rarely, since it hurts so much when he falls asleep since I've gotten pregnant) while nursing.
yes we did. and yes I still consider myself AP.
At 10 months we did Cry in Arms to reduce nightwakings. It took a week because we approached it very slowly. DH held her at increasingly longer intervals until we eliminated night feedings. She went from wakings every 1.5 to about 2-3 times a night.
At 15 months both DH and I reached our breaking point with putting her to sleep. It would take forever. DD was fighting us, just like yours. She didn't want to be held, she didn't want to be put down. She, and we, were exhausted constantly. She was only napping twice for 30 minutes each day.
You know how they say if you feel you are going to hurt the baby, put the baby down and leave the room? That's why we did CIO. Neither DH nor I could take it anymore. DD cried for 5 minutes straight, then off and on for 5 minutes. We did not do Ferber because I know my DD - it would only make her madder. The next night she cried about 2 minutes. The next night - nothing. She STTN for 3 months straight.
We have had to do it again after teething, illness, vacation. It is heartbreaking and difficult everytime. I delay it as long as possible and really try not to do it. We probably haven't done it in 3-4 months now. I have tried, as she has gotten older, to develop different techniques. The guilt is 10x worse when they can scream Mommy Come here!
DD nows has a strict, but easy bedtime routine and STTN 7 out of 10 nights (usually just a quick paci replacement).
yes, we did. it was taking me literally 3 hours some nights to rock her to sleep. it was hellish. and then she'd wake up a half hour later and i would have to start the process all over again. i tried other methods and read a zillion books (i know our librarians must have felt so bad for me when i kept checking out book after book on sleep).
I scoffed at people who told me about letting their babies CIO. This was before I was up all night, every night.
She STILL doesn't STTN, but we're close now, she is sleeping 8-10 hour stretches! The best part is that I have my evening with my husband to relax and be together, I'm good with waking up once or twice a night, since we're generally both well rested.
My girl sounds a lot like your baby ... good night sleeper (or at least, we could deal with it) but nap times, oh, they were horrible, horrible, horrible, the stuff of nightmares.
We tried it. My reasoning (to make myself feel better) was that if she was screaming in my arms and not falling asleep, she at least could scream in her crib and maybe fall asleep. We only did it for a day or two and she was crying/screaming for an hour (or more.) I'd check on her periodically but nothing was working.
What ended up working was a) dropping to one nap a day (we did this at ten months) b) sticking to a very very strict schedule (one o'clock every day she was down) and c) having a naptime routine that was similar to her night time routine so that she would associate it with sleep.
It took a lot of work and it just seemed that she had to grow into the ability to go down for naps. It also seems that she fights naps a lot when she was transitioning from three to two then from two to one.
If you feel that you've totally exhausted all options, try it, but I just don't think that it works great for naptime.
j+k+m+e | running with needles
I know this will make some people on this board cringe, but this post gives me hope. I really like this board, but sometimes it can feel a little isolating - like you're the only one who has ever made any non-AP parenting decisions and are a failure because of it. So to have moms here admit that sometimes they do things that aren't strictly AP AND that it helped them and their kids is refreshing. I know we're all human, but sometimes this board doesn't make it seem that way.
Thanks for being honest, girls. I know it might not be easy in this situation. but it makes things much easier for the rest of us as we grapple with how to make the right choices for our families.
(FWIW, I have tried some CIO, but chickened out after doing it fairly half-a$$ed. His sleep has improved since then and is doable now, although still not good. It had gotten to the point where I couldn't be a good mother due to sleep deprivation and he was a miserable baby. I'm not going to do it again anytime soon, but I can't rule it out either.)
Amber
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For us, I had to walk out. Staying with her, holding her hand, none of that worked. If she could see me, she was piiiiiiiiiissed.
And again, we reached this point where she was screaming just as much in my arms or in the wrap as she was in the crib. For my sanity (and depression) sake I couldn't have her screaming in my face, so I just had to put her down and walk out.
j+k+m+e | running with needles
My advice is to do your research - read all the books you can, and decide what will work best for your family. We went with the Sleep Easy solution, I highly recommend you read it or watch the DVD if you are considering sleep training.
I'm still hoping it doesn't come to this for us, but I never would have even considered posting about it here for fear of being judged and expected to nurse him all night long (which I think is contributing to his rejecting the breast during the day) and rock him for an hour every time he wakes for the indefinite future rather than ever eventually letting him cry some. I feel bad enough admitting that I hate having him in our bed (not because I don't like being close to him but because it's so uncomfortable for me and I get very little sleep and have horrible back and joint pain now from it).
I feel the exact same way. I expected to get 1 or 2 positive answers and the rest negative "I could never do that to my child" answers. Thank you ladies!
Thank you! I agree! I feel like in a lot of ways we are AP, but we are currently CIO and I felt like I couldn't post here because of it. It's nice when we can support each other, even through the tough decisions!
Yes. I did at 14 months and it was a god given miracle. I'm not going into my reasons, but it was absolutely a last resort.
dd still loves me, still feels plenty secure, and is a happier child now that she's getting decent sleep.
I did it with my first, she survived.
Im not with my second, at least not until she is old enough to realize that Im not gone forever, only down the hall.
I think that most of the time the only way to avoid CIO is to be the kind of person that can sleep through night nursing. I'm lucky that I mostly can. I don't look at the clock and DD just nurses on and off throughout the night (she never cries or anything). It's very fluid. She's 1.
DS was the same (he's 3.5 now).
Ultimately nightweaning was very effective. I Guess that is crying in arms. He didn't cry a whole lot though (he was 22 mos). The Jay Gordon article linked above is the way to go, IMO.
I think the modern, western goal of being able to put a baby down awake in a crib and come back 12 hours later is fundamentally unrealistic and not age-appropriate. Which is why most everyone 'has' to let their baby cry. So for me, adjusting my expectations was key.
But I totally understand that not everyone can sleep through night nursing. Not everyone has a husband who is supportive of cosleeping. Not all babies WANT to cosleep, etc. So I'm really just stating my opinion and not trying to be judgmental at all if you go the CIO route.
I do not usually post, but I lurk. I had an awful time getting my older son to sleep at night. At one year I was rocking him for at least 45 minutes and getting up throughout the night to do the same. I was getting so angry (and exhausted) at night. I used the book 'Good Night, Sleep Tight'. It involved sitting next to the crib for 2-3 nights and getting farther away every 2 to 3 nights. It takes about two weeks, but my son never cried. I did not use the method in the middle of the night. I still held him, but that improved dramatically as he learned to put himself to sleep. I am glad I waited until he was a year because I am not sure it would have been effective when he was less mature.
ETA: I wanted to add that at 1 year we were bed sharing for half the night. He would sleep in his crib then we would sleep together in his room on a full size mattress. Even when he was sleeping better and in his crib full time I sometimes slept on that mattress in his room because he liked knowing I was there. My husband works long hours so the family bed with a bad sleeper was taking a toll on his job.
I promised myself to wait until at least one year before trying anything other than NCSS.
Like another above posted, I have read about this: https://www.drjaygordon.com/development/ap/sleep.asp
And may try it next month if things don't change. Of course yesterday i decide this and last night she slept for 5 hours straight.
I see you already got a lot of good responses, but since we did something different from the other responses I thought I'd answer.
We never CIOed. DS woke up all the time, 3 - 8 times a night. He always wanted to nurse. We did not co-sleep bc neither of us slept well so every time I went to his room. It was hard, don't get me wrong, especially because I work f/t with a long commute. But we just kept at it and eventually he woke up fewer times and eventually stopped night waking often and then just stopped waking at night at all - but that wasn't until about a year. We just followed his cues, gave him what he needed and in the end it worked out. So, I guess my advice is only take it one day at a time, this baby stage is so fleeting!
Yes.
We (I) reached the end of my rope and finally let DS simply CIO. Sometimes I nurse him to sleep, sometimes I don't. But even when I nurse him to sleep as soon as I put him down he wakes up and cries. I would go in and get him but he would just stay up for hours and hours. I'm talking 1 or 2 am. And that does not fly when you have to be up for work in a few hours.
So I finally just let him cry. Most nights he cries less than 5 min. Some nights it's 30 sec. Other nights it's 15. rarely is it longer than 15 min.
But I realized that crying actually helps him get to sleep. Us doing anything to or with him only stimulates him and keeps him up.
I also have to say I'm so happy to read this post. I often stand up for CIO (and myself) on this board but find I'm one of the few. It's nice to know there are others even if they don't talk about it much.
We did a very modified version of Ferber and it worked like a dream. I never wanted her to STTN. I just wanted her to sleep more than 1/2 an hour at a time.
I had a new baby. I cannot even describe to you the difference in personality, in interaction. She no longer was red eyed and screeching the day away out of exhaustion. She started sleeping 2 hours, then 3 hours, then 4 hours and finally at 14 months started going 7-7. I'd hear her wake up, but she'd be able to roll over and get back to sleep on her own.
Occasionally she still asks for me in the night. I have 0 issue with this and go running. Because I know she needs me. What we did at 7.5 months changed my child, and in doing, changed me. It was the best decision I ever made.
We did a modified version of CIO at about 5 months old (we were in similar shoes AND I needed to go back to work on night shifts so I needed a kid who could fall asleep on his own). We never had a problem with him STTN, it was the GETTING him to sleep that was impossible. We did a lot of CIO but with me coming back in to pick him up (against all books I know). We did many of the No-Cry sleep solution things too, but eventually, he needed to learn how to self-soothe and we helped him with that. The best advice I have to parents having issues is to get DH involved. DS learned much faster when DH had to put him to bed (again- I went back to working 12 hour night shifts when DS was 5 months old so DH had to learn to put DS to bed). DS learned VERY fast how to go to sleep on his own by 5-6 months old when DH took over. BEST thing ever!
We've been getting 12-13 hours at night from DS ever since and he is a super happy, well-adjusted kid who doesn't fight bedtime or naptime, sings to himself when he falls asleep and when he wakes up, has books to read in bed and animals to cuddle with. Bedtime is not a hassle in our house and I am forever grateful for that.
CIO can be done but it can be done with modifications to suit your family.