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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
CIO - What night is the hardest and when does it get easier?
The first night wasn't too bad, she cried for a few minutes then whined and talked and about an hour or so later she fell a sleep. Night two was the easiest, within 30 min she was asleep. Last night (night 3) was the worst, she was very upset and we brought her downstairs and she stayed up until 11. You could really see how tired she was but she was just fighting it. She did finally go to sleep the second time I put her to bed within 5 min I would say.
What night was the hardest and when does it get easier? Also, can you tell me your routine (i.e. rock for a little bit, put to bed full awake at a certain time, etc)? THANKS!
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Re: CIO - What night is the hardest and when does it get easier?
First let me start with I am by NO means an expert with sleep training as I have tried it multiple times with my DS and it never worked for him.
BUT what I do know from those who had had success is that you have to be firm and be consistent. If it's working for you and then go go back to rocking or co sleeping right away then you sort of have to start back from square one.
The 2nd night was much worse for us then night 1 and 3 - he screamed for 1 hour 45 minutes night 2 and after all that he did not sttn,
We used more of a progressive waiting approach than straight CIO, but she cried for far fewer minutes the second night. The first night, she cried for 35 minutes over a 70 minute period. The second night, she cried for 17 minutes over a 60 minute period. The third night, she cried for 7 minutes over a 20 minute period. The fourth night, she made noises as she transitioned between sleep cycles, but no crying. I was amazed at how drastic it was.
The night before we started, she was up 11 times in 8 hours and I rocked her to sleep every - single - time she woke up. After weeks of this, I seriously, really and truly thought that I was going to lose my mind.
We changed nothing about her routine as we started. She went to bed just fine, but was waking up A LOT at night. GL!
This. Do Not Take her out of her crib/bed. It will get better I promise. My heart sank to hear DD cry the way she did, and to go in, not hear anything and see was asleep sitting up. But you know what. Now I say Loela its bedtime and she runs to get her babies, then to her crib and she's out like a light.. she does the occasional talking.
Good luck. Make sure your husband is on the same page and doesn't go in to pick her up either.
Tonight will be our third night. Night 1 was 1.5 hours, night 2 was 1 hour. I'm hoping the trend will continue and we'll only have a half hour of crying tonight! DD cried the entire time she was alone, and only calmed down when I went in to soothe her. Both nights she has fallen asleep while I am in her room rubbing her back, so I don't think she has learned to soothe herself yet. I know I have to get her to the point where she falls asleep by herself, but for some reason she just wont sit down by herself once she is standing in her crib. She needs me to lie her down and then she'll fall asleep after a minute of rubbing her back.
Our routine is the same as always--bath, book, nurse, and rock, but instead of rocking her to sleep, we've waited until her eyes got heavy, and then put her down. I tell her that I love her, that I'm in the kitchen (since she knows where that is), and that its bedtime. Then I sing her a few lines of her naptime song, and then I leave the room.
Good luck! Be strong and don't pick her up. If you are going to do CIO, fully commit. Otherwise, you'll confuse her.
CIO is basically conditioning, and with that comes extinction.
X usually works.
X stops working.
You do a LOT of X, hoping that it will eventually work.
If it doesn't, you give up. X doesn't work anymore.
If it does, X is still effective! You just need to work a lot harder and longer, but eventually it will work!
Translating that into sleep, if crying for five minutes doesn't work, she is going to pull out all the stops. Screaming, long periods of crying, just to make sure that she can't get what she wants. If she gets what she wants after an hour, next time she'll know to scream for an hour!
When I have difficult patches with sleep, I usually give him an alternate that doesn't give him exactly what he wants. A sip of water, a hug and kiss without getting out of the crib, etc. Honestly, it probably makes it worse.
I tried CIO several times, but DS still would wake every couple hours screaming every night. I have now figured out he wasn't ready to be on his own and I am happy we went back to bedsharing. I put him down in his crib at the beginning of the night, then took him to bed with me when he woke crying. The arrangement was good for DH and I and kept DS happy and sleeping at night for a few months so DH and I got enough sleep.
Last week I started a different "method" of sleep training recommended by someone on here. I wish I could remember what the website was that gave the steps. It wasn't as strict or harsh as CIO. It allowed you to rock/calm your baby as much as needed until a certain time of night then past that time you couldn't pick up or hug - just reassure. It started with taking away the bedtime bottle, but DS quit that a long time ago, so I was able to skip the first 4-5 days of "training" and get him to STTN in about 4 nights. I was much more comfortable with it... but I also think DS was ready to sleep on his own finally. At 9 months/12 months/13 months (our previous tries with CIO) not so much.