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CIO Moms - Please Come In (Long, sorry)
Ok, I'm pretty sure that crying it out is the next logical step here. It pains me to do it, but I'm at a loss as to how else to proceed! I have Ferber's book and I've skimmed the parts that seem to apply to our situation. But honestly, what mommy of a 5 month old has time to read an entire book?!
Baby USED to sleep really well. He was going to sleep at 7:00 or 7:30 and not waking to eat until 3:30 or so, then would be up for the day around 7:30 or 8:00. I could handle that, but it all went out the window about a month ago for some reason.
I've started to apply some of the advice Ferber gives in his book, like decreasing the amount of formula in his nighttime bottles. However, this seems to be biting me in the arse. He just wakes up ravenous a few hours later. I know he can STTN without eating, cause he's done it a handful of times. I don't expect miracles, and I know STTN isn't going to happen every night. However, I'd like to go more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. Seems more often than not, he's consistently waking every 4 hours and totally freaks if you don't feed him at those times. I've tried giving him the binky instead of the bottle, and on rare occasions this buys me another hour or so.
He usually goes to sleep with few problems. We do jammies, lights out, a bottle while cuddling in the rocking chair, into the sleepsuit, and then he's usually out like a light. Sometimes he wakes a few minutes later, but will go right back to sleep if I go give him a binky. So my issue is the night wakings/feedings, not the getting him to bed part.
So talk to me about crying it out. Do you just do it cold turkey? Am I not supposed to offer him a bottle all night? To me that seems kinda cruel. Does CIO even apply to the middle of the night wakings, or is it just a get-them-to-bed kind of thing?
Help! I'm entirely too sleep deprived for being the mommy of an almost 6 month-old baby. I have bags under my eyes and I'm gaining weight cause I have ZERO energy for walks and I drink too much Coke/coffee.
Key points:
- I started him on solids twice a day about 2 weeks ago, and he's doing really well.
- We moved a few weeks ago. His sleep seemed to go out the window once we started packing boxes at the old place. It was obvious he was unsettled, but I'm not sure how long I should expect it to take him to get used to this new place. His room is all put together exactly like it was in the old place. We were hoping that would help him adjust.
- I am now a SAHM mom, so he's getting tons of one-on-one time with me. Maybe I'm boring and he needs more stimulation?
I love my little dude, but I'm at the end of my rope. Any advice or experiences you ladies can share would be much appreciated. Sorry so long...thanks for reading this far!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: CIO Moms - Please Come In (Long, sorry)
We are going thru the same thing, and did with Ollie at this age too. We went thru the whole awful Ferber thing, which worked, but then a few weeks later teething hit big time, and it all went out the window, and we had to re-do it a few months later. It was tough.
Its common for babies to not sleep well right before a milestone like teeth, crawling, etc. We felt like Ferber was a good choice when we did it with Ollie, but now that I know that there's really not much you can do during teething, I dont think we will be doing any Ferber (or anything) for a while so we dont have to re-do it again. It was seriously one of the hardest things I've been through. Anyway, that's my plan
I know it sucks to not be sleeping. E has been up every 2-3 hours for the last couple nights. Let me know if you find something that works!
Will you be having your 6 month appointment soon? When my pediatrician said that it was fine to not feed her during the night, then I felt ok with starting to CIO. I found that the Ferber method of gradually going in after longer and longer stretches wouldn't work for Laurel. It gets her too worked up. So we just did straight CIO. Night wakings stopped after 2 nights of CIO.
I am jealous that he goes down well, though! That's never been Laurel's forte.
Up until then, lila didn't know how to put herself to sleep at all - she was held and rocked to sleep every single nap / bedtime / night waking. So we knew that what she needed was to learn to soothe herself. We started with bedtime and for us it went pretty well - I think it was just under 20 minutes of screaming the first night. Within a week she was getting herself to sleep without crying.
After that we tackled the night wakings - they were harder for sure. I decreased her formula by an ounce every night until we hit zero. Then for the next couple nights i would go in there when she woke up and do the reassure but don't pick up thing (just once when I heard her wake up) then leave her to fall asleep. For about a week that meant some crying in the night, but because she clearly already knew how to get to sleep, it didn't take too long before she would wake up and maybe whine a little but then go right back to sleep on her own.
FWIW, i found chapters 4, 6, and 9 to be the most helpful. If you can find the time (and can keep your eyes open) I'd highly recommend getting all the way through them.
Good luck mama. Sleep issues suck. And so does CIO. But in the grand scheme its a pretty quick way to fix the issue so everyone is getting better sleep.
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No help here, as clearly I haven't gotten there yet. Just wanted to pass on that in my child-parent class, they told us that most babies' sleep schedules go all wonky 3-6 months due to the rapid development. I know Isaac has started to wake much more often (used to be once a night). Since you are so close, maybe you can wait it out?
My problem with stopping feeding entirely is that you don't know if LO is going through a growth spurt, or is even just thirsty (I know I wake up in the middle of night dying for a drink sometimes). But... as I said, I'm not there yet, so can't speak from experience.
Good luck...
I'm going to make an AWESOME big brother.
Does he have a blanket or something to cuddle? Max was having a hard time sleeping and then his daycare provider said he loved the blanket he slept with at her house. It's a super cheap Tiddelywinks blanket from target. He pulls that think over his face and he is out. I hope it gets better for you.
Oh, I also remember reading that its ok to cut back on night time feedings at this age and it is one of the easiest sleep problems to fix. When they are used to getting fed at night they wake up and expect it. They think "ok. this is when i eat". I don't remember exactly how they recommed getting out of it but I bet your ped would have some good advice.
I never read a book (although I have them, LOL)...but around 5 months we followed this process and it worked great. Granted, every baby is different but some or all of these might be worth a shot?
* At 5 months, our approx bedtime was 6pm
* At this time we started sleeping on tummy!
* Between 10-11pm (as I went to bed) I snuck in and did a "dream feeding" (he would take his bottle totally asleep)
* I did this for about 1 month - decreasing the formula as solids took over. Against popular opinion, I DO think he slept more soundly when he started solids
* During this time, we also started pushing bedtime back towards 7:30 with a nice "solid" dinner beforehand - and subsequently wakings started pushing to 4am then 5am...and have been at 6am ever since.
Good luck!