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North Carolina Babies
MelBee12
member
CIO
MelBee12
member
I know this is a controversial topic but our pedi gave us the go ahead (and pretty much brought it up first) to let D start crying it out at night. His sleeping has gotten so bad, I've been pulling him in bed with me as the only way he'll sleep, and I just don't think that's very safe. Tonight will be night 3 and last night he did SOO much better than the first (the first was pretty much a walking nightmare for us and him I'm sure). He woke up every three hours and besides the first time, I only had to go in once, put in the paci and rub his back for a minute and then he would put himself to sleep before it was time to go in the second time. I just wanted to see who else has used this type of sleep training and how it worked for them. I've also been reading the book babywise and the chapters on feeding made me want to cry. A lot of you know my frustrations with BF'ing and after reading this book (and help from a friend a few weeks ago), D now only BF's every 3-4 hours with full feedings instead of his exhausting 1 1/2-2 hours we were going through (he had gotten accustomed to snacking because I just didn't know any better). He is a MUCH happier baby now...it's really quite weird how all of this is starting to make sense. I wish I had the knowledge earlier.
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Re: CIO
A very timely post.
We are at about the same point. Over the past 3 nights, I have tried to do what I think is called 'gradual extinction'? Whatever. Anyway - it's the whole plan of letting him cry for 5 min, go in and reassure him, let him cry for 10 minutes, reassure, cry for 15 minutes, etc. I've only had to visit him at the 5 minute mark. He has been falling asleep just before the end of the 10 minute stint. How cool!! So much better than hour + of bouncing and singing we were doing to get him to fall asleep. He can do it on his own!!
But...he is still waking up every 90 minutes or so in the wee morning hours. Last night I fed him some...Looks like I need to learn your trick for full feedings (what was that??).
No advice from me - keep up the good work!
I used CIO with both of my girls. I think the common view point is to wait till at least 4 mo. old but some also say closer to 6 mo. old. With DD#1, we tried at 4.5 mo. old and it was a complete disaster so we held off another month. At 5.5 mo. old, she dropped both her night nursings and STTN after our first night of CIO. Although she didn't consistently STTN until closer to 9 mo. old, the CIO helped a lot with getting her to bed in the first place (she'd wake up as I put in her the crib and I'd have to start all over soothing her back to sleep, multiple times before we did CIO).
With DD#2, we did CIO at 4.5 mo. and it worked like a charm with her. She didn't actually cry that much at all (unlike DD#1) but she didn't drop her feedings like DD#1 did. So I was still nursing her at night for another few months before she dropped her night feedings. We did CIO more to get them to go to sleep on their own when first putting them down, rather than to get them to drop their night feedings. (From what I've read, it is common for many BF babies to night nurse up until around 9 mo. old so I wasn't too worried about getting them to stop night nursing at that stage).
Glad to hear you got the BFing schedule worked out. I think with both of my girls around 4 mo old they were nursing every 3-4 hr also. I would have went crazy if they were still nursing every 1 1/2 hrs!
Good luck!
that is EXACTLY what our pedi told us to do..the 5, 10 and 15 minute intervals..so not exactly Ferber. What I mean by full feedings is, D was only taking one breast and I thought that was enough. Recently, I have been ALWAYS offering the second boob (which I know they told you from the beginning, but I thought it was only for newborns and D wasn't needing as much). Now he almost always takes it and gets a "full feeding". Babywise also tells you to find a comfortable medium between timing feedings and baby directed feedings. Meaning, if he cries less than 2 hours before it's time to feed, basically I make the parent directed decision on whether or not to feed him. It's based off demand feeding, vs parental direction. I was feeding him at every cry (not knowing whether it was a hungry cry or not) and in the process exhausting myself and creating bad habits for him. It's no wonder I wanted to quit BF'ing...and the book states this is the number one reason moms quit BF'ing. I'm so glad I didn't!!! The number 2 reason is supply (just FYI). Also we were feeding/nursing Dylan to sleep. Now if he wakes up 6-8 hours after bedtime, I nurse (usually between 2:30-4:30) and then again at 7am. We give a 5oz bottle at bedtime and just make sure he isn't asleep when we put him down. So he gets his bedtime bottle and nurses once at night and once in the morning when he wakes up. The only problem is, we almost always sleep in late. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not, but at 7am I nurse him in bed and put him back to sleep in the rnp and he's been sleeping another 3-4 hours.
I can't help much because I'm not going to let my boys CIO, but that's just me. I don't see it as a problem whatsoever if other moms do it, though. To me, it's not controversial, it's just not my cup of tea.
Anyway, I just wanted to say I love your little boy's name. My DH really likes the name Dylan and I knew I wanted Alexander as a middle name, so Dylan Alexander was a front runner for a while. It would have been so funny to have two Dylan Alexanders on the NC bump.
6 IUIs,IVF #1 w/ICSI = BFP!
Betas, 332 & 856 = twins!
Our baby girl is here!
I always try for the two boober no matter what. I think last night he barely took the second boob. But he'll learn that if he doesn't fill up, the next meal isn't until "this" many hours...so he'll be less likely to snack. We are so alike it's ridiculous...I was doing the exact same thing. I thought, "oh one boob and he's asleep, he's had enough and that's all he needs"...I think I was so relieved that he was sleeping, I didn't care. I was too afraid to wake him to take the second boob in fear of him staying up. Ridiculous!! haha. The thing is, you can't let them fall asleep nursing...or else they associate a meal/snack with bed/nap time. If he does fall asleep mid boob, wake him up...or if he falls asleep after only one boob, do a diaper change or burp him to wake him up enough to take the second. The trick is you have to put them down drowsy but awake (I know it seems impossible) to help them learn how to fall asleep on their own. From the first night, I just decided that his night nursing could go down to one feeding. The pedi said, that at his age and weight he should be able, physiologically, to go 8 hours without a feeding at night no problem. So the first night I decided to cut it to 6 hours and fed him at the 2:30 wakening. D has slept 8 hours before so I know he is able to do it. I'm hoping that each night that feeding will get later and later. Also, one thing the baby wise book talks about, is to not worry about your last feedings before bed being close together. Yesterday, it was time to feed him at 6pm (and he had hunger cues) so I went ahead and nursed him even knowing that he gets his night time bottle around 8. We do our whole bedtime routine...bath, diaper, dress for bed, feed (DH gives the bottle as his bonding time) and then we read a few books keeping him awake but drowsy (no rocking, etc.) and place him in the crib. We still use the sleep sheep, paci and pat him a few times saying goodnight and then leave the room. Even though I think these seem to be "crutches", I'd rather have him needing objects that aren't us to fall asleep. Last night instead of the sleep sheep, I used his naptime music player. It plays for 5, 10 or 15 minutes and if your baby is still crying or wakes up and cries..it automatically turns back on for the same allotted time. Which means, it helps him fall back asleep without me and it kept crying to a minimum. Not sure if it was the best thing to do, but it's so hard to hear your baby cry for 45 minutes straight!! From night one to night two his crying decreased more than 50%. Sometimes falling asleep in little as 7 minutes. And his crying wasn't as hard and he had more breaks of quietness, deciding if he could fall asleep.
I know how hard it can be to make decisions half awake at night but just stick with it. Only you know how comfortable you are with feeding your little guy at night. If you think you can extend it to every 3 hours, then do that and eventually cut out a feeding. If you're feeding him every 90 minutes at night, the babywise book is basically saying you're telling him that nursing is how you fall back asleep. My DH and I are so guilty of it, but we didn't know that it would create such a problem. Sometimes D would wake up only 2 hours after his night bottle, and DH would go in and while he was still in the crib, feed him the rest so he would fall back asleep!!
Awww. Thanks!! We could not decide on a boys name for a while. We always knew we wanted our girl name to be Ava Grace. Finally Dylan was on the list for boys. I always loved Alexander but DH hated it as a first name because he said "what's the point of naming him Alexander if everyone is just going to call him Alex...I hate nick names!" haha. So I won with having it as a middle name.
Dylan was the only boy name we could agree on and I'm glad we picked it. The other names in our list, I don't really like anymore. Julian was at the top too, and Alan didn't like Nicholas (same nick name reason...ugh men!!!). One day Alan was just like, you know what...I realllly like Dylan. So when we put the two names together, we were hooked.
Thanks for your posts. I might have to get this book because I am clueless on when D should be napping. Right now he is napping anywhere from 30 min-2 hrs (LOVE those two hour naps!! but they happen so rarely) which I think is normal and he usually goes down 2 or 3 times a day. But yesterday was the first day he started napping in the crib he went 45 minutes both times he's done it. First nap yesterday was a wash, he cried for 30 minutes so I ended the nap. Today he's napped in the crib once and once in the car seat on the way home from Target...he slept about 50 minutes. Normally I'm guilty of letting him nap in the boppy on the couch (we have an L shaped couch so he's cozy in the corner where he can't fall off) with me watching him closely. I feel like I can get so much more done with him upstairs in his room (no tip toeing around).