Okay, I know I'm behind on this one.. Should have done this closer to 4 months, but DS was still in our room until 6 months, and he was sleeping pretty well until we moved him to his crib.
Anyway, I want to work on sleep training, but I am adamantly against any form of CIO, Ferberinzing, etc. Can anyone suggest a good method? What worked best for you and your LO?
Thanks!
Re: Non CIO Sleep training ?
You lucky duck! I'm jealous.. DS is definitely not a naturally great sleeper. I know that the goal of CIO is to teach babies to self-soothe, but when DS really gets crying (I mostly saw this in the car from about 6 weeks to about 4 months) he'd get SO worked up to the point of choking and I'm sure he'd get to the point of vomiting.
I'm home with DS every other day and he goes to daycare on the days I work. When he's at daycare, he's one of 4 kids there, so he definitely has some time to self-entertain. When I'm home with him, I do interact with him a lot, but I also will put him on the floor with some toys or in his highchair, walker or jumperoo. He's getting a bit more independent, especially now that he's rolling over a ton and is starting to sit. Maybe it's just a developmental thing and as he becomes more independent, he'll be less reliant on us to fall asleep. That does make sense, thanks!
I wish I could do CIO, it would be so much easier... but I just can't! Just thinking about it breaks my heart.
We're working on transferring DD to her crib from cosleeping. She was also always nursing to sleep, so the first thing I did was break that habit - I just kept popping her off when she was drowsy, giving it back to her if she rooted, then popping her off again after another minute, and doing this over and over until she fell asleep off the breast. We started that a few weeks ago, and now I just pop her off once, and she just goes to sleep on her own.
Then we moved a mattress into her bedroom, and I've been sleeping in there with her so she can get used to it. I've always nursed her to sleep laying on my side, but now I've changed it to rocking in the rocking chair, popping her off so she falls asleep in her own in my arms, and then waiting until she's more relaxing and slowing laying her down on the mattress, then laying down next to her. I was surprised by how well she took it... I thought it would take a lot more work than it did. She usually falls asleep right away, or just kind of fusses around for max 30 mins, but more like 15 min, before just going to sleep. Once she's asleep, I sneak out (but come back at my bedtime to sleep). At night when she wakes up, I do the same thing.
My next step will be to lay her down and not lay down with her, but leave. Then once that's easy, I'll switch to laying her in the crib. I also read that it's good to put them in their crib during the day and stay with them and play, so they associate it with a safe, happy place to be, so we've been doing that too.
*sigh* that's my own little method I've come up with, I didn't get it from anywhere. And that's why I wish I had the heart to CIO, haha. But it's working for us! And it won't be long now... maybe another week?
Good luck with your LO? Figuring out what to do is so tough...
I hear you. K never, ever calms down once she starts crying without soothing.
We dealt with the every 3 hrs for a bottle until got comfortable in his room and familiar with his surroundings upon waking up. It sucks but eventually he came around and now STTN. GL
Baby whisperer has a great method and has worked out pretty good for us so far