Need help: CIO and breaking swaddle?

Breezy8407 · November 2012

We have reached the point where we feel like CIO will be necessary for both babies. We had worked on breaking the swaddle for a while around 4 months, but it was a disaster and we had to go back to it to get a few nights of sleep. Since we are over 6 months old and both are attempting to roll (not actually rolling over) in their swaddles at night, I know its time for them to go.

So, in your experience, should we:

1. Cry-it-out sleep training while still swaddled, then attempt to go swaddle free after sleep training has been successful?

2. Break the swaddles first while continuing to hold/rock them to sleep?

3. Cry-it-out AND no swaddle all at once?

Also, for those that have done CIO, did you find that early morning waking (3-4am) subsided? or is this unrelated?

mrsemily08 · November 2012

These are separate issues to me. What, swaddle aside, do you want to CIO for?

We never rocked/held to sleep outside of sickness. My instinct is to CIO/break swaddle at once, but I'm not sure what else you're concerned about in terms of sleep training.

We fed overnight until they weren't taking a full feeding, which was 11.5 mo for us. They do still wake sometimes at night but since 13/14 mo they've been mostly STTN.

Breezy8407 · November 2012

mrsemily08:
These are separate issues to me. What, swaddle aside, do you want to CIO for?
We never rocked/held to sleep outside of sickness. My instinct is to CIO/break swaddle at once, but I'm not sure what else you're concerned about in terms of sleep training.

We fed overnight until they weren't taking a full feeding, which was 11.5 mo for us. They do still wake sometimes at night but since 13/14 mo they've been mostly STTN.

We want to be able to put them down drowsy but awake or awake. Right now we are holding-rocking until the fall asleep completely.

The other big motivator here is that I will be doing bedtime on my own in a few weeks because H will be gone - he coaches a winter sport. For my sanity and the sake of time. It takes a long time to get them both asleep completely with two of us.

kgs0505 · November 2012

You definitiely want to break the rock/hold to sleep habit asap. I'd probably make the transistion all at once and suffer a couple nights with lack of sleep. We use yhe sleep sacks with great success once he outgrew the swaddle.

Breezy8407 · November 2012

kgs0505:
You definitiely want to break the rock/hold to sleep habit asap. I'd probably make the transistion all at once and suffer a couple nights with lack of sleep. We use yhe sleep sacks with great success once he outgrew the swaddle.

We have sleep sacks ready to go! I really like the Halo products.

I have been leaning towards doing everything at once and getting it over with as painful as it might be.

MrsLnt · November 2012

I'd work on doing it all at once, although, you might start gradually reducing the length of time you hold them right now before putting them down to make it a little less dramatic.

We didn't do CIO until around 8.5 months. Before then, we had too many physical milestones causing sleep issues. Mine were the kind that practiced crawling in their sleep,etc.

mrsemily08 · November 2012

I think I'd work on ditching the swaddle and putting them down drowsy but awake at the same time. Are they rolling yet? My girls became belly sleepers immediately upon de-swaddling, which made back patting convenient.

besu-chan · November 2012

We went through almost the exact same thing. All attempts to get rid of the swaddle were a complete disaster. I think of it this way: with CIO you are teaching them a new routine/method for going to sleep. Why teach them one and then another? Go straight to what you want the new routine to be. Once I realized I was going to have to do CIO with one of my DDs, I decided I might as well do it all. I got rid of swaddles and pacis and stopped rocking/holding until they were almost asleep. I now take them one at a time, put them in their sleep sack, rock them and sing a short song, and put them in their cribs. I also gave each of them a "lovie" which made me feel a little bit better about taking away all that other stuff. It only really took one night for us, and that was 40min of crying. Not nearly the scream fest I was expecting. Hope it goes well for you too!

Breezy8407 · November 2012

Well, we decided to do no swaddle and graduated extinction to start. DD did pretty well...we let her cry for the first 5 minutes, then gave her her nuk. She was quiet most of the night after that. She rolled around a lot, but I think she was doing it in her sleep. She was on her tummy when we went in this morning.

DS was a circus...he went down fine and was quiet until 10. He has had a lingering cough that get's him to gag, and he recently found his thumb so he either coughed and gagged or his fingers gagged him, then threw up. We had to change him and give him a bath. We were pretty sure he wasn't sick, but we took turns sleeping on the couch with him in case he coughed and gagged again. It was a long night. They both slept without swaddles though.

The best laid plans...

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