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August 2012 Moms
DemoDoll
member
Ferber Method vs. CIO
DemoDoll
member
Is anyone doing either method to sleep train their baby? If you are, what did you do and how did you do it? The more details the better.
DH and I are at a loss at what to do with DD. She STTN 10 hours straight for about a month....then I went back to work and her sleep pattern slowly got worse and worse. Currently she is getting up about 4 times a night. She goes down at 10:30 (no earlier, we've tried), then wakes up at 1 am, 3 am, 5 am, and up for the day at 6:30 am...sometimes I can get her back to sleep until 8ish if I'm really lucky.
We have tried the Ferber Method a few times but we are never consistent...we give up after 30-45 minutes. Today we finally set up our angelcare monitor so we felt we could try the CIO method at nap time. DD hadn't slept since 8 am and we tried putting her down for a nap after nursing at 2 or 3, I can't remember. Anyway, she cried for 30 minutes straight and never fell asleep, if anything, it woke her more up and mad her so mad she could barely breath from crying.
We are currently doing the Ferber Method..have been doing it for the last 30 minutes. We put her in the crib while she was falling alseep but not quite asleep yet and she instantly starting screaming like usual. I did a no no and gave her more formula about 15 minutes into it and she only drank an oz....and is still crying.
I swear this child is going to sleep with us until she is 15.
If you made it this far, good for you! I'm surprised I could type this much after all the sleep exhaustion. Blah!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Ferber Method vs. CIO
First off, hey bish.
Second of all, I could have written this my damn self. We stopped swaddling Sergio a month ago and it's been hell since. He went from being relatively easy to put down for the night to a two hour screaming and rocking session. He will only nap in my arms and if I try to put him down, even after 20 minutes,he wakes right up and all hell breaks loose. The only way he sleeps past 5am is if I pull him into bed with us, which I do every night because I need some friggin sleep!
We tried CIO for naps a week or so ago and he did the same thing as Brooke. He screamed on and off for an hour and never even closed his eyes, even though I had put him down drowsy. We've tried everything...crib soother, putting down while awake, putting down while drowsy, patting and shushing him...nothing works. He's like,"Nice try, pick my azz up." When I posted our CIO episode over on Parenting for some veteran advice, they all said he was too young and that's why he didn't give two hoots about the fact that he was supposed to fall asleep after 20 minutes of crying. I know some mamas say it's worked for their kid, but my kid just isn't having it.
Anyways, obviously I have no real advice. I just wanted to say that you're in good company!
SCANDAL!
Were our uteruses fused together? Because I think we have twins...that is just like Brooke!!
At the time I went back to work she started rolling over....so no mama during the day, no more breast feeding ALL day long, no more swaddling. This all equals a baby that hates to sleep and needs to be attached to my teet all night. She is in bed with us from about 4-5am and on because I just can't take anymore and I fall asleep with her on my bewb.
Whats your bedtime routine? I know that you said she won't go to bed before 10:30 but.. maybe it's time to try again. DD would go to bed at 10:30 and wake up constantly. I slowly started moving it up and up and eventually she settled on 7:30. She recently started sleeping 7:30-8:30.
My advice is establish a bedtime routine. Bottle, bath, lotion, bottle, bed (or whatever works for you) and stick with it. Slowly make her bedtime earlier and earlier. Which ever method you decide to use (I used mild CIO) be consistant. The first few nights are long and hard. She is going to scream and cry until she figures it out. If you stick with it she'll adjust.
GL mama!
I went back to work when he was six weeks old and he was okay. Then, I went part time two weeks ago, so I'm home all day all week long and he's become incredibly attached. If I'm in the room, he wants me. I'm the only one that can put him to sleep. It takes SO HOURS. If I walk out of the room, he's screaming bloody murder. It's awful. I cannot do anything. Sometimes I make up errands to do just because he naps in the car and I can get out of the friggin rocking chair for an hour or so! I purposely picked a pediatrician that is 30 minutes away, an hour away for the nephrologist, etc. I need to get out of that stupid chair.
I'm at a loss for what to do too. I mean, he won't fall asleep crying. ..he just keeps crying.
SCANDAL!
We put her down at 7:30 tonight. I know that's a huge jump from 10:30 but she is sooo exhausted and she started falling asleep with a bottle at 7:15. It's a long stretch but we are hoping tonight will turn her around and she will take to the 7:30 bed time.
What do you mean by mild CIO? Just curious what worked for you and how you did it. Thanks so much!
She will be 5 months in a week and a half. I should have known to not try it on a day that she barely got sleep. I guess I figured that she would be so tired she wouldn't be able to fight it.
She fell asleep after 45 minutes of crying but we went in every 3-5 minutes to soothe her...we'll see how long she sleeps.
You might have been missing the small cues she was giving you. Sometimes they are really hard to see. I would bet putting her down earlier will make a HUGE difference. I hope it works out for you tonight.
My mild CIO was like this...
I would put her down and let her cry for about 2 min
Go in and pat her back or put the bink in her mouth
let her cry for 5 min
pat her back and put in bink
let her cry for 5 min
go in and pick her up and give her the bewb til she fell asleep. I would unlatch her and put her head on my shoulder and pat her back for 5 min or so. Then move her back to the crib.
repeat a couple times...eventually she was so tired she stopped crying.
I didn't talk to her, shhhhh her or look at her. No bouncing or rocking either... I would put my head back and close my eyes. I found that if she locked eyes with me she would wake right up.
Is this making sense?
I also did all of this because she wanted to sleep with me and I was over it! It's much nicer when they are in their own room.
Thanks, that does make sense. She usually instantly calms down if we sing to her, specifically itsy bitsy spider. I will try not talking to her or anything when she wakes up. It's interesting to hear that you picked her up and nursed her and it worked. I could possibly try that too. It seems like a far away dream to have her sleeping in her own bed, haha.
The crying exhausted her and the nursing knocked her out. She only stayed latched for a minute or two. My Bewb was more or less a paci.
Ok, I may get a bit long winded, but here's what we did, and what's been working well for a few weeks for us. We did Ferber, not straight CIO. Our goal was only to eliminate the dozen non-feeding wakings a night, and continue to feed him as needed. We started on a Friday night. I did his bedtime routine as usual, rocked, etc. as I normally would have, then as he was getting drowsy, I put him down in his crib, gave him a pat, told him mommy and daddy were close by, but it was time to sleep, and left. He was stunned. It actually took him about 2 minutes to start crying. But he did start crying. The first night, after 5 minutes of real crying (not just whimpering), I went in and reassured him. I did not pick him up. I patted, shushed, and stayed less than 1 minute. We cried for 5 more minutes. We repeated. Then we waited 10 minutes. Then 15. We never got to 20, he fell asleep. I think he cried for about 45 minutes the first night, but he got reassured 4 times. I do think it's important to give them enough time to start to work on soothing themselves. In our case, 5 or even 10 minutes simply wasn't long enough. It was the 15 minute wait that made him realize he needed to soothe himself. I promise you won't always have to wait that long.
The second night was better, only 25 minutes. Now he doesn't usually cry, and if he does, he just needs his Nuk put back in, and he's good to go. He's not perfect at sleeping these days, but it's so much better. For night wakings where he doesn't need to be fed, we go in immediately and reassure him. Sometimes he puts himself back to sleep without help. I guess I'd say we were pretty strict with him for about a week while sleep training, and now we're more relaxed, because we know he knows he can go to sleep on his own.
DON'T start with naps! They're not as tired during the day, as they are at night, and you don't have the time during the day to waste letting them cry. Naps will improve as night sleep improves. Also, I recommend starting sleep training on a night after LO has had good naps during the day. Get the naps any way you can.
I don't know what time your LO wakes up in the morning, but I think 10:30 is just way too late to be going to bed for the night. My LO gets up around 7:30-8 in the morning, and then goes to sleep around 7:00-7:30. He naps 3 times a day. How many times a day is your LO napping? For how long? If she's not getting good naps, night sleep will be harder. If she's overtired, as I suspect she must be if she's going to bed at 10:30 p.m., it's even more difficult to get decent night sleep, which then screws up naps, which screws up night sleep. It's a vicious cycle.
So, I think I'd try to get great naps out of her on a day when you and your DH can devote some evening time to the training. Then, 2-3 hours after she wakes up from the last nap, do your nighttime routine, and put her to bed. Don't pick her up when you go in to reassure her. Don't get her out of the crib for any reason other than feeding or a diaper change. Be absolutely consistent. I think average crying for the first night of Ferber is 45 mins-1 hour. Once you start, DO NOT give in. It's tough, but it's such an important lesson for her to learn, you just can't teach her that cryiing for x amount of time produces the result she wants.
I hope this helps. If you're consistent and tough it out, you will see results. We cleared sleep training with our pediatrician first, and recommend you do the same. They're smart and adaptable at this age, and it didn't take DS long at all to learn where to sleep and how to fall asleep. He is soooo much better rested these days. He's happier, is developing like crazy, and we're happier too. It will take time for her to fine tune all her sleep skills, but you will see immediate results. The frist night with DS, after he cried for 45 mins initially, he woke up about an hour and half later, fussed for about 10 minutes, and fell asleep again. He woke up twice more for feedings and that was it. 3 wake ups (down from 12+). These days, DS usually needs a little assistance at the beginning of the night (patting and shushing for a minute or two), and then only wakes once to eat. I hope this continues! We all suffered for sooo long. Good luck, it sucks when no one's sleeping!
Totally agree with this. The less they sleep during the day, the less they sleep at night. 10:30-6:30 is nowhere near enough sleep for her at night. I know you say she won't go down earlier, but it's because she's so overtired. She's getting a second wind from being so tired, and is unable to fall asleep earlier. You may need to take a day or two off if you can to get her napping ANY way you can. Napping and night sleep are two different parts of their brains, so even if you have to do "forbidden" stuff for naps, it's ok. Your goal is to gt her the sleep she needs during the day for a day or two so that she can tolerate going to bed at a normal time, and not get so wound up by the sleep training that it backfires.
We use/used the Ferber method on DD when things were getting out of control over here. I think the most important thing for us was that we followed it to a T and were very consistent with it. H and I had a long discussion beforehand to make sure that we would be carrying it out exactly the same way. Since Ferber wants you to break all sleep associations, we also broke the swaddle and using a pacifier that night too.
The first night was the worst, it was heartbreaking to hear her cry for over an hour (we went in on the prescribed intervals and watched her on the monitor). The time it took her to fall asleep decreased over the next few days. We also use/used it for the middle of the night. She was getting up several times (almost hourly) to comfort nurse (like 5 minutes then would pass out again). Ferber suggests to increase the time between night nursing (I think by 30 minutes each night). So we did the Ferber method each time she woke up until it was the "prescribed" time or later. Currently if she wakes before 3.5 hours we do the Ferber method-which rarely happens. I nurse her 1-2 times a night still. I feel comfortable with this and feel like if she can go 3 hours during the day without food, then she doesn't need to eat more often at night.
We also began putting her to sleep around 9:30, and since sleep training she has given us cues to slowly move up her bedtime (6:45-7:30 now). We try our best not to let her nap after 5 pm, so that she is tired and ready for bed earlier.
Her naps have gone to *** though, so I have no advice there. Ferber did not help us in that department, and actually she now refuses the swing, and really fights us when we try to bounce to sleep. I tell myself this is just a phase and it is much easier for me to deal with bad day sleeping than bad night sleeping. GL!
Thank you for all of your advice!
At Brooke's 4 month appt her ped told us many things that we are just getting around to trying. She said we need to let Brooke CIO out at night. We mentioned the Ferber Method and she was fine with that but said Brooke was completely capable of CIO too. She also said we should make Brooke go 7 hours at night without food....ha, yeah that has yet to happen. We just got her to break the habit of snacking. The ped told us to stop feeding her on demand because she was eating practically an oz or 2 every hour or so. Now she is finally eating 4 oz every 3 hours. Ugh, we fail as parents.
I think you'll find that as her sleep improves at night, the snacking will decrease. Break that sleep association with food, and do whatever you're comfortable with as far as letting her cry. As she gets used to sleeping longer and longer, she won't wake up for the food, and won't need the food to fall asleep. It will take some time for this to happen, but I'd guess that in 2 weeks, things will be drastically different. For us, things were different right away, and are still evolving.
we started sleep training about a week before christmas. lo's sleep schedule had gotten pretty bad---the day we started, he had woken up at 430 am, but then only napped an hour total that day. i felt like he just needed help in the sleep dept.
previously, he had fallen asleep himself (with the help of the glow seahorse), but had woken up at least a few times a night. things just kept getting worse though.
i had decided on ferber, but once i laid him down at the first night of sleep training & heard him cry, i decided to wait 10 minutes before the first check. it was hard. i did the first check, then before the 20 minute mark, he fell asleep. (so, i only did one check that night, and i just told him we loved him, that it was time to sleep, etc. after that, he fell asleep before i could get upstairs for the second check.) the harder part was the motn wakings. i knew he could make it through the night without eating because he had done it a few times. i decided to wait 10 minutes before checking during motn wakings. (i have to note that i listened to the cry though---was it a tired cry? a hungry cry? etc). he had 2 motn wakings the first night, and both times he fell back asleep right before the 10 minute mark. during those wakings, he cried on & off, but they were just "tired" cries.
fast forward...now, most nights he either goes right to sleep, or he cries for a few minutes first. he usually still wakes up once a night, but he only cries (again, "tired" cries) for a few minutes.
this has worked well for my lo, but every child is different...which doesnt always help when trying to decide the best plan of action. also, trust your instincts. i feel like i know when my child is hungry, ill, etc. if so, it's my job as a mother to help him. however, if he is just tired & "crying out" in his sleep, I feel like I should let him try to settle himself. i spent so many nights running to him & waking him up when he wasn't even "really" awake & really needing anything...i was making it worse.
i know that in the past, my lo had gotten more worked up when i entered his room. i had tried the pick up/put down method, but it only made things worse.
as far as naps go, my sister taught me a trick at christmas...when he first showed signs of being tired (yawning, rubbing eyes, etc), she picked him up. then, she created a hood-type cover (using a large burp cloth or receiving blanket) over lo's head while rocking him. i don't know if that just made him feel snuggly, or if it helped keep some light out, but after about 5 minutes of rocking, he fell asleep. now, i know some people advise against rocking. however, i have tried this for the past several days, and it has worked for me. i have also found that since lo naps better, he sleeps better at night. also, he is more fun when he gets some good naps in!
sorry this is so long, but i hope it helps someone. also, i did not see if maizey replied yet, but i know she was also doing some sleep training.
This is all correct!!! We view night sleep and day sleep much differently in our home. Our babies are, mostly, at an age where night sleep should be established. They are capable of going longer stretches so that is our current goal...teaching and encouraging good night sleep. A big part of that is naps. We do ANYTHING we can to get him napping well. A lot of the time it's
me holding him. I realize that isn't feasible for many but if you can swing it may help. Like a pp said, habits during the day sleep won't be linked to the night sleep. DS is up to 8 hour stretches on his own....I am not holding him at night and he has been in his crib since week 3. We focus on starting the day at 7AM with naps at 9, 1, and the occasional power nap at 4. DS is sleeping by 7PM.
We will focus on sleep training during the day once the night sleep is going consistently well. Also some babies take longer to establish their day sleep patterns 6 months or so so we plan on waiting until then.
Good luck with it all. It's not easy.
Oh, and I should add this was all after we went through the 4 month wakeful. Anything regular or routine was just not happening no matter how we encouraged it. DS just needed that month to completely freak out. Fun!
DS #1 Born: 10/03/06, DS #2 Born: 08/06/12 My Cooking Blog
Well I am, by no means, an expert. But we tried Ferber and it was a joke for us. He knew exactly how long he needed to cry before we'd come in. So one night we had to do CIO. It was awful, he cried for 47 minutes. But then fell asleep and slept all night. The next night he cried for 10 minutes and then never cried again when going to sleep. Now he just goes to sleep.
Naps are a completely different story. But we aren't ready to start attempting that mess quite yet.
I think both Ferber and CIo have their ups and downs....but just choose whichever you think will work for you and stick with it. That's the key--consistency. Good luck hun, let us know how it goes