Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
blushingbride_08
member
CIO results
blushingbride_08
member
My LO is 12 months. He wakes every 2 hrs at night. I usually nurse him and he falls back to sleep or if dh gets him he consoles him back to sleep. I don't complain much bc it is usually easy to put him back to sleep although he wakes frequently. Dh insists that we let him cry about 5 mins before going into his room. Sometimes he goes to sleep right away and other times he is wide awake from crying and takes some time to calm down and go back to sleep. Do you think it is worth it to let him CIO for 5 mins before going to him? I feel like he is going to have sleep regression bc of this. What has your experience been if you let your LO cry a bit before comforting him? Has his sleep improved? I'm not ready for the full CIO method.
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Re: CIO results
I'm not a fan of CIO. At all. However, I have used a modified form of it with my LO and it has been effective. We were going on 14 months and had essentially the same thing you have - every 2 or 3 hours. He would end up in our bed almost every night. Nobody was sleeping. It was awful.
Here's how I thought of it: I gave DS a year. A full year. He slept when he wanted, he ate when he wanted. At his first birthday his weight was good, his development normal there was no physical reason that he couldn't STTN. Now it was time to become a member of this family, not the center of the family. Part of that is sitting down for meals, helping to pick up toys and, yes, STTN.
I spoke with the pedi about it and he really put me at ease. He explained sleep/wake cycles and how I wasn't helping him learn to self-soothe and develop good and natural sleep patterns by constantly comforting him to sleep. DS really didn't need anything at night, he just hadn't learned that he could put his head back down, grab his lovey and put himself back to sleep.
We did the 5 minutes, then comfort. But didn't pick up. Just pat him, let him know you are still there but it's time to sleep. I chose not to speak/sing after the first few comfort visits.
Then we moved to 10 minutes, then 15. It took about 3 hours to get him to sleep. I also never went in if he was just fussing, only if he was crying.
It made me physically ill. I was sick to my stomach and every mommy nerve I have was firing on full. It wasn't easy. I still have mixed feelings about doing it.
The next night, he cried for approximately 15 minutes. Fussed for about 15 more then was out for the night. We've been pretty good ever since.
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My LO was still waking every 2 hours until I weaned at 13 months. Not fun at all, I know from experience! I will say, the "magic pill" was weaning, and while we used CIO to get him to fall asleep, I nursed on demand through the night because I never wanted him to be hungry.
Literally, the night after we weaned, he started STTN for a couple months until he was ill and then is now teething badly- he usually wakes once now.
Ferber is a GREAT book to help you learn about "CIO" (which actually isn't cry it out) Progressive waiting techniques and sleep cycle information. I found it really helpful and refer back to it often.
I agree with PP that 5 minutes isn't really CIO at all- and your LO is old enough to figure out that you will come after 5 minutes to soothe and will quickly begin crying at least that long. When he cries at night is it full out crying or just fussing? If DS just fusses, I just let him until he is actually crying. Sometimes, he will fuss and yell for about an hour and then fall asleep- but there is a big difference between that and actually crying for long periods.
Good luck!
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This was my first thought. It can't get much worse than waking up every 2hrs at night. Pick a book and follow a sleep training program or do what feels right to you, but I can't imagine my DS functioning well during the day with this kind of night time sleep. Good sleep is so important for them!
FWIW I didn't read a sleep training book, just did what seemed right. We started by letting him cry (not fuss) for 5 mins, then replaced paci (he'd spit it out during crying), consoled and left the room. Picking him up and rocking him only made it worse so we stopped doing that pretty quickly. We increased it by 3-5 mins until he was out. The longest it ever took was 30mins (we were lucky!). If his crying sounded different than normal I went in regardless of how long it had been. I don't think every parenting decision requires a book and a call to the pedi, a lot of it is just doing what feels right with a little common sense. Good luck!
One of the big things I got from reading Ferber is that when a child makes noise (fussing/crying), it does not mean that he is fully awake. Waiting a few minutes to go in gives the child the opportunity to go back to sleep on his own. I don't know if that would be different since your LO is used to you coming in right away at this point.
After reading Ferber's book (DS was around 6 months old, I think), I just made it a habit to get up, go use the bathroom, and take a minute before going to him - that way, I wasn't just sitting there counting the seconds for him to go back to sleep. 90% of the time, he would be back asleep by the time I came out of the bathroom. (I'm guessing that was anywhere from 3-5 minutes? I never timed it.) If he was still fussing when I came out of the bathroom, I knew he was really awake. In his case, he rarely woke in the middle of the night, so I always picked him up because I knew something was wrong.
I also suggest looking at a few different sleep books before just trying CIO. There are no-cry methods, so maybe start with those. Ferber is great on sleep information in general, even if you decide not to follow his method.
We sleep trained using Ferber. It took a couple days and he's been sleeping 11 - 12 hours most nights ever since.
He still wakes up from time to time. Depending on the level of crying (whimpering/whining vs. screaming) I will leave him alone for a couple minutes. He usually settles down and goes back to sleep. If he doesn't or if he's screaming inconsolably, I'll go in and comfort, and he'll go back to sleep.
We did the Sleepeasy Solution at about 6 months old and got down to one wake up at about 4:30. DD dropped that wake up when I weaned 3 months later.
Since then she has slept through the night 7:30-7 about 85% of the time.
The times she has awakened in the middle of the night and needed attention since have been due to teething, illness or this awful stretch 4 months ago involving midnight pooping (so glad that is over). The crying associated with those events is very different than the fussing that comes with her falling back asleep after waking up.
I really recommend reading up on a method to understand the reasoning behind it. Sleep training is about helping your kid develop healthy sleep habits. It is not shutting your LO's door at bedtime and not going in until morning. There are times when your kid genuinely needs you in the middle of the night. Sleep training helps both of you figure out when those times are.
We just started sleeping in the last month. At the 9 month appt, the pedi said to let them CIO and learn to self soothe. Well, I couldn't stand to hear them cry, so I would bring them to our bed and nurse them and not get any sleep. I was sooo exhausted. DD fell out of our bed one night and I knew that I had to do something. We put them in their cribs, sleep sheeps on, glowworm and pacifier in their crib and turned the monitor off and our fan on high so we wouldn't hear them unless they were majorly screaming. So, I didn't hear them cry (if I hear it, I can't stand it). Now, they're even taking better naps and we're all more rested. I resisted CIO too, but it is what worked for us. The Sleep Lady shuffle didn't work for us. I could go in their room once to check on them but by the 2nd time, I was so tired that I just brought them to our bed. I think our babies felt like we were teasing them if we went in there too w/o picking them up and it didn't seem to help at all.
Good luck!
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I was pretty anti cio but when DS was 10 months old I was exhausted and was willing to try anything. It only took 3 nights (3rd night wasn't bad at all) and we haven't looked back since. We did Ferber, going in to check and soothe but not taking him out of the crib and not feeding him. Letting him fuss for 5 minutes is not really a big deal imo but I don't think it's going to solve your problem if you nurse him after 5 minutes of crying.
There are lots of sleep training books some more gentle than others, you might check them out. GL to you!
I was very anti-CIO but H really wanted to try it. We tried it around 8.5 months using the Ferber method of going in at increasing intervals. It was awful and they just cried more and more each time we went in, so after 2 nights of 20 minutes each night I said no way. We tried again two weeks later and just decided to let them cry. The first night they cried for 4-5 minutes and were out. The next two nights they cried for less each night, and after the third night all we had to do was put them in their cribs and they would roll over and go to sleep. They also stopped waking up in the MOTN (except once to eat, which we stopped at 9.5 months). Sleep training has honestly been the best thing (and hardest!) we've ever done as parents. It's allowed the girls and us to get more sleep and all 4 of our moods have improved since then.
Like others have said, our pediatrician would be pissed if we told him that we were up with them every two hours because we wouldn't be letting them get the rest they need for brain development. Heck, he wasn't happy with us when at their 9 month appointment we said they get up once to eat and told us to wean them off of that. I understand that you don't want to listen to your LO cry - it was very hard for me to hear them cry and not go in. But you have to think about what's best for your child in the long run. If I were you I would try some no-cry sleep training methods first, but I would definitely go to CIO if nothing else works.
Now if the girls fuss we don't go in, and if they cry we'll give it a minute or two and then go in. We go in now because they're good sleepers so if they're crying and can't go back to sleep on their own it means that they are teething or something else where they need comfort or a little Tylenol.
I wasn't comfortable with CIO and refused to do it. It ended up being what DS needed, so I did CIO as a last resort. It worked, but only do it if and when you are ready. Dont do it because someone else says that you should. I did it one night at six months because I was told to and hated it. I felt much better about doing it at nine months when I knew it was what was best for my son.
https://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html
free, easy to understand, worked for my DS who refuses to be soothed by anything but nursing.