CIO- Need advice please!
lgleyze
member
My DD is 5mo old. She has had a major sleep regression, although she has never slept too well. She has outgrown her rock n play and I'm trying to move her to her crib. It seriously takes me forever to get her down, just to have her wake up a half hour later every night. Last night, out of desperation and after trying to get her down for two hours (like most other nights) I decided to let her cry it out. It was torture, but she cried for 25 minutes, I checked on her every 5 and she put her self to sleep. I thought she'd stay asleep for a few hours, but no. She woke an hour later. We let her CIO again with checks. Only took 10 minutes this time. I tried to sleep myself but she woke an hour later. At this point it had been 4 hours since she last ate, so I figured she may be hungry so I nursed her and changed her, she fell asleep in my arms. Laid her down, she woke up. Cried for 5 min, fell asleep. Then for the next half hour she slept for 5 minutes and then woke SCREAMING bloody murder. Repeat 5 mins sleep, 5 minutes scream. I have never heard screams like this before. I couldn't take it anymore, so I scooped her up and nursed her to sleep and put her in bed with me, where she stayed until this morning.
I do not know what to do. I'm desperate. Something needs to work. CIO was my last resort and I need it to work but I feel AWFUL and depressed after last night. I feel like it was all for nothing because I gave in. I don't want to bedshare. I have a very plush pillow top mattress and I just don't feel like it's safe.
Anyone have any advice? Do I have to let her CIO for naps today for it to be effective? Do you think last night did any good since she put her self to sleep or did I ruin it by picking her up? I need this to work but I don't know if I can put us through another night like last night.
PLEASE do not judge me and if you don't have anything helpful to say, please don't reply. I don't want to start a CIO topic war.
Re: CIO- Need advice please!
We didn't do cry it out, but we did do "fuss it out". We let him fuss in his crib. Cry here, whine there, but no real crying. If he started to real cry we give it 5 minutes. If he escalates to hysterics before that 5 minutes we go in and pick him up. I guess we did the pickup/put down method without even knowing about. Then we calm him down get him drowsy and put him back down. We normally only have to do that once or twice. He sleeps through the night so once he's down he's down until morning.
Now, I did a lot a reading about how important sleep was and realized when I was having trouble he was overtired which ruins night sleep too and causes them to fight sleep. Which to me sounds like what is happening. I'm no doctor though.
My son sleeps 13-14 hours a day. The 13 hours is during teething. His bed time is 6-6:30pm sometimes 7pm. I wake up at 5am for work so his day has to start earlier. If he's not up already we'll wake him at 5:45am so I can feed and change him before leaving. They recommend you put them down to sleep 11-12 hours before they have to wake up in the morning. This sucks for us cause I feel during the work week I barely get to see him, but sleep is so important I sacrifice.
I would say before cry it out start with trying to find out how much sleep your little is actually getting. I track it with an app on my phone. I never let him stay up for more then 4 hours at a time. Usually it's 2-3 hours, but there have been times it has been 4 hours. If he has a short 30 minute nap; then he goes down again 2 hours later. If he has a long 1-2 hour nap then he can stay up longer, etc.
Now to make his crib a happy place we have a crib soother and a glow worm. These have both been life savers. They stay on about 6-15 minutes and we turn them on and leave the room. He loves to watch them and then falls asleep while they are on. Sometimes they don't work, but most of the time they do. It's really according to how tired he is. If we miss the magic sleep window then he can require two rounds of crib soother/glow worm to get to sleep.
Sorry for the long post! I just really want to help cause I can understand how frustrating it can be.
I did the ferber method but one thing I know is that consistency is key! DO NOT give him because your baby will just be confused. Do you have a bedtime routine? What is it? This is what we did:
Dinner at around 6:00 p.m. and then nursing at 7:00 - straight into the bath followed by a lotion massage, PJs, story and then into his sleepsack. I put on white noise and rock him til drowsy and put him down awake (in his crib). The first night it took 50 minutes and we checked on him after 3 and then 5 and then eventually a 10 minute interval. The second night it took 20 minutes and then the third night it took 5. My son was also in the rock n play before this and we had always nursed or rocked him to sleep. Now he rarely goes to sleep crying and if he fusses at all it's more like he's talking to himself for 5 minutes and then he's out.
Does your son know his crib at all? Has he spent any time in it or is it foreign to him? I would put him in there with a toy a few times a day to get him used to it before you make the switch too.
I would work on night sleep before you start with naps because babies view them as two separate things. Eventually naps will get easier but it could take as long as a month or so.
Ok.. wow.. first off - there is a LOT going on there.
I'm going to state right now my response is all in my honest opinion - I've worked as a nanny, babysitter, and ran an infant room for 5 years. I'm also a mom to a 9 month old (though I should disclose we are being reffered to a sleep specialist right now - but this is because the doc says I'm doing everything that should work and its not for night time sleep (also I do believe this is do to short daycare naps and over tirendess and she agrees ) ANYWAY - all that out of the way.
I FIRMLY believe daytime sleep is seperate from night time sleep. I read somewhere that different areas of the brain control each one and based on what I've seen with my daughter I agree. They are similiar and they do cross over - but I do think you can do one night time routine / practice and one daytime and not worry about it.
My cousin recently met with a sleep expert and they recommended this book: Sleeping through the Night? by Jodi Mindell - if you go to amazon you can look at it and see some (a lot actually) of the pages. I did this in desperation and from what I read the method they suggest for night time sleep is - start making them go to sleep on their own at hte start of the night - and then when they wake up in the middle of the night (or the hour later) do whatever you have to do to get them back to sleep (rock, hold, feed, etc) - but stay consistent with the go to sleep routine at the start. If that is true - then you absolutely did nothing wrong!
(I'm not sure I buy into this for my kid - but this is a good recommended book - so rest assured you are ok)
So.. first off - transition out of the rock and play can be hell. It took us 3 days but we have a VERY easy going baby (mostly). I've read a TON of peoples ideas on how they did it and a LOT of people started by putting them to bed in the crib then when the child woke up transferring back tot he rock n play - they did this for a week or so - then increased the time in the crib - that may be an option for you.
So.. if you were me .. I'd do whatever I had to do to get her to nap during the day (to ensure she isn't over tired) - if that meant you held her for all naps - go for it FOR NOW. Then I'd establish a firm bedtime routine that ended in her being put down awake (drowsy would be ok for me) - in her crib. I'd do the checks - I would probably lengthen them as ferber suggests - so first check in is like 3 mins, then let her go 5, then 8 and then stay at 8. (I think we used to do 5 and then every 10 at that age - we are lazy
) Do not pick up on check in - we also don't talk on check ins.
Then if she gets up in an hour act as though that is a middle of the night wake up - so I don't talk or look at her eyes (I've read eye contact is like crack) - but get her back to sleep as fast as possible in whatever method that is (again for now)
Once you get her going to sleep quickly / easily at the start of the night - I'd start deciding that say.. midnight is when middle of the night starts - so if she's up before that then go back to check ins and letting her self soothe. Get nights mostly under contorl - then start naps. Naps will be harder they aren't as tired and they fight more.
There are a LOT of approaches and if you want to be hardcore you could decide that she shouldn't need to eat for 4-5 hours or 6-8 hours or whatever it is for you and then make her self soothe with or without check ins (dependingo n your preference) until that time. That is the approach we took recently but my daughter is 9 months not 5.
If you aren't worried about it - I'd consider letting her nap in the rnp - but put it next to her crib so she's used to the environment. We did the opposite - we transitioned her out of the rnp for naps first - then nighttime - at that time my daughter was sleeping 7-10 hours at night and I didn't wnat to screw with it. She hit a point where suddenly she was only sleeping 3 hours at a time and I decided since she wasn't sleeping well I'd move her to her crib since we weren't sleeping anyway
Good luck - its hard - and hopefully you don't get reamed (or I don't) since she's not 6 months (fyi - we started a very modified version at 6 weeks on advice of our ped - at that time it was ONE MINUTE between checks and NO LONGER then 5 minutes total - you have to do what is good for your child and do not let anyone tell you / bully you / fear you into anything. You are not just leaving your child to scream for hours on end - if that was the case thats a different subject)
I would caution against picking your baby up and rocking them to sleep after you've made your baby fall asleep on their own... that will only confuse them and they will literally wake up KNOWING you will come pick them up.... once you start rocking them and they fall asleep and then wake up an hour later in their crib they think "What happened?" ... it would be like falling asleep with a blanket and pillow and then waking up with them both missing. You would be so confused right? The goal is to make baby fall asleep on their own, and be able to put themselves back asleep on their own so that when they wake up numerous times in the night (which adults also do, but automatically put themselves back asleep before they realize) they are able to take care of their sleep themselves. It's HEALTHY for your baby to know how to do this. No offence to pp but I think that advice is only going to cause you trouble.
Also with the rock n play - I would say to keep your baby in the crib all night once you start. If you put them in the rock n play after a certain amount of time or whenever they wake up that is also going to confuse them.
Just advice from a mamma who has done this, researched it to no end and had success. Perhaps picking up Ferber's book and reading his method would help. He explains sleep and an exact way to CIO effectively (there really is a process).
3 months ago - I would have 100% agreed with you back and forth and up and down - but after fighting with my kid for the last 3 months and reading more books (including the one I mentioned) and talking to numerous sleep experts - I would say that may or may not be true for each individual child. There are some that subscribe to each method - to each their own - and each child is different.
So.. though Ferber is 100% against it (and I was a ferber only person until my child didn't fit "the mold" that Ferber is (meaning even though I've left her even in instinction (or with checks) for over 2 weeks each she still wakes up the same amount if not more) ) other specialists have other thoughts.. just saying..
1. You should accept that she just may not be ready for CIO yet. Some babies aren't.
2. Don't flip flop and go back and forth between crib and RNP, getting her then not getting her. The key to Ferber is CONSISTENCY.
3. You don't have to nap train to sleep train at night.
It sounds like your daughter is a bit of a special snowflake and like you said "not fitting the mould". I would try starting with consistency first and if that doesn't work consult a sleep specialist. Also, being 5 months, she could just be a bit young and you might have to try again in a month or two. Being consistent sends the easiest and strongest message to your LO. Anything else is confusing and only teaches your LO that if they hold out they will get their way. Babies at that age can definitely recognize patterns, which is why a steady bedtime routine is so recommended.