To those who have sleep trained (in any way)

smilingeyes2308 · March 2014

What did you do? Did it work?

My DD is still waking up every hour, sometimes less, sometimes I may get to 2 hours before she wakes up.

My problem is, since birth my DD has only slept in her bouncer, swaddled. Well, it's way past due to get her out of the swaddle and out of the bouncer. She's been napping with her sleep sack (but in her swing) and she's doing fine. Night time rolls around, there's no way she lets me put her down in her crib and now she associates sleeping with being swaddled. So, when she's not swaddled, she will not fall asleep.

My DH seems to think the only way to get past this is to let her CIO (while comforting her as much as we want/need to)

I just don't see how I can go upon getting her in the crib, unswaddled and to stay asleep for more than an hour without doing some sort of sleep training.

PumpkinMommaaa · March 2014

I literally just came on TB to ask this very question.

ETA DD is in her crib and in a sleep sack. But only nurses to sleep. I don't want it to be solely my responsibility anymore. Also we are switching to formula and a bottle doesn't work most nights.

MegStark · March 2014

We just recently started sleep training (slowly but surely within the last month). LO hasn't been swaddled in months, but she was still in the RnP and definitely outgrowing it. She also likes to nap in the swing which we're trying to stop as well.

We made at least one good attempt a night to get LO to sleep in her crib (for at least one sleep cycle). If it wasn't the initial time she went to sleep, we'd put her in the crib after the midnight/am feeding. If she cried, we'd rub her back until she settled down a bit. It was hard on us and very frustrating.

We also bought a pad that you stick under the crib mattress to make it softly vibrate. It slowly turns off after 30 minutes, and I think that helped a lot. She was use to the vibration of the RnP and swing so.... made sense to try it out.

She's finally getting to the point where she's STTN in her crib all night long. It took us a few weeks, but it seems to have worked and she's comfortable in her crib now.

At one point I thought she would never ever let us put her in there, but the last 3 nights she slept 9-10 hours straight.

a2003tiger · March 2014

We've used The Sleep Easy Solution with two kids now. It highly recommend it. Both kids sleep through the night. We're still getting napping down with DD, but it's coming along. Yes, there's a little crying involved. But you can still offer comfort. And in the end, it's great to have kids that sleep in their beds!

KaramelSutra · March 2014

We did an extremely modified CIO. No method other than that. We needed to break his swaddle and stop the nonsense of needing rocked to sleep (our first needed it well over a year).

We never let him cry longer than 5 minutes without comfort. He now goes to sleep easily, with minimal fuss. But still wakes 2-4 times to eat. He's literally forgetting to eat in the day, so I know he needs those feeds. He goes back to sleep easily back in his crib.

At the early wakeup (4-6) he comes to our bed for big snuggles and dream feeds. Otherwise 4am would be his wakeup.

PumpkinMommaaa · March 2014

Do you put LO down drowsy but awake then? Do you have a mobile going or any other light?

a2003tiger · March 2014

@lindszachary, it's a book. https://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepeasy-Solution-Exhausted-Parents/dp/0757305601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395957830&sr=8-1&keywords=sleep+easy+solution And yes, it will help you transition from anywhere to the crib. It is a CIO method, so you have to be willing to do that.

staebells · March 2014

How old is your LO? Ours turned 6 months today and absolutely has to be swaddled to nap. He, fortunately, does not roll to his belly. Is he rolling and that's why you can't keep swaddling him?

smilingeyes2308 · March 2014

@staeballs yes she rolls back to tummy very well. She is 6.5mo

ejb23 · March 2014

@jnetx what do you do if your LO cries past 15 mins? This is where I'm stuck...

eyris · March 2014

I have the book "Sleeping Through the Night" by Jodi Mindell, but it's basically CIO and similar to other books/methods PP have mentioned.

We started three weeks ago because E was waking up every hour (after previously being a great sleeper) just like your LO. I knew something needed to be done. We hadn't swaddled in a long time and he actually had been sleeping great in his crib, though, so our situation is a bit different from yours. He had to be rocked to sleep, which was working, before he decided waking up every hour was awesome.

I stupidly started sleep training a couple nights before his 6 month appointment, totally forgetting about shots. He had a fever and vomiting from his shots that night and we basically had to start from scratch after two nights of CIO. Then he started teething about a week later (once he was going down easy at night finally) so we had a rough weekend plus a few days. Teeth popped through and we had 5-6 great no-cry bedtimes (and sleeping ALL NIGHT from 8pm-7:30am). Last night he cried for about 5 minutes before going to sleep and tonight my DH had to put him down alone (I was out) and apparently had quite a rough go of it.

SO, I think the sleep training IS working but it's not easy and we have had some set backs. I think the important thing is to keep sticking to your routine (we do bottle, play a bit, book, change, song, bed) and keeping with it even when you have a set-back or two.

ETA: After the first couple nights of going in and checking on him every so often I stopped unless he got super hysterical or I thought he spit up or something because it made him cry way harder when I went in there and it was just too sad.

Bamgal25 · March 2014

Legitsince86 said:
Drowsy but awake is the worst. This baby doesn't have a drowsy setting. It's awake or asleep.

Yeah my baby doesnt go for that either. I tried it a couple times and it ended with me continuing to rock her until she was asleep.

I'm not doing any sleep training yet, except sometimes when she wakes early from a nap if she's just barely crying I won't go in her room right away to see if she will go back to sleep. Usually I have to go put paci in her mouth because she is still swaddled.

hilalk · March 2014

We did full Ferber a week ago. Friday night was our fist. She cried 40 minutes but not actual cry. Mostly fussed. She woke up regular that night, 3 times and I nursed her to sleep. Ferber suggests middle of night cryings but I did not do that. I was going to wait for the nap training but her naps were getting worse and worse so Saturday we did nap training also. She cried for 30 mins for the first nap and we picked her up. You are supposed to end the nap if LO does not sleep in 30 mins. She cried for about 15 mins for the other naps. Saturday night she only fussed for 10 mins and woke up once at night around 3:00. She went down at 7:30 and slept until 7:00 am. Since Sunday, she has been sleeping without crying with occasional fusses. She is up once for nursing. Naps are the same. No crying. The key is being consistent. For me this method worked with my 9-year old and LO so far. Do your research and you will find the best solution for you. Sorry it is a bit long and if there are no paragraphs because of the IPad

Lesley726 · March 2014

Last night was our first night trying out sleep training. We did the same as madeline10L...going in every 10 mins. She finally fell asleep after 40 mins. My DH and I decided that if she slept longer than 4 hours I would go in and feed her...any shorter and he would go in to comfort her. She slept until 12:45, so almost 5 hours. I went in, fed her and put her back down with no protest. She woke up again around 5:30 (that's our normal wake up time anyway), I got up, fed her and laid her back down. She slept until 8:30. Most days she is up at 6:30 for the day. I'm pretty impressed with how well she did. She even took a nap in her crib today and didn't fuss once when I put her down. Listening to her cry last night was awful! I just kept reminding myself that it is best for her in the long run...honestly though, I think it was much harder on me.

LnR70707 · March 2014

We did Ferber for both our kids. I don't know if we just got lucky with DD or it was because we'd done it before, but she was sleep trained in 2 nights and didn't cry longer than 15 minutes We broke the swaddle cold turkey for her the night we started training (not planned that way, rocking to sleep completely failed without the swaddle so we went for it at just over 6 months). With DS we did one arm out for a few days and kept rocking to sleep for a few more weeks until we found ourselves replacing the pacifier every 2 hrs. Since we weren't entirely sure what we were doing (tried CIO for bedtime only and not MOTN wakings, for him that made it take longer, he is an all or nothing kid) so it took closer to a week. I will say that both my kids started STTN on their own and then majorly regressed, so at the time of training we didn't need to wean feedings.

I don't have much advice on naps...I think those fall into place with age. Both of mine have taken over a month to consistently nap without crying/fussing and with both it came down to confining myself to the house and sticking with the exact same times for over a week before there was major improvement. Even now if I get DD to last longer than 20 minutes for all 3 naps it is a good day.

jlp0528 · April 2014

@LnR70707‌ with the Ferber method of CIO do you put them down drowsy but awake? What is supposed to be the "bed time routine"? Ie bath, book, bottle, then lay down when they're awake? What if they fall asleep eating? Do you stop them from finishing to put them down drowsy but awake? All the research on CIO is making my head spin.

smilingeyes2308 · April 2014

@jpryber0528‌ I hear you. My head is spinning as well. I believe the goal is to put them down awake. I've seen suggestions like to leave a light on while feeding. Not sure what to do if they fall asleep while eating though. I believe you can have your nighttime routine be what it's always been, I don't think there's a certain one to follow.

jlp0528 · April 2014

Thanks for sharing @jnetx‌ and @smilingeyes2308‌

noelani42 · April 2014

My LO still falls asleep nursing, but I make sure she is slightly awake when I put her down, or else, she just wakes up within an hour crying...I gently rouse her by patting her on the back and rocking a bit, then put her down awake...the last few nights, she cries on and off for about 10-15 min and then she puts herself to sleep. In the MOTN, I let her go 10 min. If she's still crying, I feed her and put her down awake again. Last night was the first night she STTN since she was 3.5 months old. I actually had to wake her up to feed her before taking her to MILs....granted, she's still in the rnp in her own room...in the crib she screams and won't settle

I figure I'll let her learn to self-soothe in the rnp, and then we'll work on the transition to the crib...though i wish she could just sleep in the rnp forever!

LnR70707 · April 2014

jnetx said:

@LnR70707‌ with the Ferber method of CIO do you put them down drowsy but awake? What is supposed to be the "bed time routine"? Ie bath, book, bottle, then lay down when they're awake? What if they fall asleep eating? Do you stop them from finishing to put them down drowsy but awake? All the research on CIO is making my head spin.
We moved nursing earlier in our routine. Now, we do bath, nurse, book, rock, lay down. We basically switched book and nursing. If he is really tired, he sometimes still falls asleep while nursing. In this case, we skip the book, but he still gets briefly woken up by burping and putting on his sleep sack. But the majority of the time, he goes down awake.

This is pretty much our routine as well. Bath is every other night, but we nurse (she will often fall asleep, but wakes without being upset) read our book, sleep sack, rock for one song, then she goes down sleepy but awake. There have been a few times where she is just dead asleep even through reading and putting her sleep sack on and I'll just put her down asleep, but I've found that she tends to wake and fuss within a few hours when that happens so I try to get her at least semi-awake when she goes in the crib.

DS was bottle fed and I never stopped the feeding to keep him awake, but when we were in the midst of nap hell he'd fall completely asleep mid-bottle so I'd do the same thing as I'm doing with DD. If he was suddenly awake and acting like he was starving I'd offer the rest of the bottle, but generally tried to keep the routine the same.

jlp0528 · April 2014

Thanks @LnR70707‌ ! I feel like we've had a loose routine and the bottle was a crutch to get her down before bed and thus begins night 2 of CIO modified to our comfortability.

smilingeyes2308 · April 2014

I'm so sorry I haven't come on here to thank you ladies. I haven't had the time to get on the laptop and I hate bumping from my iPad since I can't space anything.

Honestly, @jdoud77 said it perfectly. Every single one of you guys had amazing advice and I'm so grateful.

We are *hopefully* starting training tonight (modified CIO/Ferber) and I am seriously freaking out! I hate hearing my baby cry and I tried a few weeks ago and gave in after 7 minutes, 7 MINUTES! That's not even an actual attempt, lol.

However, her sleeping arrangement now is just horrible, I want her out of her bouncer and on a flat surface. CIO is worth it (if it works) as long as she's out of that bouncer. My pedi also told me she thinks the Ferber method is best for my DD given our situation. She also made a good point by saying with LO being so used to sleeping in the bouncer, the transition would cause tears anyways so we might as well train while we're at it.

Again, thank you all for your support/advice. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't turn to you guys!

Debbipooh · April 2014

We just started Ferber this past weekend and it went much better than I expected. Listening to her cry was hard but seeing her so happy the next day because she got a good night sleep made it worth the tears. And I believe it was way harder on us than on her! She is doing so well with it - she's not sleeping through the night without any wake ups yet but last night she put herself back to sleep every time she woke up crying.

We haven't started it on naps yet. I thought I would tackle bedtime first then move to naps once she had TE hang of it.

princessvespa1 · April 2014

Am I the only one who wants my baby to sleep, but doesn't want to go through sleep training? Am I delusional thinking it will magically come on its own?

Af1004 · April 2014

Nope @princessvespa1‌ ..... I'm hoping she'll get there on her own too. I know I can't hold her all night but her crying sucks! I've had to walk away a few times because it seems there is nothing I can do except hold her . I did let her cry last night for maybe 3 minutes then ended up feeding her to get her to calm down. I can't imagine 30 minutes.

Salemkitty13 · April 2014

princessvespa1 said:

Am I the only one who wants my baby to sleep, but doesn't want to go through sleep training? Am I delusional thinking it will magically come on its own?

I haven't done any sleep training. I think that he wakes because he is hungry so I have been feeding him. Sleep training may come later but not yet.

Salemkitty13 · April 2014

jdoud77 said:

lindszachary said:

@jdoud77 one more question. Did you start CIO for naps too or did you do bedtime first?

We're not doing naps yet. So far it's just been bed time. This is night #3 for us. Last night and tonight I was able to put her right in the crib with no protests. Not sure what DH is doing during the day for naps, but he said ever since she's been sleeping in her crib she's taking nice 2 hour naps with no problems and she seems so much happier than she was before.

ETA: also, she's waking up less to eat and sleeping more and more. Last night she slept from 8 - 3:30 before she woke up to have a bottle.

Very interesting.... Please keep us updated. Good luck tonight!

To those who have sleep trained (in any way)

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