Unswaddling and CIO

mm&es · April 2014

DD3 is almost 6 months. She was a good sleeper the first four months--she would wake up 2 times a night, I would nurse her, and she would fall back asleep. The last two months, however, her sleep has gotten more and more disturbed. She is up often and, after I nurse her, she wakes up when I put her back in the crib. I don't know if its her teeth (no visible signs, although occasionally she will be upset during the day and it seems like its her teeth), her reflux (I don't think so, since we upped her meds and it hasn't made a difference), or something else.

Since she is just now getting close to rolling, we unsaddled her a couple of days ago. She doesn't have a startle reflex anymore, but unswaddling has been difficult, and she is sleeping even worse. DH is ready to have her CIO. I'm not sure if we should wait longer to get her used to being unswaddled.

For those of you who use CIO, how did you coordinate it with unsaddling? I know I have to brush up on my Weisbluth, but I was just wondering how others have handled it. For late unswaddlers, did your LO adjust quickly, or was it a long process?

JennOH85 · April 2014

Look into low or no cry options, "the No Cry Sleep Solution" is a good one.

Don't let her CIO while she's learning to transition out of the swaddle. That's a big change in her little world and she needs comfort and assurance. It's hard to be patient when you're sleep deprived (I speak from experience, we went over a month with wake-ups every 30 mins to an hour) but this too shall pass. Sleep training does not have be CIO.

jocie2581 · April 2014

We transitioned from swaddle to sleep sack. Also our first step for sleep training was to work in soothing without picking our LOs up. We pat their back, rub their head, hum, use white noise, etc.

megswen · April 2014

DevynnMarie said:
Do not let her CIO.

ETA. At 6 months you *can* sleep train. But id talk to your pedi for non CIO methods.

This. If you try CIO (please don't), you'll notice that you feel horrible. That's your motherly instinct kicking in telling you to take care of your baby, and you have those instincts for a reason. Don't ignore them.

ETA: Also, when we quit swaddling my son, sometimes holding his arms down loosely helped him fall asleep. I still do it on occasion. Sometimes he hates it, sometimes he loves it. I would maybe try that and hold them looser and looser as time goes on, if that makes sense.

MJM291982 · April 2014

We first transitioned out of the swaddle by one arm out for one nap, then all naps, then night-time. Followed by both arms for one nap, etc. and finally completely out of it for one nap, etc. It took some time and yes, more wake ups, but he got used to it.

We are sleep training now. I don't mind the wake ups in the MOTN, especially because he actually eats and is not just waking up out of habit right now. If he's hungry, I'm going to feed him.... I never wanted to do CIO or any form of it, but he got to the point where he was fighting going down so hard that he was crying regardless of the method- rocking, or otherwise. I just figured if he was going to cry, he might as well learn to self-soothe. It sucks hard. There's nothing I want to do more than pick him up when he's crying, but it has worked very quickly so far. We are doing the Ferber method. It's not for everyone. I just have to keep telling myself that I'm giving him the gift of sleep....

barista411 · April 2014

Please do not let LO CIO. Unswaddling can be a very difficult transition some babies. Even if they don't have a startle reflex they become dependent on that cozy tightness to fall asleep. If you take that away and force them to soothe themselves before they are capable it can be very traumatic for them.

I agree with PP that looking into other sleep training options would be better.

cagoldi · April 2014

CFox815 said:
I don't believe in CIO. Well, it's not that I don't believe in it, I just think it's abusive. Sorry not sorry.

If you decide to sleep train, I would wait until you transition out of the swaddle. There's way too many changes going on at once.

Once you transition out, speak to your pediatrician about sleep training solutions.

Same. Please research CIO and understand how damaging that can be, especially at this age. I know it's said that you can start at 6 months but babies this age have no ability to self-soothe.

If CIO works and the baby begins sleeping deeply, people often cite that to say that it works. It works in the sense that maybe your LO no longer cries for you in the MOTN but it's only because they've learned crying is futile and you've abandoned them to sort it out alone. CIO babies will often begin sleeping very deeply right after they finish crying but it's because they have suffered trauma.

A 6-month old has no ability to regulate their emotions on their own. That's one thing they rely on their caregivers for completely. The dirty little secret with CIO is that for many babies, it needs to be done multiple times. You could end up doing it after the baby is sick, has gotten teeth, you've recently travelled, etc.

When we did away with swaddle we had a period of terrible sleep. In total, sleep regression lasted about 10 weeks for us. The worst period was when we would have 6-8 wake-ups each night; that lasted about 3 weeks. Once he figured out how to roll around and get comfortable without the swaddle sleep started improving and we went back to one MOTN feeding.

You have a baby that is still 100% dependent upon you and your H for all their needs. I just think that it's unreasonable to expect a baby this age to be 100% independent for 8-12 hours each night. It's nice if that happens but you shouldn't put your baby through so much stress to bring about a result that is really going against their biology at this point. You're still parents after the sun goes down at night.

barista411 · April 2014

This is a great article from Psychology Today about the dangers of CIO and the issues with some of the original studies that were done.

https://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out

mm&es · April 2014

Thanks for all of your perspectives. With my older children, I tried both NCSS and CIO. Neither worked for DD1, and CIO worked for DD2, so I have experience and researched both.

I don't plan on leaving her on her own for 8-12 hours a night. I will still nurse in the middle of the night, especially since she has been too distracted and hasn't been eating well during the day. My main problem has been with her waking up when I put her down after nursing, and the fact that she wakes up frequently in the evening. I know she is not hungry, and I work from home. Since I am taking care of the kiddos all day, the evening is the only time I can work.

I get what you all are saying about too many changes all at once, and it seems reasonable to wait to sleep train until after she has adjusted to the sleep sack. The problem is, since she was sleeping poorly before we unswaddled, how do I know when she has adjusted? Any tips on helping her adjust to the sleep sack? We tried the one hand out method, but our swaddle just fell apart, so it seemed like a safer solution to just go cold turkey.

PeachyBella · April 2014

I just wanted to chime in and say that we are doing CIO and it has ups and downs. I've read the literature, and I really liked Jodi Mindell's book, Sleeping Through the Night. I work at a pediatric hospital and wanted to follow the advice of an AAP-associated physician (She's the sleeping training expert at the nation's top children's hospital, CHOP).

It has definitely worked for us in terms of how he goes down at night. We are seeing benefits in MOTN wake ups now too. (At nearly 5 months we were up every 45 minutes. The last week we've had 5-7 hour stretches).

I agree that I'd wait til after the swaddle transition to try it. We waited about a week. It wasn't getting better, and I felt the sleep issue was threatening all of our safety when I caught myself falling asleep while driving to work. Something had to give. I understand the concern about CIO, but it's working for us.

Kfran84 · April 2014

I echo what everyone's said about CIO... it's the worst. I let LO fuss for up to 10 minutes, but it kills me, and if he really starts crying I go in right away. I think we are finally over the wakeful period.. the last few days have been going really well, after weeks of waking up every 1.5-2 hours. Hell on earth.

I went swaddle to Magic Merlin to the sleep sack.

I heard the transition time is 3-5 days for sleeping changes... that held pretty true for the transition from Merlin to sleep sack. I did it over a long weekend so I would be sleep deprived on a weekend instead of a work day.

amberrrjade · April 2014

I refuse to let my child CIO. it's mean.

AlisonM12 · April 2014

Not sure if someone already said this, just scanned the thread. We did the swaddle transition very slowly and it worked well. We were usinng swaddlemes and did one arm out for a week, both arms out for a week and then to a sleep sack. Maybe work in the swaddle transition more before doing CIO?

Kaymee · April 2014

If LO is fussing, I'll let him be for a bit. As soon as that fuss turns into a cry, I'm there. I really do not believe in CIO at all. I tried it for a half a second with DS1 and he threw up and was shaking. I felt terrible and knew I could never do that again.

I second reading the no cry sleep solution.

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