Babies: 6 - 9 Months

If you've had success with CIO, then I want to know...

Lurking here from the 3-6month Babies group because I want to know: How did you deal with the first nap after the first night of CIO? Did you let them CIO or use normal crutches to get them down for naps? Also what did you dress baby in for night time CIO? Preparing for CIO this weekend with 4.5mo old and he currently sleeps in Halo Swaddle but with arms out in his crib, half the night until we can't stand waking up every 2 hours then we put him in the swing in the early morning. He also will not nap in his crib, he naps in our bed next to me if I shush him and pacify nurse him. Hoping to get him to nap in his crib during CIO. Any experience stories would be greatly appreciated!

Re: If you've had success with CIO, then I want to know...

  • What type of CIO are you doing? We did modified CIO when LO was a little over 6 months old and it went pretty well. We only really focused on night time ST though. Naps are hard because he's in daycare part of the week, with MIL another part of the week and then has weekends with us and sometimes we're out and about so it's hard to be consistent. But for the most part I usually let him cry for a bit with naps too. It's successful about 50% of the time. Sometimes I end up rocking him more for naps though. No other sleep crutches. For bedtime he is in a sleep sack and for naps just his normal clothes. Some people recommend sleep training for bed time first and then dealing with naps later but some do it all at the same time. IMO, once he learns to sleep in his crib all night and learns to put himself back to sleep, he'll probably nap in his crib much easier.
  • Lurking here from the 3-6month Babies group because I want to know: How did you deal with the first nap after the first night of CIO? Did you let them CIO or use normal crutches to get them down for naps? Also what did you dress baby in for night time CIO? Preparing for CIO this weekend with 4.5mo old and he currently sleeps in Halo Swaddle but with arms out in his crib, half the night until we can't stand waking up every 2 hours then we put him in the swing in the early morning. He also will not nap in his crib, he naps in our bed next to me if I shush him and pacify nurse him. Hoping to get him to nap in his crib during CIO. Any experience stories would be greatly appreciated!

    I would complete the transition to having him sleep in the crib full time before you start CIO. When starting CIO, I would make sure that LOs arms are free so that Lo can use his hands to help self soothe. 

    I think you will have much more success with CIO, if you wait until your LO is 6+ months old.

    What research have you done on CIO? Because there is a lot more to it than just letting your kid cry.

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  • Sarcasm101 SmrBrd2012 Thank you for your input. Well our pediatrician highly encouraged we start CIO (not modified, but the 3 night course, no going in the room at all between 8pm-5am!) because LO is big in weight and height and just very healthy overall. I too, am dubious about doing it so early but she is the expert.  
  • SmrBrd2012SmrBrd2012 member
    edited February 2016
    Ummm...I do not recommend doing what your ped suggested at ALL! That is seriously questionable. Please take a look at Ferber's book, which has great advice. I would really recommend that you not do anything until you read about exactly what you want to do and what you are comfortable with. I agree with PP that you might want to wait until LO is a little bit older too. Most people agree (from what I've seen) that you can start CIO from 4 months on but waiting until he was a little older really helped with my comfort level.
  • Sarcasm101 SmrBrd2012 Thank you for your input. Well our pediatrician highly encouraged we start CIO (not modified, but the 3 night course, no going in the room at all between 8pm-5am!) because LO is big in weight and height and just very healthy overall. I too, am dubious about doing it so early but she is the expert

    No, just no. If my ped recommended that I would be looking for a new ped. The first night I tried CIO with my LO, he got so upset that he vomited. So by your ped's recommendation, I was just supposed to leave LO crying and covered in vomit?

    There is a lot more to CIO than height and weight. Your Ped might be a doctor, but you are the mother. So if the ped recommends something your aren't comfortable with either don't do it or get a second opinion.


    I work in healthcare and ALL pediatricians are trained to give the same speech to parents of young babies. You don't HAVE to listen to your Pedi when it comes to things like this. I couldn't even imagine leaving my LO in their room all night and not going in there once. THAT IS CRUEL.

    OP I know you think what you're planning is fine because a doctor recommended it but it's messed up. Plain and simple.

    People need to understand that CIO doesn't mean just leaving your baby to cry and never checking in on them. Think about how scary that will be for your baby.

    And please, please don't try sleep training when your baby is still in a swaddle.

    Man, this post makes me all upset.

  • I would wait until your LO is 6 months old. We tried around 4.5 months cause like you my LO was up every 2 hours. But she ended up crying the first night for 1.5 hours before falling asleep... And that was me going in at 5 mins then 10 mins then 15 mins intervals. Needless to say the next morning me and my boyfriend talked it over and decided to wait closer to 6 months as what everything I read suggested and heard success from people. We started one week ago with nighttime and naps at the same time and it has been very successful. nights and naps are less than 2 minutes worth of crying now. 
  • zeus18 you said you are doing the sleep training with night time AND naps at the same time. How are you handling the nap time? And did you start with her first nap after the first night of sleep training? Where are her naps taken? I'm trying to bring this discussion back to the original discussion (I realize CIO is a polarizing subject). Thank you. 
  • Bigboobsmcgee no no, he is not in a swaddle and of course I would never. His torso is "swaddled" but his arms are free. I do appreciate your input but I still would like to know about naps during sleep training. Currently for naps I have to lay down with him in my bed and let him suckle for comfort, not nourishment, until he dozes off. If I get up and sneak off, he wakes up. Perhaps "crutch" wasn't the right word, but I would like to ease him into napping somewhere (crib! pack n play!) so Mom can also be up and about and not tied down next to him (even though I do love the snuggling, there is work to be done!).
  • Check out Ferber's book there's a whole guide to bedtime and nap training. I just can't get over a pedi recommending to not go in and check on a crying baby for 9 hours! That just made me upset, that has got to do psychological damage to a baby IMO. Having a baby is tough and it's really 1 thing after another.  My LO is 6 months and sleeping better but getting clingy during the day. Personally I'm waiting to sleep train until my LO outgrows the motn feeding. He's down to only 1 between 0200 and 0400. The trend is that the feeding is getting later and once he's sttn without needing to eat I'll work on transitioning back to the crib. He's in my bed currently. I also don't worry about the rocking to sleep or nursing to sleep being habit. It's biology, sucking releases relaxing hormones and the baby was rocked to sleep for 9 months in the womb. Breaking those habits are just fighting nature. I can't speak from my own experience but when I talked to a friend about him being so dependent on rocking she told me her son was the same way then at 15 months she was doing the normal routine for bed and he just pointed to the crib and wanted in without being rocked to sleep. 
  • Bigboobsmcgee no no, he is not in a swaddle and of course I would never. His torso is "swaddled" but his arms are free. I do appreciate your input but I still would like to know about naps during sleep training. Currently for naps I have to lay down with him in my bed and let him suckle for comfort, not nourishment, until he dozes off. If I get up and sneak off, he wakes up. Perhaps "crutch" wasn't the right word, but I would like to ease him into napping somewhere (crib! pack n play!) so Mom can also be up and about and not tied down next to him (even though I do love the snuggling, there is work to be done!).


    Naps are the same idea as nighttime sleep training. Wait until your LO shows tired cues and put him down for a nap right away. With my kids, I would give a bottle in the rocking chair and then put them in the crib. If they cried, I walked out anyways and gave them some time to calm down. If they didn't stop crying after about 10-15 minutes I would go back in but never pick up. Naps sucked for a few days until they realized they weren't getting out the crib and had to take a nap.

    This is tougher for you because IMO you have to get him used to the crib before any of this will work. You can't sleep train while he's in your bed. At 4.5 months old I had JUST transitioned my daughter from the RnP to her crib and was easing out of the swaddle too. I will say again, even if you don't want to hear it, I think your LO is too young to grasp what you are trying to do but hopefully my advice above helps.

    Nothing will work if you aren't consistent.

  • zeus18 you said you are doing the sleep training with night time AND naps at the same time. How are you handling the nap time? And did you start with her first nap after the first night of sleep training? Where are her naps taken? I'm trying to bring this discussion back to the original discussion (I realize CIO is a polarizing subject). Thank you. 
    The sleep training is going well, we are just over a week into it. Night time we have gone from waking 6-9 times to 2-3 (minus last night from gas) as for naps, they are great she used to only nap for 30 minutes exact and I am now getting 2 naps over 1 hr in length and then one short one at the end of the day! We started the night sleep training on a Thursday and went right into her naps the Friday morning. I didn't want to confuse her with a different way to nap then night time sleep
  • I had to stop letting DS nurse to sleep because I was going back to well and other people can't do that obviously. So I just let him fuss/cry for 5-10 minutes when I put him down for naps. Sometimes he'd pass out and sometimes I had to rock him. But it helped to just start with breaking the nursing to sleep association. Sounds like your LO is having his 4 month sleep regression right now too though. Doing research on that helped me
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