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January 2016 Moms
l4rk
member
CIO Questions
l4rk
member
Hey Mamas,
LO has a strong nursing/rocking-to-sleep association. SO does bedtime and the first couple wake-ups, but I personally can't get her to sleep unless she's nursing. That means I'm up every hour or less after we go to bed. On top of that, for the past few weeks she doesn't sleep well after 4 or 5, and ends up in our bed to co-sleep. Except now she doesn't even sleep well there--she ends up just squirming and latching on and off every 20 minutes, so neither of us sleep well. When SO eventually grabs her, she's out in a second. I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I've decided tonight is the night we try to sleep train again. (We tried a few weeks ago and quit after 1.5 hours of crying, but she's older now and I've since learned that 3+ hours is common the first night.)
I've decided on a modified CIO method, where we will check in on her every 5 minutes for 1 minute. But I have some questions from people who have read the books and/or actually done CIO before...:
1. What happens when she wakes in the middle of the night? Do we let her CIO again, or is it okay to go in and nurse her like I normally would? I'm worried she will learn to fall asleep on her own but then still expect me constantly by her side at night.
2. She's still in her bassinet, one-arm-swaddled, in our room. I've kept her close because that's the only way I can survive the hourly night wakings, but almost everyone seems to agree that babies sleep better without the mom distraction. She's also close to outgrowing her bassinet and probably already shouldn't be swaddled. Do we go full guns and unswaddle her, in her crib, in her room for the training? Or is there a better way to transition? If so, what does that look like?
Thanks in advance!
LO has a strong nursing/rocking-to-sleep association. SO does bedtime and the first couple wake-ups, but I personally can't get her to sleep unless she's nursing. That means I'm up every hour or less after we go to bed. On top of that, for the past few weeks she doesn't sleep well after 4 or 5, and ends up in our bed to co-sleep. Except now she doesn't even sleep well there--she ends up just squirming and latching on and off every 20 minutes, so neither of us sleep well. When SO eventually grabs her, she's out in a second. I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I've decided tonight is the night we try to sleep train again. (We tried a few weeks ago and quit after 1.5 hours of crying, but she's older now and I've since learned that 3+ hours is common the first night.)
I've decided on a modified CIO method, where we will check in on her every 5 minutes for 1 minute. But I have some questions from people who have read the books and/or actually done CIO before...:
1. What happens when she wakes in the middle of the night? Do we let her CIO again, or is it okay to go in and nurse her like I normally would? I'm worried she will learn to fall asleep on her own but then still expect me constantly by her side at night.
2. She's still in her bassinet, one-arm-swaddled, in our room. I've kept her close because that's the only way I can survive the hourly night wakings, but almost everyone seems to agree that babies sleep better without the mom distraction. She's also close to outgrowing her bassinet and probably already shouldn't be swaddled. Do we go full guns and unswaddle her, in her crib, in her room for the training? Or is there a better way to transition? If so, what does that look like?
Thanks in advance!
Re: CIO Questions
ETA: based on what we read, putting your LO in their own room would be good- our book actually said that sometimes it's easier if mom leaves the house entirely so baby can't smell her. I've been going out for naptime, but haven't for bedtime.
We didn't have to do any COI but we found that LO slept much better and stopped waking in the middle of the night all together once we got her out of the bassinet and in her own room. We stopped the swaddle over about a weeks time and then did the bassinet to crib transition. We think it was a combo of us waking her, as I would go to bed after her and my husband and my husband has to be up very early in the morning for work, as well as her out growing the bassinet and needing room to sprawl out. She would hit her arms and legs on the bassinet sides and didn't have room to move around, and do her self soothing thing. Neither of us were ready to move her out of our room but it was the best decision for both our sleep and LOs.
We transitioned out of the swaddle by first doing the one arm, then both arms out with the swaddle still Velcroed around her middle but not tight (we have the halo sleep sacks). I think she probably did a week or two like that in the bassinet before I pulled the trigger and put her in her crib.
Edit to add more
If the move to her own room and crib doesn't stop her frequent night wakings, then we can start the CIO.
We did CIO with checks every 10 minutes and it worked great for us. In the middle of the night if she wakes up, and its been over 3 hours since she last nursed, then I nurse, but if it's been less than 3 hours we do CIO with 10 minute checks. I don't think she has ever cried more than 10 minutes though throughout the night. I honestly think that once she figured out how to self soothe and go to sleep on her own at the beginning of the night, she was able to transition through her sleep cycles a million times better throughout the night.
Good luck! Getting better sleep is so life changing!
When she'd cry hard but intermittently, I wouldn't go in. I reset the 10 minutes every time she started because she definitely got more upset after seeing me.
The start of the night she cried for 1.5 hours. At midnight, she cried for 27 minutes. At 2-something, I fed her and she didn't cry at all after I put her down even though she was still awake. At 4:30, she cried for 12 minutes. Then woke again at 6 and I made SO get up per our usual routine (but make sure she didn't fall asleep in his arms). All in all, I'm seeing encouraging progress and will be moving forward with night 2 tonight...
She definitely continues to cry when I go in, and then even harder when I leave. I rub her head and talk to her, but she doesn't get any calmer. Maybe even more upset. That's why I abandoned 5 minute intervals (my original plan above) and went with Ferber intervals, because we needed to get to those 10 minutes for her to have enough time to forget about me and calm down. It didn't work instantly but we got there!
We try not to pick her up when we go in, and ya most of the time she still cries and cries louder when I leave. That's why I went from 5 minutes to 10 minutes too.
We started with naps. Baby would SCREAM for 20 to 30 minutes at first. I'd go in and check on him in 10 min intervals. Just to touch his shoulder for reassurance and to make sure he was physically OK. I'd do that 3x max. If it didn't work, I'd get him up and try again later. Within a day or two, he was down to 5 min of crying. Now he might fuss a couple minutes, but only ever cries if he's overtired. It totally worked.
Now that he knows how to put himself to sleep, he is able to use that skill night and day. We deal with night wakings in a similar way. I let him cry 5 min or so before checking up on him, if it's an unexpected or off schedule waking. I only feed him if he won't calm down after reassuring him 3x, and chalk it up to a growth spurt or something.
Echoing what others say...moving him to his own room helped cut down on 1 or 2 night wakings naturally!
She went down at her 7 pm bedtime without a complaint. It was so eerie! Then she woke at 10:30, cried for 13 minutes (checked on her at 5 mins), then slept. She cried out about an hour later but promptly fell back asleep. Woke at 1, then I nursed her. She cried HARD when I walked away but fell asleep within a couple minutes. She cried around 4, again very briefly. At 5, she woke and I fed her. Then at 6:05 she woke and SO got her up for the day, while I slept until 8.
It's still a lot of waking but it's less than before and I feel like serious progress is being made. It's exciting! SO is also seeing it be effective which makes it easier to keep him on board.
I've also stopped turning on her swing for naps. I still have her lay in it, but keep it motionless. She cries a bit at first but also falls asleep pretty quickly.
Tonight's bedtime wasn't quite as smooth, and she protested hard at first, but fell asleep before the first check-in (we're up to 10, 12, 15 minute checks). It's 2 hours later and not another peep yet...!