CIO-how long?

So the last few weeks/maybe even a month or two has been terrible at night. Sometimes dd will sleep all night, other times she will wake up 4x or so a night and we soothe her back to sleep in her crib...but sometimes even that doesnt work and we end up bringing her into bed with us; same goes for ds. Sometimes we are up half the night trying to get them back to sleep. We will go in and soothe them until they are calm or seem to be asleep, sneak out, and then 10 mins later he/she will start crying again. I am getting so frustrated. How can they sleep all night one night but have an awful night the next?! They seem to only be able to self soothe sometimes?
Anyway, we are thinking of doing CIO. So my questions are-
How long have you/would you let them cry? We've let them cry for an hour and they still werent calm...should we go longer? Just go until they are done?
I know hshhc says shut the door and dont go in until 6 am-sadly I'm seriously concidering that...anyone done it? It sounds terrible, but Im at my wits end.
They are generally fine all day, go down for naps great for the most part. They are doing 1-2 naps a day...could the fact that the #of naps isnt consistant be messing with them?
Thoughts? Ideas?

 

At around 11 months, ds still wasnt sleeping through the night and was getting up every 2 hours ready to rumble. I got to the end of my rope, got p.o'd enough and said that's it, you should be sleeping, nothing's bothering you, no sickness/ear infections/teeth... so I turned off the monitor. I would check on him every 5 - 10 minutes, then go in and sooth him, and lengthened it every hour until he would sleep for more than 2 hours... after a couple days, a week at most, he was sleeping through the night. Another thing I tried was taking a sippy cup of water up with me at bedtime - if he got up, I'd give him a drink, give him his paci, and lay him back down. He's gotten so much better. I think sometimes he was just thirsty.

I dont like the take them to bed idea. I mean, I love snuggling with them, but my kids want to play as soon as they come out of their crib (except when they are sick). I make an exception if they really dont feel well, but then, we have to get back to sleeping on your own.

Moral to the story, I did a combination of cio and ferber (i think?)... I cant stand to let them cry forever - 30 minutes is my tops, sometimes it takes them that long to wind down. I'll go in, offer a drink, offer the paci, lay them down, cover up with their favorite blanky, and leave... wait another 30, etc. Unless they are just completely histerical, then I'll rock for about 10 minutes, then try it again.

Good luck!!

 

I am a firm believer in CIO. I know there are various methods but what worked for me was full on CIO- going back into the room only made them more upset and cry longer the next night. So, as long as their needs were met (fed, dry, not sick, etc) I would put them to bed at 6:30 (they were 8 months old) and when they woke at around midnight I let them CIO. The first night was about an hour of crying (and it was HARD) but the next night they maybe cried for a couple of minutes and the 3rd night- they slept through (well, they slept til 4:00 and I'd bring them into bed with me and a bottle and they'd fall back to sleep til 6:00. This went on til their 1st birthday at which time we did CIO for the 4:00am waking which was a breeze!) We'd have set backs from time to time- new teeth or a sickness but my boys have become such great sleepers. CIO is hard and it's not for everyone, but it saved my sanity! A year is a long time to be so sleep deprived and having a momma that's rested is best for everyone (not just the momma!) Good luck with whatever you decide to do!!

 

If you do CIO, you have to commit to doing it. Period. There are different methods - extinction CIO (where you just leave and don't go back in until 6 a.m.), and various modified versions (come back after 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.) For us, extinction CIO was the only way to go. Going back in just made them start up worse. Regardless, you can't put a time limit on it. If you say, I'm only going to let them cry for an hour, you teach them to cry for an hour. You will actually end up making them cry longer, when that is obviously not your intention.

My advice to you would be put them to bed and leave. And let them cry however long it takes to go to sleep and don't go in when they wake up at night. It sounds mean, but IMO it's the best, quickest, ultimately least-cry method.

ETA: I also want to say - it's not mean. It's not just about you. THEY need sleep. They need to learn to sleep and sleep well. I thought DS was a happy baby before we did CIO, but I saw a noticeable improvement in his disposition when he was STTN. And you may not believe it, but they will greet you in the morning with a smile! It'll take a couple days, and you are building a lifetime of good sleep habits.

 

We do CIO also... we don't go back in because it just made things worse. We mostly had to do it at 4 months, then a few nights here and there, a week last month and that's it... My kids only fall asleep in their crib and without us so we don't have any other option.

 

I also had to to full on CIO to get them to sleep through the night. My boys naturally started sleeping through the night on their own at about 5 months. Just before their first birthday they started waking up a couple times through the night. We got sucked into going in to their room since we were sure something was wrong. After a couple nights it became very clear that they were working the system to get our attention. We ended up having to do CIO and not go in. The boys got very creative in the ways they would scream so that they would trick us into thinking something was horrible wrong and we would end up going in again. After a few nights of that I realized that I needed to bite the bullet and go all the way. The first night DH and I laid them down and they went to sleep. When they started screaming at 10pm we went outside to sit on the deck where we couldn't hear them as well. I checked on them every half hour or so through the crack in the door. Once they realized I was doing that I had to shut the door tight and I stopped checking. The first night they cried for almost 2 hours. THe second night it was about 20 minutes. The third night just a minute or two and by the fourth night they never made a peep and they sleep great for us again. If they fuss in the night now, I'm usually a pretty good judge of if it is something is wrong or if it's just a few minutes of fussing before falling back to sleep.

For us it had to be all or nothing because they had figured out how to get us to go in.

 

Around that age is about the time the realize that when they cry, you will come back. I remember one night when they were almost a year and Jake woke up screaming at 10:00. I went in there, picked him up and he went right back to sleep. He got up again at midnight and it went on until 4:00 a.m Each time I would pick him up, he would go right back to sleep and then 10 minutes later he'd be up again. I finally knew what was happening and I let him cio.

You say they get between 1-2 naps a day. You might want to try on the days they only take one nap to put them down earlier. I found that if my boys did not take good naps during the day, they would wake at night.

What is their nap and bedtime shedule like?

 

You are so right...I know that, I've read it-but I definately needed to hear it, thank you!

Thank you for sharing. I just felt like 1hr was, for some reason, when I should stop...but I'm glad I wont be alone, as I'm sure they will cry for up to 2hrs...maybe even more? ugh.

On days they have 1 nap they usually wake at 8am and go down for nap anywhere between 12-1...whenever they start to show sleepy signs or get pretty crabby-now they might sleep 1hr they might sleep 2. These days they go to bed by 7.
2 nap days they are up between 7-7:30, first nap is usually around 10, second nap usually around 2-3. These days they go to bed around 8.

 

Ours have been waking between 4-5 am for a bottle then back to sleep till 6 or so. DH and I were just talking about how we were going to get past this last hurdle. Guess we are going to have to let them CIO. Uhg not looking forward to it!

 

We did CIO with Ellie around 11 months or so. It took 1.5 hours the first night and 1 hour the 2nd night. The 3rd night was only a few minutes. I noticed naptime getting better as well. If she woke in the middle of the night, I'd let her cry for a little while and then go check that she didn't have a poop or was stuck and then left. I never touched her or picked her up. That just makes it worse. Now, if she wakes, I know there is usually something wrong. It rarely happens now. You have to make the decision and stick with it, no matter how hard it is. We've had to do it a couple of times since and we had to do it with Abby. It's funny how easy it is to let them cry now. Before, I thought I would throw up at the sound. It's for their own good and they are the best sleepers now. It really does work. Good luck!