CIO questions

Hi there,

We tried CIO for the first time last night, and it was pretty awful, and I am exhausted.

I have two questions. First, how long did you let your babies cry? I am doing the extinction method, but I am so worried about how long they are crying for!

Second, I was going to feed them at 12 and 4, but they were already awake and crying at 4:00. Should I have waited until they stopped crying and fell back asleep to feed them, or fed them at 4? Seems like a weird question, I know. I don't want them to think that if they cry long enough that I will come feed them, but I also want to keep feeding them 1-2 times a night.

Help! This is so hard, but we are at a breaking point in terms of sleep deprivation, and we need to do something!

 

I may be wrong, but I think you can't really do CIO if you are still feeding them at night.
I would think the reason of CIO is to have them sleep the night through without any interruption.
How old are your babies?
Can you try to feed them more often during the day so they would not wake up to eat?

 

How old are your kiddos? It sounds like they're not ready for CIO if they're still eating at night. At least, from everything I've read you shouldn't try CIO until your babies are capable of sleeping through the night (ie - not eating anymore) and are just waking up out of habit.

 

They are 5 months old. I had asked on this forum a few weeks ago about feeding during the night and CIO, and some people said that it worked. Weissbluth talks about planned wakings in his book, too. That's why I thought it would be ok. . . am I totally off here?

Please no flames, I'm just trying to help my babies (and their parents) get some much-needed sleep. We are running on empty.

 

5 months is really pretty young. It doesn't sound like they are really ready for CIO. How often are they waking at night? When do they go to bed? When do they wake up for the day? How many times are they waking up between bedtime and wake-up time?

Can you and your husband sleep in shifts? One of you gets all of the wake-ups between 7pm and 12am and then the other one gets all of the wake ups from 12am-5am? Or something like that? It would at least give you both a 5 hr chunk of uninterrupted sleep?

Hang in there, the sleep things *does* get better. :hug:

 

I am not flaming, I dont think they are ready. They are still really young. And yes, some babies by that age are STTN and some arent. It is what it is and you have to roll with it. I would not be sleep training when they are eating at night.

 

My first child was small for his age and he STTN with sleep training (ie, extinction) starting at around 4 1/2 to 5 months. He was waking because it seemed to be a habit not because he needed to (and we were exhausted). I think it's hard to know whether it's a "habit" or a "needed" feeding. My twins are almost 5 months (4 months adjusted) and my DS is 13 and a 1/2 lbs, eats about 28-30oz/day and I really think he's ready and so we're going for it. My DD is just barely 12lbs, eats only 16-24oz/day and seems to really need the calories so we're not pushing it with her. I try to feed them as much as possible during the day but i keep wasting formula as they will only eat what they want.

This could be helpful in terms of sleep but about a month ago we opted for "controlled chaos" instead of random chaos and started waking them at 11:30pm for a dreamfeed (as rec'd by Goodnight, Sleeptight by Kim West). After that waking we let them sleep until whenever they wake. If they wake at 4am one day and then 3:45am the next we try not to feed them before 4am (unless they are screaming insanely). This way we can both get a few solid hours of sleep and my husband can feed them at 11:30pm b/c he is already up then. The book says to stick with the dreamfeed though and don't try the dreamfeed one night and then let them go as long as they can the next night. It's working for us b/c it avoids the 2 middle of the night feedings.

GOOD LUCK!

 

No flames... promise! But yeah, I agree with everyone else that your babies aren't ready. They still need to wake up to eat and their bodies probably can't stay asleep as long as you'd like them too. Also, five months is early to try CIO, and even if other people have gotten it to work, they're the exception not the rule. Sleeping in shifts is a good idea if you can do it. When my girls were little I went to bed at 7pm and slept until 2am when I got up to feed them. It was seven hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep. My husband went to bed at 11, after the 10pm feeding and slept until 6am, so he also had seven lovely hours of sleep. Earplugs work wonders. And yes, your evenings suffer, but at least you get sleep. And the best part is that you're almost there. My girls started sleeping through the night at 7 months and from what I've seen here, that's pretty typical. So hang in there for a few more months. (easier said than done, I know)

 

We did CIO at five months with DS only (DD didn't need it) upon the recommendation of the pediatrician who said they did not need anything to eat overnight and were just waking out of habit. The only thing we had to CIO though, other than going to sleep, was the one wake-up he had around 2:00 when he just wanted to check-in. I wasn't completely convinced that they weren't hungry so I started giving them less and less in their bottles before we started CIO and the plan was to go to water but eventually they just started not taking it at all (ds) or skipping it (dd) because they really didn't need it and that's when I knew that they were just waking out of habit. It is all about personal preference, and of course what your pediatrician says (if he says they still need to eat then it may be too early), but I truly believe that if your babies are healthy and eating well during the day (and they will start eating better once they don't get anything overnight too) then 5 months is not too early at all. Better rested parents, and better rested babies made everything so much better around our house and it only took a couple of nights of CIO! To answer your original question - we were in it for the long haul and were intent on letting him cry for as long as he did, but that first night he cried for about an hour, and then woke up intermittently throughout the night and cried for up to 30 minutes or so. The next night he cried again for an hour when we put him to bed, but the overnight wakings dwindled and he was up maybe once and cried for five to ten minutes before going back to sleep. After that we still had to endure 15 minutes or so of crying when we put him to bed for about a week but nothing overnight. Good luck - I know it is hard and you and/or your babies may not be ready - but that is your decision to make with your family and your pediatrician - you are doing nothing wrong if you decide, along with those people, to do it now, a few months from now, or never - as long as you are doing what is best for you and your babies!

 

I don't think that 5 months is too early for CIO. You just have to adjust it to the age and feeding schedule. What exactly was your reason for starting CIO? Were you having trouble getting them to go down for the night? Or were they waking up too frequently and not going back down easily? There is a difference between a baby waking up every 3-4 hours to feed during the night and a baby that is waking constantly because they don't know how to put themselves back to sleep. Since you said you were planning to feed them at 12 and at 4 then I assume they must have been waking up A LOT more frequently and if that's the case, then (to me) CIO seems justified and needed.
Would be great if you could answer those questions so we all know better where you are coming from... I still remember like it was yesterday how horrible the sleep deprivation got with my first child... Unless you have experienced it, you have no idea how hard it is. Dealing with a baby with sleep issues is a lot different than waking every 3 hours to feed. I remember when my son was 5 months old, cherishing nights when I even got 3 hours of straight sleep! Dealing with twins has been a piece of cake compared to one baby with sleep problems!!! I feel for you dealing with 2 babies... can't imagine!!

 

uHi again,

Thanks for all the replies. My initial issue was that the babies had started waking just about every hour and THEN were waking for the day at 4:00!! They definitely don't need to be fed that much or get up that early! I went back to work a few weeks ago, so I know that the babies are getting a certain amount in bottles every day, plus the other 4-5 times I nurse them, so I'm 99% sure that they are getting enough food and don't need to eat more through the night. We are all exhausted and mom and dad were not functioning very well, even though we had tried to divide up nighttime duties (hard because I breasfeed). I did decide to start CIO two nights ago, and they have already made some progress.

I appreciate you all for your honest answers. These decisions are really difficult to make, but I felt like I made a decision that was right for our family.

 

So to answer your original question... if it were me, I would have fed them at the 4am time (even if they were already crying) and then put them back to bed without rocking, etc. But I would have been worried about the same thing that you mentioned too. I wish babies came with a manual!