Taking the plunge.... Any words of wisdom?

Okay, it's another CIO post. We plan to begin sleep training next week when the girls are six months. I'm hoping the holiday weekend will buy me some extra recovery time. I plan to keep people updated as this has been a popular topic of late. I have a few concerns and would love some advise.

We have been implimentling some changes to prepair for CIO per advise I recieved here . The girls only sleep in their bouncers after being rocked to sleep, so we have placed the bouncers in their cribs and also practiced rocking them down and placing them directly in their cribs to sleep (rarely successful). They are still waking to feed at night, usually twice each, I have been trying to cut down but I appear to be stuck here. We now have a good bedtime routine, this does appear to be helping get them settled faster, however they get very upset when I put on their pjs. Maybe they are fighting sleep? They fall asleep with pacis and wake in the night for paci replacements frequently. I've let E cry it out for a nap once and she was able to settle but only slept for about 15 minutes after. I am a little concerned because they become so upset and are both very loud screechers. We plan on doing the progressive waiting approach, I don't have the stomach for extinction.

I feel like I need to do this now, because I haven't slept more than four hours straight in the last six months. Also, I am flying to my sisters in North Carolina with the girls in a little over a month and will be staying there for three weeks. I won't have the bouncers available to me there and I think this is the only way I am going to get them to learn to sleep in cribs.

A couple of questions:

1) Would you let both girls CIO at the same time in the same room? We really don't have a spare room or room in our bedroom for a crib.

2) Would you do some trial runs with naps before hand to help them learn, or would this just be confusing?

3) Would you do CIO for night time and naps at the same time, or wait to do naps later?

4) Would you give them pacis when you put them down? How about when you go in at intervals?

5) They are feeding around 11:00 and 2:30, would you wait for them to wake up or just try and dream feed?

6) How long would you allow the girls to cry before calling it quits?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated! I know if you can't help me no one can! I will keep everyone posted on my results!

Thanks, Anne.

 

We didn't do CIO until about 9.5 months, but I will tell you what we did (and are still doing for naps).

We did both, at the same time, in the same room. Usually one will fall asleep first, and they rarely wake each other.

We did nighttime first, and now we are trying to tackle naps. They did well with nights, naps have been up and down, but they are not good nappers and never have been, so I knew naps would be harder anyway.

We give them paci and lovie, put them down, and leave. The first night, we went in at 3 minutes, 7 minutes, and then 10 minutes until they were asleep. The next night, we did 5 minutes, 12 minutes, 20 minutes, and so on. When we went in, we would hug them, tell them we love them, give them paci again, but not pick them up.

I would dreamfeed and see if you can eliminate one of the wakings. We did a 10pm dreamfeed until 7.5 or 8 months.

The first night, it took them 40 minutes to settle down. The middle of the night once, one of them was awake for 1 hour, but not crying the whole time. I have heard that for nights, you let them go as long as it takes, but for naps, max of 1 hour.

Good luck - doing CIO is hard on me, but they are sleeping so much better at night now. I wish we had done it sooner!!

 

Alright let me see if I can help you out at all!
I did CIO or my version of it around 4 months,,my girls were sleeping some nights and waking some nights and they did have nights at that age where they slept all night so i knew they could do it so that is why i did it that early. And I will say that was the BEST THING I COULD HAVE EVER DONE! Took ours a couple nights and bam they were STTN every night. Although we are teething at the current momment with 2 in and 2 coming in so our nights are a lil rough some nights at the current momment. not rough but just waking ealy AM.

Any ways ok...off to answer your questions..
A couple of questions:

1) Would you let both girls CIO at the same time in the same room? We really don't have a spare room or room in our bedroom for a crib.
When we ddi CIO, our girls did not wake the other one up when one ccried so i did not need to do this,,,but if they did i would still prolly not seperate them unless one is really whalling because they need to get used to sleeping together and if they dont get used to the other one possibly maybe waking the other one up at some point then they will never get used to it and done the raod it will effect them i think.


2) Would you do some trial runs with naps before hand to help them learn, or would this just be confusing?
i would not do it with naps, nor did i do it with naps because i think personally naps come later they are not set in this house,,,i mean they are around the same time each day,...our morning nap is 9 in the morning every day but our afternoon changes they have days where they wake up earlier or later and that makes their naps change...so i would not do it for cio i woul dfocus on one thing at a tiem

3) Would you do CIO for night time and naps at the same time, or wait to do naps later?

4) Would you give them pacis when you put them down? How about when you go in at intervals?
if they like thier binks give them to them....if you get sick of putting them in then dont.....or u can do waht i do...i throw about 4 in their crib and they fish for one if they want it!

5) They are feeding around 11:00 and 2:30, would you wait for them to wake up or just try and dream feed?
do you wake the other one up to eat when one wakes up!?!? this is what solved us too---i used to always wak the other one up if one woke up to eat...because i was sscared the other one woul dwake up 30 mins later...but if you are doing this then you are teaching them that night time is for feeding and they wont learn...so i would start not waking the other one..you may be tired for a few nights or they may surprise you...it iwll be better in the long run anyways. secondly do you offer a full bottle at these feedings?! if so you should start to lower it by a half onunce then an ounce and so on....so they get used to not eating at night....what time is bed time!?! do you have a set bed time routine?

6) How long would you allow the girls to cry before calling it quits?
for me it was different every night---when iw as doing it---if i could tell it was that cry of "im not going to stop screaming t li get milk" o wpould go in afgteer a few minutes..if it was more of whinning i would wai about 5-7 minues!

Any advise would be greatly appreciated! I know if you can't help me no one can! I will keep everyone posted on my results!

Thanks, Anne.
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Hope I helped! I wish you the best of luck! Onvce they start sleeping everyone is better!!!!

 

forgot to say also---you said yours slept in your boucers...mine were in thier carseats which were in their cribs til about 4 months--because they had really really bad congestion so i wanted them inclind around 2 months and then i thought they like it better---they were cozy and i was convincced that laying them flat would wake them ( dont know whhy i thought that) but they started getting more mobile and i knew i needed to do it---so that was rough but only took about 2 nights of it and they were flat in cribs!! i would try one thing at a time---eliminate bounvers and then do CIO!

 

I am dealing with this to some extent right now too so I might not be the best person to provide guidance but I can share what we've done/are doing!

1. Our girls are in the same room. We do not have a spare room either. Sometimes they wake each other up, other times they don't.

2/3. I started CIO with naps (probably around 6 months), not nighttime. I did the same with DS. With DS once I got naps sorted out nighttime sleep followed but with the girls I'm having to work harder at nighttime. I wouldn't do them at the same time.

4. I just asked this exact same question...I put them down with soothers. I give them to them when I go in to soothe. It only took 3 nights before they were sleeping better and DH and I weren't going in at all. now we're working ont he early moring wake-ups.

5. I tried dream feeds with my girls and they didn't work, I did them with DS until he was 16 months with great success so every baby is different. I wouldn't wake them up to feed them anymore at night. We let them wake when they were hungry. At this point we had also stopped waking the other twin if one woke to eat but mine stopped eating at night all together at 6.5 months. There's a technique in '12 Hour Sleep by 12 Weeks' where you use the previous nights wake-up as the cut off for the current night. Ex. If DD#1 wakes to feed at 11, the next night the earliest you feed her is 11. If she wakes the next night at 12:30 for the first feed then every night after that you can't feed before 12:30. We did this and it actually worked very well and very quickly and it gives you a cut of. I found it easer knowing I was going to feed them and that I wasn't ignoring their hunger when doing CIO.

6. My cut off was usually about an hour of going in every 5, then 10, then 15 min…if they still weren’t back asleep I would give in and do whatever needed to be done and start again the next night…but maybe that’s not the best idea since I just had to do CIO again and my girls are 10 months!

Good luck!

 

Thanks for all your advise! We will be starting tomorrow! I'm very hopful but scared at the same time. If this doesn't work I don't know what we'll do. Wish me luck, I'll keep you posted.

 

Just jump in! Sounds like you've got a plan, just stick to it and I am sure in a few days you'll be reporting back that you have happily sleeping babies.

About the bouncers in cribs.. I'd be a little worried about that as it's possible for the babies to get tipped and be trapped. I would just work on transitioning to cribs. They'll figure it out

 

Here is my CIO story from when my boys were little. Some of it may help... (mine slept in car seats prior to CIO)

CIO:

Around 5 1/2 months, I decided to try CIO. Before doing CIO, my boys would have their 7:00 bottle and then go to bed. Then they woke between 10-12am for another bottle AND then 2 times during the night. I came to the realization that they did not need to be eating that much at night anymore. They had 4 (6-8 oz) bottles during the day and solids twice a day. I finally realized they are eating out of habit and I could not do it anymore physically. My boys are big boys and were in no way lacking nutrition!

I decided that I would give them one bottle each after their 7:00 bottle if they woke up crying and then if they cried anytime after that, I just let them cry. We did that for about 2 weeks. After the first night of not feeding them after their last late night bottle, during the day they began to drink 8 oz consistently rather than sometimes 5 oz. Then, after those two weeks, we did a true CIO after their 7:00 bottle to eliminate all night feedings. They cried a little during the night but I just left them and they ended up sleeping anywhere between 6-7 am. When they woke in the morning, they were happy and not crying of hunger. That proved to me that they were eating out of habit.

So officially, I would say 6 months and 1 week until completely sleeping throught the night.

Also interesting was that I have heard if they wake to eat even if it is just a little, it is out of habit. My boys though were eating a lot at night. Well, I stopped feeding them anyways. My boys were in the higher weight percentile and my Dr. said they wont turn into skeletons if I didnt feed them in the middle of the night! So, even though my boys drank full bottles at night, with a few days of CIO, they didnt wake to eat anymore.

Here are notes from my journal during this time:

On Tues: when they usually wake for their 1st middle of the night feeding, I let them CIO. I did not feel bad at all when I heard them cry. This is because I knew they just ate and diaper changed. One slept right through the others cry and then the next hour the reverse happened. They basically cried on and off throughout the night.

The next night, they slept until 4 (huge for us!) and then I had them CIO. They woke at 6:00 and were ready for their bottle. The good thing is they ate 4 8oz bottles that day. They had room since they were not getting calories at night.

Last night they woke at 5:30 and i had them CIO until 6:00.

We never went in to sooth them. I always felt like that would be taking a step backwards and they would expect me to come in when they cried. I wanted them to teach themselves how to fall asleep on their own and how to go back to sleep on their own after waking inthe middle of the night.

They sleep through each others cry to this day.

 

I just wanted to throw in a good luck!!

:youcandoit:

One thing I do now is come into the kitchen where I can't hear the crying - and conveniently where the laptop is - and check the monitor to see if I need to go up and soothe after 3, 5 or 10 minutes or however long between soothing you are doing.

 

I'm in the midst of our second night of CIO. Yes its the middle of the night, but I just had to post! Last night was the first time in six months that I haven't ran to them at their first whimper. It has been really hard letting them cry, but it is reasuring to see that they wake happy and pretty much act like their usual selves. I never thought I would get them in their cribs, and I never thought they would sleep through each others crying.

The first night we went in at 3,5, and then 10 minute intervals. We took away the girls bouncers cold turkey and I was suprised because M passed out right away laying flat in her crib, she must have been really tired. I've tried her flat in the crib for naps before, but never for night sleep. Maybe she just doesn't get tired enough to sleep flat while napping? E on the other hand was another story. She cried off and on until midnight, amazingly M slept through most of it. After midnight they made occasional wimperings and slept until 5 and 5:30. I did go in and dream feed them twice. Both woke happy!

We decided to CIO for naps too because we didn't want to reintroduce their bouncers. Naps were more difficult, they were pretty short and we had to give up a few times. We didn't want to let them cry more than a half an hour for naps. I guess we will try again tomorrow?

Tonight we moved the intervals up to 5, 10 and 12 minutes. E passed out right away and has barely made a peep since! M cried in spurts until 9ish and I've only had to let her cry for 10 minutes twice so far. I've been giving her her paci when I go in and it calms her immediately. I hope I am not just creating another bad habit. She hasn't made a sound for over two hours now.

I really had my doubts that this would work. I have been pleasently suprised, my girls are much stronger and more resilient than I give them credit for! I've been a nervous wreck about their sleeping for months and I feel like a big weight has been lifted. Hopefully things will continue to progress! I'll post again in a few days!

Thanks for all the support! I'm so happy

 

Sounds like you are making good progress. Don't get discouraged if you have some setbacks along the way. We did intervals, too, and it was about 2-3 weeks before they got consistent - now they pretty much go down without a peep. Before that, some days they would go down without crying, and other days they would still cry. I got discouraged about a week or week and a half in and thought it wasn't going to work, but now they are doing much better. So keep up the good work - if you are consistent, they will learn to be consistent, too, but a bad day here or there is normal, too.

 

Yup. Kids always suprise us all the time.they know and are capable of more than we think they do/are.
I think for nap time, you should put them down before they get tired, after 90 mins of being awake. I always do. Even they are not tired at all. But many times, I put them down, they fall asleep right away. Some kids you just can't read their sleepy signs. You just have to follow the rule. Good luck!

 

We got really lucky! Our third night both girls slept through the night. They woke up twice and cried for less than five minutes. Same with night four! They have been going down easily for naps too! Best Thanks Giving Ever! I know CIO is not for everyone, but it worked miracles for me. If anyone ever has questions or wants to talk about CIO message me. I had so many misgivings and am so thankful for the advise I recieved here.

 

I am so glad it is working out for you! It is one of those things that is just so hard to start, but the results come quickly and they're SO worth it!