alternatives to CIO

i always figured we would do CIO when it was age appropriate. the boys are now about 5 1/2 months adjusted and they tend to trend a teeny bit ahead of that so developmentally they're in the 6 month range. they've been great sleepers up until just recently, very suddenly.

jacob just won't sleep. he was up literally every 20 minutes all night last night. they sleep propped up in their bouncy chairs because of severe reflux and he's acting like he can't get comfortable. but he's completely incapable of sleeping flat on his back. it doesn't help that they both have stuffy noses so lying flat makes it worse.

as he gets tired he gets more and more wound up. i'm trying to follow HSHHC but i just can't seem to get the timing right. no matter how far ahead of the overtired state i catch him, by the time he lies down he's completely wound up and nearly hysterical. it's like the very act of being put down for sleep fast forwards him to overtired hysteria.

the thing is, i can't bring myself to do CIO. i tried, but i didn't even make it 2 minutes. i can't let him cry. i'm not judging those who have successfully done CIO, and i don't know why i can't do it myself. but i need alternate ideas. jacob works himself to that choking hysterical cry in no time if we don't answer his fussing and i just can't listen to that strangled wail and feel okay about what i'm doing.

so please, i'm desperate. if you have any suggestions or can share how you did it, please help. we're so exhausted and it's such a struggle to get him to even nap that we can't even catch up on sleep during nap times.

edit: and i'd appreciate any ideas for how to transition from bouncy chair to crib because i think positionally he really just wants to be on his back. he just has no idea how to sleep that way.

 

Could it be that he needs his reflux meds adjusted? That could be cause for the sudden rough nights. I always found them to be the most aggravated at night with it, but they ate more too.

We went cold turkey into the crib around 4 months onto inclined sleep postioners and mattress. I figured the nights couldnt get any worse since we were up all the time, what was one more bad night. They transitioned pretty easily.


ETA: Especially for Baby sleep positioner that we used.

 

i have been wondering about their reflux meds, if they've outgrown the dosage that was controlling the acid. because we're defintely seeing a resurgence of other reflux behaviors.

but the thing is, we're already giving them an increased dose of prevacid. we have 15mg solutabs, which we used to crush and split between them twice a day. so that means in a whole day they were getting a whole 15mg dose. but at 3 months it wasn't strong enough anymore so we crush up a pill and a half and split it between them twice a day. so they're each getting 22.5 mg per day now. if we bump up again they'll each be getting a full pill per dose which means they'll be at 30 mg a day. and that's the dosage they give pre-teens.

i just have worries about long term effects of having them on such high dosages of maintenance meds. i don't want to compromise their health down the road. which is something of an unknown because long term effects of these kinds of meds in infants haven't been studied.

 

Can they roll? Mine also have reflux and were tossing around. They had inclined sleep positioners but outgrew those by 3 months old and that's when we started having them just sleep in their flat cribs. It was okay, but the one with the worst reflux gave us some very difficult nights. You may recall my post about it a couple of weeks ago.

When I finally just let them sleep on their stomachs I started getting a lot more continuous sleep out of them, but I was really worried about the whole "back to sleep thing." My pedi allayed my fears, though, and said that the tummy sleeping helps reflux babies feel more comfortable and once they were rolling it was okay, that it would be tough to keep them on their backs after that. I gave up fighting the boys to keep them on their backs.

Even the one that is the most difficult is now sleeping all the way through to 5am since we started letting him roll onto his tummy and stay that way. At 5am he nurses and then goes back to sleep for another 2 hours. I can handle that! I am also learning a lot from reading the "No Cry Sleep Solution" in my almost non-existant free time.

They also "graduated" from the swing and bouncy recently because they keep trying to roll onto their tummies and fight the restraints. The other day one of them flipped right off the swing trying to roll in it and he hung suspended by the harness. Thank goodness I had him strapped in!!!

 

Ooops - meant to edit and I replied. LOL

 

I am sure perhaps it was not your plan but, have you tried having the baby sleep with you for a couple of nights. Once asleep then moving him to his own crib? This helped me get through some tough times. I dont have a problem with them sleeping on their own now. From time to time, they just need to be close to me to get through a tough time. Then we all get a little bit of sleep anyway. Do you nurse or bottle feed them, I dont recall?

This shall pass. That age was about my worse stretch so far- for about a month. They would wake about 15-30 minutes after going to bed and literally wake up every 30 minutes or so, for hours..... all night long. We just stuck with it, soothing them to sleep. They got through it. It was just what we had to do.

I hope things improve soon.

 

QUOTE(Lizzybo @ Apr 12 2009, 03:21 PM) [snapback]1269870[/snapback]
Can they roll? Mine also have reflux and were tossing around. ...They also "graduated" from the swing and bouncy recently because they keep trying to roll onto their tummies and fight the restraints. The other day one of them flipped right off the swing trying to roll in it and he hung suspended by the harness. Thank goodness I had him strapped in!!!


you know, i think this might be what's going on. they don't roll from back to tummy quite yet (although i wonder if we're holding them back from that development because they don't have opportunity to try in the crib at night) but they seem like they're close. both of them thrash around like they want to get on their sides or roll over. but then when i put them in the crib they cry like crazy and can't fall asleep. the only way we've ever gotten them to sleep in the crib is by rocking them until they're so zonked out that we can lay them down without waking them up. so far only owen has ever gone a whole night in the crib, and that was only once. he sure was happy when he woke up, though.

but yeah, i worry a lot about the possibility that they'll thrash themselves around and end up dangling by the harness. we have sleep positioners in the bouncy chairs to prevent that, but i can tell they don't want to be held in place anymore.

this is seriously as agonizing as when they wanted to be done with swaddles but their hands were still too busy to be unswaddled. i just need to figure out a game plan like we did with the unswaddling.


QUOTE(julesbabies @ Apr 12 2009, 03:40 PM) [snapback]1269880[/snapback]
I am sure perhaps it was not your plan but, have you tried having the baby sleep with you for a couple of nights. Once asleep then moving him to his own crib? This helped me get through some tough times. I dont have a problem with them sleeping on their own now. From time to time, they just need to be close to me to get through a tough time. Then we all get a little bit of sleep anyway. Do you nurse or bottle feed them, I dont recall?


i've tried that. owen will sleep in my arms so we've done that a few times when he had bad nights. last night jacob wouldn't settle no matter what. i think his tummy was bothering him because even when i was holding him he would drift off, then whimper, then start bawling again. one issue we have is that they can be completely zonked out on us but once their heads touch the seat back of the bouncy chair they snap awake and immediately start fussing again.

i just think they are SO SICK of those chairs, but we haven't gotten to a place where they can sleep in the crib yet.

although DATJMom gave me food for thought about the reflux meds, because they've definitely reverted to reflux behavior. i think tomorrow i'm going to call the ped and ask him once and for all to refer us to a pediatric GI specialist.

 

Mine don't have reflux so I can't help with that part, but i know they were definitely done with the bouncy chairs by around 5-6 months. They slept really well in their cribs at night from the start, but during the days, I let them nap in bouncies for a loooong time because it was the only way they would take long naps. Around 5 months or so, they started getting really irritable in the bouncies so I just switched to the cribs cold turkey. I had maybe two days of short naps where they were crying and unhappy, and then they adjusted and loved it. They were so much happier to be able to roll onto their sides or bellies to sleep. Now DS is a total side sleeper and DD is a belly sleeper. I lay them both on their backs for naps and night time, but they immediately roll and seem so comfortable. I agree with pps...when they start rolling onto their bellies, it might help them a lot.

Where do they sleep for naps? Can you try starting them in the cribs then? Maybe they'll figure out how to roll to get comfortable and it will help at night? For the reflux/congestion, maybe you can lift the whole crib mattress slightly with a rolled blanket or thin pillow under it. Just be careful not to elevate it too much so they don't roll to the bottom!

 

Hi, I read this and your other CIO post. I don't have any great answers. We are struggling with some similar issues with my DS (and less so, my DD). My DS was sleeping much better about 6 weeks ago. But then he started teething and crawling, and it's been bad at nighttime since then. I agree with the other folks who recommend a medical checkup (for your peace of mind). We just had a 7 month checkup for my twins. They are both healthy and it's a relief to know they don't have significant problems. The way my son screams, it helps my anxiety lessen to know he is really okay.
My pedi recommended the motrin for night time teething. She said it lasts much longer than the Tylenol. I don't want to CIO (yet), so I just ordered the No Cry Sleep Solution book. I hope it will help. I wish I had more suggestions, but we are struggling too!
take care, Beth
sigh--off to check on my crying DS....