Anyone do CIO at 4 months?

Just wondering who has started early. My ds is so inconsistent. Lately, some nights he goes to bed without a peep and other nights he will cry uncontrollably for a long time (50 minutes tonight I had to give in). I want to know if I should do this now since I know he can do it or wait a bit longer. How do you know? Sometimes I feel so unsure. I know it's not hurting him but I don't want him to cry for hours on end.

Help me CIO moms!!!

 

I swear you and I are living parallel lives. We just had our 4 month check up yesterday and the ped gave us the "official" ok to CIO to go to sleep for bedtime. We did it tonight. They cried for 10 mins, fell asleep, then woke and cried until it was time to eat again. I fed them (they are breastfeeding) and put them right back down. Then they fell asleep with no tears. I'm hoping that they will go to sleep and stay asleep tomorrow. It sucks so bad to listen to those cries. Breaks my heart.

 

We did it at 4.5 months for Emma. It took us 10 nights, and it was HARD, but soooo worth it. My girls have been sleeping anywhere from 10.5-12.5 hours per night ever since.

We knew because at our 4 month checkup I told the pedi that she was waking only once per night and not drinking her whole bottle. The pedi recommended getting rid of that bottle thinking she was waking for comfort, not for hunger.

 

We tried CIO for naps & bedtime around 4-4.5 mo (adjusted) and it was too early - a disaster for everyone. Around 5 mo, it really clicked.

There's no right answer on this, but at 4 mo I don't think I'd be comfortable letting the crying go on for 50 min... They're just starting to have some self-soothing skills, and they aren't real pros at it yet. It's always a good goal to put them down drowsy but awake, but if it doesn't work out yet, that's ok, you aren't ruining his future sleep habits or anything. You can always try again in a few weeks.

 

We did modified CIO at 3 months at bedtime with the okay of the pedi. They now go down for naps with no struggle at all, at night DS goes down no prob, DD still needs about 10-15 minutes to work it out before she falls asleep, we do go in and comfort, but don't pick up.

 

We did CIO at 4 months. But to be fair, we had a pretty easy road of it. I think the longest they ever cried at bedtime was maybe 30 minutes. And that didn't happen all that often. We have really good sleepers though, so we didn't have a hard time of it. We never had to CIo to get rid of a bottle. They just kept moving it later and later. When they were 2 months they slept from 10-3am, had a bottle, then back to sleep until 7am ... they just starting waking later and later ... 4am, 430am, 5, 6am and now around 630am. . we slowly moved their bedtime earlier and it never affected when they woke up. So now they go down every night at 7pm and wake between 6am and 7am.

They still don't always go to sleep quiet. We still put them down and leave the room.. and sometimes we here them for a few minutes... but that's usually it.

Good luck! I know it's hard .. .but you are doing the right thing by teaching them good sleeping habits early.

Erica

 

QUOTE(fuchsiagroan @ Jan 13 2008, 12:37 PM) [snapback]570190[/snapback]
We tried CIO for naps & bedtime around 4-4.5 mo (adjusted) and it was too early - a disaster for everyone. Around 5 mo, it really clicked.

There's no right answer on this, but at 4 mo I don't think I'd be comfortable letting the crying go on for 50 min... They're just starting to have some self-soothing skills, and they aren't real pros at it yet. It's always a good goal to put them down drowsy but awake, but if it doesn't work out yet, that's ok, you aren't ruining his future sleep habits or anything. You can always try again in a few weeks.


I agree, it is really going to come down to what works for you. I would let them fuss for a little while but if they went into an all out scream I would soothe them, at 4 months they just weren't quite able to soothe themselves. You'll figure out if they are ready or not, just go with what feels right.

 

I agree with the previous posts... it is highly variable depending on your kids. We made brief attempts at somewhere around 5 months or so (4 adjusted months), and it was a disaster. No soothing took place. However, this week, at 6 months adjusted, they were really able to soothe themselves and I felt SO much better about it. I still had to run the vaccuum during naps and wear headphones while they screamed to sleep (to ease my frantic nerves), but I felt okay with it, and they seem to BE okay with it now... whereas in the past, they were NOT and just cried hysterically the entire time.