CIO questions (a bit long....sorry!)

Our boys are almost 10 months and still not great sleepers. They have to be held to get them to sleep, but most times they drop off while being held within just a few minutes. They also tend to wake 2-3 times at night - sometimes because of teething or a cold or whatever, but other times for no apparent reason. Sometimes one or the other will sleep through, but I can count on one hand the number of times they have BOTH slept through the night. I understand it if they aren't feeling well, but they shouldn't be doing this every night.

I really, really, really don't want to do CIO, but DH does. I have tried the Baby Whisperer, No Cry Sleep Solution, Dr. Sears, etc. and haven't had much luck. Early on, we got in the habit of rocking them because they had such bad reflux and had to be held upright for 45 min. after eating. They also has MSPI (milk and soy protein intolerance), and have had lots of stomach troubles in the past, which often kept them up. Those things have died down, and we have gone from rocking them to just holding them with a binkie and lovey, but can't seem to make the next step - I've tried staying with them to rub their backs, shushing them, patting their bottoms, etc. - they just keep sitting up or standing up (I even tried just laying them back down every time they sit or stand - we literally put Gabe down about 200 times one night and nothing). If I leave the room, they scream bloody murder. We have been trying to make this next step for almost 2 weeks and I am just worn out from it - it seems like such a waste to battle them so when I can hold them and have them asleep in a few minutes. But I also know they HAVE to learn to sleep on their own somehow.

I'm not saying I'm going to give in, but if we do do CIO, how do you all do it? Separating them is not an option because of our house layout, not even temporarily - there is not even space for a pack-n-play in our bedroom, and the only other option is the living room, but if they sleep there, we have no living space - can't even go into the kitchen because it is all one open room.

So, do you let both of them cry at the same time or train one and then the other? Do you just shut the door and let them go, or do you go in at intervals? I read one website that said to do 3 min, 5 min, and then 10 min intervals until they are asleep, then the next night 5 min, 12 min, 15 min, and keep increasing the time. We tried that last night and Gabe went to sleep after the first 10 min., but Mike screamed for 45 minutes until he spit up all over himself and I had to change the crib sheets, etc. We finally gave up and held him to go to sleep because he was SO worked up. I'm not sure I have the heart to do that again or to just let them cry, especially since he got SO wound up. Gabe did sleep through it all, though.

Thanks for any advice or insight....and if there are other non-CIO options or other ways of doing CIO I am missing, I'm all ears!!!

 

CIO was the only thing that worked for us. We tried so many other methods because it broke my heart to hear them cry, but in the end, no one was getting any sleep at all and I felt that was worse for them than having to cry.

My kids are stubborn, to put it mildly. I am not even kidding when I say that there were nights where they cried for over 3 hrs at first. This was because we weren't being consistent in our approach to CIO. Some nights we would go in and soothe them, others not, so they didn't know what to expect. Finally we started having a nighttime routine. Baths, read a book, brush teeth, read their favourite night night book, blinds down, lights out. I would let them cry for 15 mintues, then go in and rock them for a few minutes. Cry 15 minutes, go in and pat backs, put in soothers. Then they just had to cry. It took 2 days for them to figure out that after the second time we weren't coming back for them.

The bigger challenge was waking in the night. They would scream bloody murder for hours, so we had to come up with a method for the middle of the night too. I couldn't comfort them at all because they wanted to nurse, so I had to send my husband in for night wakings. He would pretty much do the same thing as the bedtime routine. Rock for a few minutes, 15 minutes of crying, pat on back, replace soother, and that's it.. the night wakings took a while longer to sort out, but they eventually got it.

Within a few weeks we had kids who were STTN and waking up happy in the mornings. We also had to really work on being more consistent about naps and mealtimes and get into a routine, and I think if we'd done all of that earlier it wouldn't have been as hard.

 

We were in the same boat as you. By 8 months, we realized that the boys had just gotten used to us helping them fall asleep and we needed to break that tie. It was 8 months of assisting them - and I knew at that point that they knew that we were here for them, but it was time for them to know that they could sleep without us. They had the skills, and if we believed it, that the boys would believe it too.

So, I waited for when they weren't teething and weren't sick. Our plan was to not go in at all, because that is what we did in the past and we felt that they would see us and want us to pick them up. We didn't separate them.

So, that Friday night, they fell asleep at their night bottle, so we didn't have to deal with bedtime, yet. We put them down and they stayed asleep. At about 1am Luke woke up fussing. It was scary knowing that we weren't going to go in. Sam didn't wake up at first. Luke started to really cry and that was painful. But i kept telling myself that this was the first time that I was going to have to let him work something out for himself. I had to be strong and know that he could do it. I thought that if I kept telling myself that he could do it, that Luke would begin to believe that too. After 30 minutes, Sam woke up. And then they cried together. That was soooo hard. After 30 minutes of them crying together, Luke fell asleep. So Sam then cried for about 30 minutes by himself, and then he fell asleep. Both stayed asleep until about 6am - and then played a little in their cribs and at 6:30, our earliest getup time, we took them out of their cribs and they were happy as can be. My DH and I were so proud of them and so proud of us too! We did it - the first night.

After that - the next night - they STTN! No crying. Next night - they STTN again. They stopped falling asleep at their night bottle and we at that time started putting them down drowsy but awake, and once they were down, we didn't go back in. But they were fine.

We've had some rough nights since - with teething. I thought we were going backwards at one point because i wouldn't let them cry alone when i knew they were in pain. But once the teething was over, they didn't need me and it was back to STTN.

So I really believe that your LOs are old enough to sleep without your help. It's scary for everyone to change the routine, but you have to believe that your LOs can do it. My boys would sometimes cry even if we picked them up - so we realized that if they were going to cry with us, they could cry without us. And, if anything was really wrong, we would go in.

That's my story. Good luck!

 

Thanks, ladies. It is good to know I am not alone in doing this out of desperation.

We tried the interval thing again tonight. Comforted them both at 3 min. By the end of the 5 min, Michael was already asleep. I was shocked given the fight he put up last night! By the middle of the 10 min., Gabe was asleep, too. The thing is, he didn't go to sleep until after I comforted him instead of DH - it seems like they really want me and not DH, which makes it hard. It makes sense since I am a SAHM and with them almost all the time, but I can't comfort them both since they are across the room in separate cribs. So I guess we just have to keep switching off like we did tonight. And hopefully in a few days, they won't cry at all, maybe?? I guess tomorrow we will increase the intervals and see how it goes - start with 5, then 10, then 15 maybe?

My mom is totally against this, and she is here to help me one day and one evening a week - but she won't be here in the evenings any for at least the next week. Hopefully we can have it under control by then, and then we can tackle naps. That will be harder since she doesn't like to let them cry at ALL, nor does my nanny (who is here 3 days a week already in anticipation of me going back to grad school in January). I understand where they are coming from, but we are the ones up all night, and something has to give.

Again, thank you!! You all have given me hope. :thanks:

 

Your caretakers have to be on board with whatever method you choose, so tell them flat out what you're doing and ask them to stick to it. YOU'RE the mom.. other caretakers don't have to agree with your parenting methods, but they do have to carry out your wishes.

 

I haven't brought it up with the nanny yet. I think she won't LIKE it, but if I tell her, she will probably do it. She is a friend of my SIL, so I have to be a bit careful how I approach things with her so I don't cause a rift with my SIL, though, kwim?

My mom is a different story. We have gotten into several arguments about this already - she thinks she knows best and says she just can't stand to hear any baby cry. She is only here one day a week during naptimes most weeks - I am seriously thinking about seeing if DH can take that day off one week, which would give us more time to get things sorted and hopefully get them to where they go down on their own. There is just no arguing with my mom - she gets all offended and upset, and makes life miserable.

 

The thing about crying is that is one of the only ways that babies can express themselves. So, when they have a poop diaper, or are hungry, or are struggling to fall asleep. My boys weren't used to struggling by themselves, so they cried because that was how they could express their struggle. They needed time to get used to it - they needed the experience. For some babies, they just get it early on without the struggle, whereas others for some reason don't. So crying is not bad, it can be a healthy way for them get through it. Think about your struggles and how good you felt when you got through it. I'm not saying it's easy. And, it's not the choice for everyone. But, I have to say that my boys' sleep has gotten wonderful since that first day let I let them work it out.

I have also learned more about them - I can tell when they really need me vs. they are just working something out. It's ironic because Sam woke up last night around 11pm crying - which is unusual. I gave him his binky thinking maybe he woke from a scary dream and couldn't find his binky. He went back to sleep but then woke again about 1/2 hour later crying. We knew something was wrong - maybe he's teething - or had a bad dream - who knows but I could tell it was different. So my DH picked him up and held him in our bed for about a few minutes and then put him back down. He then slept the rest of the night. So, even if you do CIO, that doesn't mean that you let your LO cry all the time.

Just some extra info. GL with whatever you choose.

 

So we are on night three, and it still taking them almost 20 minutes of crying to fall asleep. Actually, I think M. was asleep in about 10-15 min. from listening through the monitor. But it seems like the time it's taking them isn't getting any shorter. Is this normal??

 

20 minutes isn't long at all.. that just might be how long it takes for them to wind down.

 

Me personally, I would give them about a week. If there is no change, then I would wait some more time, and try again. Mind you, my kids only did CIO for one night. But every kid is different. Are you doing extinction method? That's the way we did it. We both felt that if we kept going in, it would just make it worse. If you are going in in intervals, and find that there is no change, maybe try the extinction method. Of course-make sure they are fed, changed, etc. I could tell by their cries if there was something wrong, etc vs just wanting us to come in. Good luck! Hang in there momma!

We did CIO and my boys are now three and sttn and have since they were six months old. If one wakes at night(we don't go in), the other sleeps through. And if there were teething/sick, they still didn't wake at night. They've been awesome sleepers. And Annabella, we didn't really do CIO with, and she started STTN at a year old(she is our last, and I was the one getting up with her vs both of us, and there is only ONE of her...lol). And now-she sleeps beautifully, all night long.

 

We are doing intervals - mainly because the first night, Michael spit up all over himself and the sheets and everything and all the bedding had to be changed. I am worried that if I just leave them and don't at least check on them, that will happen again, and I would hate for him to sleep on dirty sheets all night. In fact, I would feel horrible if that happened. We increased the intervals tonight - so I guess we will keep increasing them and see what happens. I just wish it would go faster! I hate having to listen to them cry.

 

Oh yes I remember... That makes sense! I left the house...it was the only way I could do it, or I'd be crying along with them! Can you do something-go in the basement, do laundry, take a walk, anything to take your mind off the crying!

 

I am a big fan of CIO because it worked so well for us. I'm not going to lie- we have had over an hour of crying, but all 3 of my kids were "cured" of sleep problems in 3 nights each. My little girl who was the worst sleeper of them all actually responded the fastest. Anyway, in answer to your logistics question, I would do CIO for both of them at the same time in the same room. I personally feel that going back in to check on them just prolongs the process and makes them think that if they cry long enough you will come back. I do a nice soothing routine with music, lights off, etc and leave (DH and I now put them down at the same time together). I swear your kids will not even remember in the morning, and in the long run they will be happier because they will be getting consolidated, restful sleep. And you might even get some sleep yourself - ha ha. Good luck!!

 

Well, it's been 5 nights. Last night it took them about 5-6 minutes to go to sleep. So I think we are making progress there. However, Gabriel was up from 2:30am on. I tried the intervals, he just kept getting louder and louder....when he finally escalated into a high-pitched cry, I just went got him and laid with him on the sofa. He's at the tail end of a cold, and he sounded a bit stopped up - I really think he was having trouble breathing because he would cry, be quiet for a few minutes, then start again - he did that for an hour. Once I got him propped up on me on the sofa, he totally crashed and slept til 6:15. Of course I got very little sleep that way! I hope we're not regressing because they have been sleeping VERY well at night since we started this - I really do think he was uncomfortable. I guess we will see what tonight brings. Michael slept through ALL the screaming, though. Beats me how I can walk in the room for 10 seconds to check on him and wake him up, but Gabriel can scream for an hour and he is fast asleep! :laughing:

 

Glad to hear you are making improvements! And gotta love how the illnesses make you take a few steps back... :headbang: Have you tried elevating his mattress at all? I know I've done that with the boys, and that does seem to help a little bit. It's rough, especially seeing how there is nothing you can give them. I hope he's almost over it! And it sounds like things are going great, minus the stuffy nose!

 

I thought about elevating the mattress, but then he seemed to do okay last night - he fussed for a minute or two about three or four times during the night, then went back to sleep. So I guess we are getting there. Time will tell!

 

OK so this thread has helped me a lot, since I'm in the middle of CIO with my girls right now too. BUT, I still have some questions!

So we are almost at the 1 week mark. Neither my husband nor I have had to go in to the girl's room more than once or twice the entire week - but they are still crying. They are falling back to sleep within 2 or 3 minutes MAX, even when one wakes up the other as happened last night. I can see we are making progress, so long as there is a binky in reach.

I know it took some people more than a week (and I'm jealous of the ones who mentioned it only took them a day or three!). I can deal with that, since I think my girls were probably on the "worse" scale as far as night wakings, compared to other babies out there.

Questions:
Is CIO supposed to help them NOT wake up in the first place? Or they still wake up, but just don't cry? Problem there is they like to talk when they are awake in the crib, even if they aren't crying, so I'm awake listening to them & hoping they will fall back to sleep without crying.

Has anyone had success with sleep training / CIO while allowing the kiddos to keep their binkies? (I'm guessing this is a reason why they are taking longer too, since they have to wake up enough to find them). I really, really want them to keep the binkies for now. They love them.

For those of you who took longer to sleep train your kids -- well, how long? 2 weeks? A month?
Thanks in advance!

 

We are at a week tonight. Last night, Michael fell asleep almost instantly - did not cry at all. Gabe cried for about 5-6 minutes again. At night, they both woke up once or twice - they cried, and were back asleep within just a few minutes. I am hoping this will continue to lessen as time goes on (I think they are both working on another tooth, though, which doesn't help). They are going to still wake up at night, but I hope eventually they won't wake up and cry - that they will learn to get themselves back to sleep without crying. That is the point of CIO as I understand it.

We give them binkies when we put them to bed - usually they end up spitting them out on the floor or in the crib, and they don't seem to search for them at night. I think it probably would help them go back to sleep if they could find them, or if we went in and gave them the binky, but we are trying to let them work that out themselves and intervene as little as possible. Actually, I think we are close to getting rid of the binkies altogether, but we want to get the going to sleep down first. I'm hoping within the next night or two it will be a done deal - I was hoping it would happen faster, too, but slow is better than never!

 

1.) CIO, for us, was for them to go to sleep without needing any rocking(we'd rock them to sleep and then put them in their crib). And it was also to stop feeding them at night.

2.) My kids all had pacifiers. At six months they weren't totally addicted to them. By the time they were, they were able to find them and put them in their mouth. We also probably had at least four in there so hopefully they would find one! :laughing: But my kids never woke for a pacifier. Ever. Or I just never went in there and gave it to them! LOL!

My boys are now three. And they STILL wake at night and cry. They will just wake, cry out briefly, and be back asleep. Even Annabella does this at 16 months. I am not sure when they actually STOP crying at night. But we definitely know if there is something wrong with their cries. If it's longer than five minutes-we go up there. But they never really reach the two minute mark.

And I am no help on the length of CIO taking! :FIFblush:

 

My personal belief is that CIO is just to get them to learn to self soothe. They will still wake through the night, but they know how to get themselves back to sleep rather than crying for you to come and soothe them. If they're awake and talking in the crib, I think I would just leave them be, especially if it's not time to get up yet.

Our kids kept their soothers until just the other day (they're 17 months) when I finally had enough. I think that we needed them to do CIO at the beginning, but I also wish I had never got into the habit of helping them find one through the night. This became quite a dependency. Now they're having to learn how to soothe themselves without soothers, which is almost as bad as CIO.

My kids were hard to sleep train as well... they're persistent. I would say within 2 weeks they sort of had the hang of it, but it was more of a process for us. With colds or traveling or basically any kind of disruption we're back to the drawing board and having to CIO again. As they get older they get back into their routine quicker though. The key is to always be consistent.

 

no offense to anyone who did it this way, but i am not at all a fan of letting them CIO for any lengthy amount of time. that doesn't make sense to me at all. and by lengthy i mean a half hour, an hour etc. my mother in law disagreed and told us that crying was not dying as she put it. but she's of a different generation where she thinks it's possible to spoil a newborn so i disregarded that opinion.

what worked for us was to do the interval CIO with one twin and then when she learned how to put herself to sleep for the night, then we had planned to do it with our other twin. the first night we tried it, we only let her cry for 2 minutes MAXIMUM. and then i'd go in her room and hold her in her room with the lights out til she stopped crying (usually just a few minutes) and then the moment she was calmed down, i put her down and did the 2 minute CIO again. and repeated this process until she was completely asleep. and on that first night it took 20-30 minutes for her to get to sleep. my husband took our other baby girl for a car ride those first few nights so that i could completely focus on the sleep training baby (they share a room). the next night, i did it again but after the first couple of 2 minute intervals, i waited 5 minutes. she was asleep in 20 minutes. every night for the next 5 or 6 nights took slightly less time for her to put herself to sleep for the night.

it took about a week for her to finally learn how to put herself to sleep from the moment she's put down in her crib. now it's rare for her to cry when put down for the night, aside from some minor fussing but i don't pick her up if she's just fussing a bit. and somehow our other baby girl didn't require much training at all. we never had to do the CIO with her after we did it with her sister. we got very lucky, i guess!

oh i also use a sleep sheep on "ocean" sound for the white noise. it seems to help.

naps are a whole different story unfortunately! we haven't figured out how to get them to nap in their cribs without throwing a fit (they only will nap in their bouncy chairs and only when they're ready to do so). the sleep training didn't work for that but i suspect it's because their room isn't dark enough during the day so they're not fooled into thinking it's time to go to bed, if even for a little while. our poor nanny is the one that has to deal with that though!

 

We went in at intervals, so our guys never cried more than 10-15 minutes at most. And last night, they both were asleep within 2 minutes! Michael didn't cry at all, and Gabriel cried for about a minute.

Gabriel keeps waking up at night (actually, it was 4:30am this time), but he has a runny nose and teething - his cry is one of being uncomfortable. I let him cry for about 10 minutes, tried going in and comforting him and giving him his pacifier, and left him for another 10. When that didn't work, I went and got him and propped him up on the sofa - he was able to sleep until almost 7am that way. Part of me says I should leave him and let him work it out, but I am pretty sure he is uncomfortable with nose congestion and teeth, so I just don't have it in me to leave him right now. I will try letting him CIO for those early morning wakings after he gets over the nose stuff and gets this next tooth. I really don't LIKE CIO, but things have gotten so much better since we have been doing this. Our next challenge will be naps and getting them to nap without a fight - going to wait on that until after they adjust to the time change next week.

 

Yep, you got lucky. For my kids going back in made things way harder so that would never have been an option. They have been sleeping through since 7 months and we've had maybe 5 or 6 nights when they woke up and cried, mostly because they didn't feel well, since (they are 32 months).

 

Consider yourself lucky. I would have fully agreed with you, up until the birth of my little girls. The first few months of their lives (6 or 7, it's all a bit of a blur to be honest) they cried for most part of the day and night. Regardless of what I did. Maybe nursing would help. Sometimes. So I did. And now I am tired, exhausted really. We've come to the point where they are 10 months old and each of them is waking more than twice between going to bed at 8 pm and waking up at 8 am again. The only thing they want to do is to nurse. So that's what I still do.

DH and I decided to go for a mild version of CIO too. Between 12 and 6 he takes care of them, meaning he listens to their cries and analyzes if it is necessary to go in and comfort them. We know them best and we know when stepping into the room would make them even more sad or angry. Not every child is the same and some of them come with a manual. We really needed to do this for the sake of the four of us, cause sometimes I'm really losing it.

 

We never really had to do CIO - and believe me I know how lucky we are from stories on here I have read time and time again. But our pedi calls out on take home sheets to new parents of babies that it is normal to let babies take 5-15 minutes to work out falling asleep and self soothing. I tend to agree. I am only mentioning it because there is this hysteria around CIO but there are ways to do it personalized for each child and you just use trial and error to figure those little creatures out. But one thing I have learned is that nothing is predictable. Jude still cries for 30 seconds - 2 mins (and now it is soooo fake) when we leave the room. Sometimes they both sit up there and babble for 60-90 mins and I KNOW they are tired. Jude was the child at 10 mos that if I went in every 2 mins she would have timed out my frequency in her mind and made me do it 30 times in a row and still not given up. LOL. Now, at almost 20 months, they both consistently wake a couple times at night, cry out, then go back to sleep on their own. I used to run up - no way now. Even at 9 or 10 months most of the time they were not even really awake...until I barged into the room that is!

I think you just have to really be flexible. I feel like as a parent for 19 months now I have to consistently balance my "ideal" parenting with my "realistic" parenting decisions. Good luck to you! You are doing a great job!