Failed miserably with CIO

We decided to try CIO last night for bed time, the pedi suggested it because we have been soothing them to sleep each night and it was becoming an epic battle each night UGH. He said that if they can learn to go to sleep on their own and learn to self sooth, we'll be much better off. Up until this point, we had been swaddeling them tight and rocking to sleep with pacifiers. So, last night, we unswaddled them because I thought they needed to be able to find their hands to self sooth...am I right? We then placed them down and reassured them we'd be back. Came back 5 mins, then 10, then every 15. The crying stopped after 40 mins--we thought WOO HOO, that wasn't too bad (it sucked, but if they were going to sleep better because of it, I was okay with that). But then, 40 mins later, the started in again. We went through the whole process again and after another 1.5 hours...they still weren't asleep. WHAT DID I DO WRONG? Should I not have them in the same room? Is it too early? Do I just need to keep at it each night? UGH...I don't know that I can do it again?!?!?

 

Your babies are still really young. Even Weissbluth, Ferber, and the like generally suggest 6 months to start CIO. They do say some babies are "ready" earlier than that, but for the most part, babies that young need their parents to help them get to sleep. Granted, I am not in favor of the CIO approach, but if you feel strongly about doing it, I would at least wait until they are older.

In general, I find pediatricians are great for medical advice, less so for parenting advice. Go with your gut. I know you said it's becoming a battle to get them to sleep. They may be going through a developmental/growth spurt, which just hypes them up and makes it harder to relax. Do you give them a bottle/nurse them, and they don't fall asleep? At that age it seems most babies will fall asleep that way. They will eventually find ways to fall asleep without it, but you don't have to start now, especially not just because your ped said so.

Maybe they are overtired by the time you put them to bed? Or conversely, not tired enough? Try playing with their bedtime a bit - change it 15 minutes or so at a time, earlier, later - whatever your gut tells you. See if any of that makes a difference. If this is a recent development, I bet it won't last long anyway. Babies are like that.

 

i didnt let my kids cry it out until they could roll over and stand in their cribs..

that wya i knew they were safe..

at that point i started a routine.. bath teeth story milk and bed..

and i turned on the bath water.. for back ground noise..

mind you they were 10 months old..

my kids do really well at bed time.. but i didnt start them early..

i would swaddle them and love them to pieces if they are as tiny as your ticker says

the lack of sleep stinks.. but..



when mine were that tiny.. i changed swaddled fed.. and layed them down..

at night i did a timly feeding 730. feed.. and put in a dark room.. close the door.. as they were drowsy..

i would sneek in and crash and then at 4 am i would wake change feed laydown..

then wake change feed laydown.. all in the dark (very dark)

then i would grab my work clothes and go to the living room to get dressed for wk..


its ok not to feed on demand at night..

i actually pumped right before bed 10pm and then fed at 4 am..

that way their was milk in the freezer for the next morning..

( got to wk - pumped 3x and came home) what was the point of going to wk???

many hugs to you.. i say enjoy them when they are little .. when they are bigger let em cio..

m

 

I wish I had more advice. My pedi also told me it was ok to CIO at 4 months. When I asked how long was too long to cry and when should I go in and see them, she said 2 hours. Well, that seemed a bit much to me. But we got lucky. We said goodnight, put them down, and left the room. (This was after the routine of bath and bottle). The thing we did differently was that we did not go in at all. We just let them cry. It was hard to hear, or course, but they NEVER cried more than 15 minutes max. Now, I don't know if this is normal (doesn't seem like it from other CIO stories), but that's how it was for us. And those 15 minutes SUCKED! But once they fell asleep, we didn't hear from them until 630am the next day. We've been doing this for a month. And they still cry sometimes when we put them down, but it's now like 2-3 minutes and they are out.

I do think you need to do what you feel comfortable doing as a parent. I'm not sure what my limit is, but I'm pretty sure it's less than 2 hours. That being said, we started this whole process at 4 months, and they are still wonderfully happy well adjusted kids. They still wake up and give mommy big smiles and lots of lovin' so I don't think they are angry at me for making them CIO! haha

Good luck!

 

I kinda think that 4 months is a little young for CIO. I did it more when they were sitting up around 7 months. We did always put them in their beds though when they were almost asleep up until that point. We still though have nights where the crying is 1/2 an hour long. It depends on their mood etc. :hug99: Wish I could give you more advice. I think that maybe right now might not be the right time to try it.

 

I think the fact that they were unswaddled may have contributed to the rewaking episode! We still swaddle ours for bed and naps (16 weeks), and we are just starting to wean them off the swaddle, so we leave one arm out. We tried going cold turkey, and they could fall asleep just fine, but they seemed to wake up a lot more and had a much harder time getting back to sleep.

I agree with other PP that they are a little young for a full blown CIO session. Ours self sooth themselves to sleep with the swaddle and without CIO, so it's possible. If you catch them at just the right sleepy moment it will make things a lot easier.

I'm sure plenty of people have mentioned this or you've read it on here before but Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby has some great advice and tips for accomplishing just what you are after.

Best of luck!
Suzi

 

I have to agree with several of the PP's that I think they're still a little young for CIO. Also, most twins are born early...I don't know when yours were born but I'm guessing not full term, so remember that adjusted age, they may even be closer to 3 months, and at this young age, it does make a difference. All the sleep advice is the Weisbluth book is according to their due date (for instance, 4 months after your due date, not their actual age). I know when mine were around 4 months, it was still taking us up to 1.5 hours before they were down for the count at night. I would nurse my son to sleep and then gently put him in his crib and put my hand on his face (that soothed him) for what seemed like forever until I knew for sure he wasn't going to wake back up. Then I'd sneak out, and hopefully that would be it, but often I had to go up there 2,3, or 4 more times before he was officially asleep until his next feeding. DD was much easier! All babies have such different temperaments, and I do beleive CIO was the only choice for my son, but we waited until they were 6 months. By then going down for the night had gotten so much better I only had to do CIO for his naps. And I did let him scream the whole hour once or twice, but it got so much better over that month and naps are so easy now! I do beleive conistency is the key....putting them down at the same times each day for naps and bedtime. But like I said, I tried so hard to do this at 4 months, and they just weren't ready for it!

I promise it really will get easier, but you might have to wait awhile longer...hang in there!

Jennifer

 

My response will probably have many people disagreeing with me but that's okay...it has worked wonders for us. Since the boys were about 4 weeks, we have always put them in bed awake, whether for naps or bedtime. I will say that recently when they were sick, we did rock them to sleep and it was a nightmare for 2 nights after they recovered going back to going to bed awake...it's amazing how quickly they get into a routine! Anyways, we did CIO early, too. We started by just letting it go for 10 minutes and then putting binky back in, etc. We let it go a little longer each night. Oh, we also started swaddling under their arms so they could have hands but still felt snug. After about a week of going in and out, we did CIO cold turkey. I'll be honest, I can't remember how long they cried b/c it was a rough 2 nights. But, it only last a couple nights and my boys started sleeping 10 hours + by 3 months and now they sleep 11-12 hours at night and take 2 big naps a day. By the way, I remember ours doing the falling asleep and then like 1 hour later starting up again. I think you have to follow your gut...if you think they are ready for it, do it. Oh and I would keep them in the same room....ours can sleep through anything now after learning to sleep through the screaming! Good luck!!

 

Have you tried the dreamfeed matched with the CIO?
If it were me, I'd:
Swaddle under the arms (like ksugal suggested)
Put them down after their last bottle of the evening (which was their 7pm bottle for us) so that was around 7:30 (they pretty much fell asleep with this bottle anyway).
At about 9ish before they wake up for their next bottle, quietly, take one out of the crib, change the diaper, ever so lightly, and feed (mine slept right thru it) and lay them back down and get the other and do the same thing.
If they aren't waking for a feeding they will up the length of time they can sleep.
Slowly lessen the amount of formula you give them at each dreamfeed until they don't need it anymore (this took about 1.5w for us).

Good luck!!

 

My DD was about 3 months.. she cried forever it seemed like.. But i still did swaddle her and i still did a bedtime routine.. Bottle, swaddle, rock for 10 mins.. then i layed her down.. It worked like a charm..

 

Weissbluth says you can try CIO at 12 weeks if your babies are through with colic. If it is a disaster, you can stop and try again in a week or so.

Your babies will cry a lot more time if you're going in to check on them every so often (a la Ferber), then if you leave them and let them cry and go to sleep. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but just so you know that you can't compare the amounts. (Ferber-ites would say that maybe they cry for longer, but they feel more secure -HSH people would say it's less stressful for their babies to just CIO with no interruption because of less total time crying and they learn it quicker).

To reduce the crying, I would recommend only making one major change at a time for your babies. For example, first get them used to sleeping without the swaddling. THEN, after a week of sleeping well w/o swaddling, try CIO.

 

Agree with pps that it's too early to CIO. Your sig says the babies were born at 36 weeks - so really they're a month younger than their chronological age in terms of maturity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against CIO, and I think some babies may need it at some point. In fact, that's what I do with DS for his naps. But now he's old enough to handle it. He blows off steam for a few minutes, then falls asleep. We gave it a few tries with CIO earlier on, and it was just horrible for everyone. He was simply too young. I think it started working for him around 4.5 mo corrected age.

If I were you, I'd keep helping them get to sleep for a while longer. Continue the swaddling & pacis if the babies like them.

Good luck!

 

QUOTE(Take Luck! @ Sep 18 2007, 04:54 PM) [snapback]413077[/snapback]
Weissbluth says you can try CIO at 12 weeks if your babies are through with colic. If it is a disaster, you can stop and try again in a week or so.
cure -HSH people would say it's less stressful for their babies to just CIO with no interruption because of less total time crying and they learn it quicker).

To reduce the crying, I would recommend only making one major change at a time for your babies. For example, first get them used to sleeping without the swaddling. THEN, after a week of sleeping well w/o swaddling, try CIO.


That's what I was going to say. Just pick one battle at a time. Right now we're in the middle of CIO as well (it sucks) but we decided to get them sleeping well and on a schedule before we tackled the swaddling thing. I'm right there with you in terms of babies not staying asleep. Mine will fall asleep great, but within 20 minutes or so they are awake and that's when the crying really starts. I personally think 4 months is ok for CIO (but if theyir adjusted age is 3 months, maybe waiting another few weeks will help) but you've gotta do what you feel good about!

Good luck!

Reyna

 

we are right behind you in terms of letting them cio. we have let them cry up to 30 minutes at bed time (once we have fed, changed, swaddled and soothed a little bit) they are usually asleep within 15 minutes. we have only had to do this a handful of times (when they are really overtired and didn't nap well) it is SO HARD...but they fall asleep for at least 6-7 hours.

HSHHC (wiessbluth) says you can start early but to avoid being too rigid... (he encourages moms of multiples to begin sleep training only 6 weeks after the EDD. then between 4-6 months you can let them cry for up to an hour at nap times. he says to not put a time limit on night time crying. (otherwise they begin to associate the time frame with being rescued)

a lot of people discourage cio at 4 months but from what i have read it is not unreasonable to try at that age... you will know if they are not readyfor it and like pp said you can try again in a few weeks. keep us posted!