I'm a baby rocker......how do I stop??

Help! I've spoiled my babies by always rocking them to sleep. How can I get them to learn to sleep on their own? I tried CIO for a week, and it didn't get any better with each passing day. They would cry for an hour. Did anyone else find themself in this situation?

 

Help! I've spoiled my babies by always rocking them to sleep. How can I get them to learn to sleep on their own? I tried CIO for a week, and it didn't get any better with each passing day. They would cry for an hour. Did anyone else find themself in this situation?

 

I wish I had a suggestion, but I don't. I also rock my little ones and lately have tried just putting them down in their cribs. I have not tried CIO. When they cry in their crib, I tend to stay with them. I need help too!

 

Tickers don't seem to be working, so I can't tell how old your babies are, but they may have been too young for CIO if they were less than 6 months or so. There are also lots of progressive ways to do it -- it's not cold-turkey or nothing. I think Richard Ferber's book is supposed to be good for this; I've heard good things about The No-Cry Sleep Solution (by Pantley, I think) for a gentler approach; and Sleeping Through the Night by Mindell is sort of in the middle. You have to do what feels right to you -- you're not spoiling them or being a pushover by rocking them and/or staying with them. You will find something that works for all of you, but you may have to try a few different approaches. HTH.

 

I can soooooooo relate! I was in the exact same situation. I had spoiled my babies by rocking them to sleep, and quickly realized that I simply cannot afford to do that. It was terrible, and very stressful to get them to sleep, cuz I knew that they would not fall asleep unless rocked. I am not a fan of CIO, so that was not an option. A friend of mine suggested that I stop slowly. What I did was, rock each baby a little bit, until they started getting sleepy, and put them down in the crib while they were still awake. It was tough the first few days, cuz they would just start screaming all over again. I just picked them up, and did the same thing over. It's been two weeks now, and we are doing much better. The babies are slowly learning to fall asleep on their own, and bedtime is much more peaceful now.

Good luck!

 

I did the same thing with my first, and won't do it with the twins. I would put them in swings or bouncie seats and hold hands, rub bellies, comfort them, but do not pick them up. You can even put your hands around them so they feel kind of held. You need to ease them into falling asleep without being held. It's quite a shock to go from rocking to sleep to CIO in a crib. Once they will go asleep in swing or bouncie seat with your help, start letting them do it without but with you right there. Then work on the crib.

 

I would 2nd the pp's advice -- we are in the process of easing ours out of needing to be held. We rock or walk until they are almost out and then put them down while holding a hand firmly on their chest/tummy and one on their head. If it doesn't work we pick them up and start again. The goal is to put them down when they are less and less asleep (we started with eyes almost fully closed) so they gradually get used to sleeping without rocking. I'm alone during the day, so that process can be time consuming and difficult to juggle with two, so I usually rock one all the way to sleep and work with the other one.

We have the No Cry Sleep Solution and the advice in it seems great (ours aren't old enough for any full interventions so we haven't really started using it). My sister used it with her dd and says it works -- it takes some time, but her kids are now settling on their own and sleeping through.

 

Thanks to everyone who replied. The word "spoiled" gives a negative connotation. I don't think what I've done was necessarily bad, but I've just found myself in a corner I didn't think about when they were born. In those first sleep-deprived months I did anything to get them to sleep, and I'd do it again!

I have just ordered the No Cry book. I have the Weissbluth book. I'm not sure I can handle CIO. I don't think it's necessarily bad, just may not be the approach that works for us. Thanks for your comments, NYCMom, because I am also alone with them during the day. And since they share a room, I can't console two at once. I'll have to try your method.

 

quote:
Originally posted by acboyette:
Thanks to everyone who replied. The word "spoiled" gives a negative connotation. I don't think what I've done was necessarily bad, but I've just found myself in a corner I didn't think about when they were born. In those first sleep-deprived months I did anything to get them to sleep, and I'd do it again!

I have just ordered the No Cry book. I have the Weissbluth book. I'm not sure I can handle CIO. I don't think it's necessarily bad, just may not be the approach that works for us. Thanks for your comments, NYCMom, because I am also alone with them during the day. And since they share a room, I can't console two at once. I'll have to try your method.


I don't think you can truly spoil infants, and I don't think you did anything wrong at all. I did the exact same thing with my first, and I think it's a natural inclination. I only avoided it this time because of the tough time I had getting my daughter off of it. And I am sure any baby would prefer rocking to sleep any day of the week! heheh... It just gets to a point and an age where it's less and less practical. Good luck! I also read the No Cry Sleep Solution, and there are tons of great ideas and advice in there.

 

I don't think you can spoil infants up to a certain age, but I could see the manipulation in mine at around 7 to 8 months. When they learn to cry only for attention, IMO that is when they have learned what crying gets them. Not just crying b/c there are other examples too, but babies learn only by what we teach them, and so naturally a baby cries, we pick that baby up and go through the necessary processes to get the baby to stop...eventually that baby figures out if he/she cries that means someone is going to pick me up. Nothing wrong with that but that is just how it works. Anyways, to get back on subject...oh I miss my girls being younger, but from 3.5 months to about 6.5 is not a time I want to relive. I would crawl onto the couch or in the bed and place one of them on my chest and the other I cradled in my free arm, and I would bounce/rock them until they fell asleep. That is how they learned to go to sleep, and they needed that everytime to be able to fall asleep. When they finally did fall asleep, I couldn't move or else one or both of them would wake up That was a really hard time for us. As soon as I felt they were ready and I was ready, I let them CIO...first I tried rubbing their backs until they fell back to sleep, but I nearly broke mine bending over to comfort them...so I went all out CIO, and with some consistency, it worked very well and fast. It was the best decision I could have made. You just have to find what works best for you, and what you are comfortable doing. Hang in there...it will get easier...and well, then it gets harder again