My CIO success story

I wrote about a month ago for advice on CIO, and wanted to share the rest of the story. Our twins slept well for the first 3 months - they were up twice a night to eat, and we always woke one so we could feed them together. By 3.5 months, they were often up only once a night, and once they even slept through the night. Then we stopped swaddling at 3.5 months and we started feeding them separately with the hope that one or the other would start sleeping through the night (it seemed like we were typically waking my boy twin when my girl woke). As a result, we were up 1-2x a night with our boy twin, and 2x a night with our girl twin. We started to get very sleep deprived as we were going from 1-2 feedings a night to 3-4! We kept thinking it would get better, but by five months, nothing had changed AND they both started to wake earlier to feed, and our girl twin started to wake and fuss for no reason. We even started to feed rice cereal at night in the hopes that they would sleep better, but it only helped a little. Finally, at 5.5 months, a night came where neither of us could bare to get up. We had done CIO with our first, so we knew what to expect. We found with our first that going in to "comfort" the baby only prolonged the process, so we checked them to make sure they were safe, and then did not go back into the nursery. Our boy twin (the one who was only up 1-2x a night) cried for 45-75 minutes a night for the first 4 nights (my first only took 3 nights, so this was not what we expected). Then he slept through the night! Our girl twin (the bad sleeper) only cried for about 10 minutes the first 2 nights, then she slept through the night!! The crying did not wake the other twin, nor did it wake our four year old. Now the twins are sleeping though the night AND they are napping in their cribs during the day (went ahead and let them cry for that too once the night sleeping was under control - only took about 10 minutes of crying the first couple of times). Both twins have been waking up in the morning well rested and with sunny dispositions. We find them playing in their cribs!! I should add that my twins are good sized - 50th percentile for height and weight, so they were ready to go 12 hours without eating from a size persepctive. So, thought I'd share our sleep saga in case it helps anyone.

 

it's such a mixed feeling, isn't it? on the one hand you're feeling :yahoo: because your children are finally sleeping and they've learned how to stay asleep, which is a healthy lesson to learn. on the other hand it's agonizing to go through.

good for you for making a decision you were comfortable with and sticking to it. way to go, mama! :clapping:

 

So glad you are sleeping more! Having been through it myself, it is so rewarding to see happier smiling babies and know that they feel better now that they are getting the rest they need! Congrats!

 

I hope we have a success story too! I finally decided to go ahead with CIO yesterday s I am a walking zombie from being kept up all night with my triplets. They wake up sporadically and wake each other up each time. This started recently, as one of them used to sleep through the night and now he wakes up too! Wish me luck!
-Julie, Mommy to Noah, Emmett & Hudson, 5 months

 

Wow! I so admire you because I can't imagine 3!!! My best advice for you is to do something to distract yourself because I can imagine it gets pretty loud with 3 crying. I used to go in the basement where our computer is and only turn the monitor on every couple minutes. That way I wasn't too tempted to go in there and pick them up. Good luck

 

You have inspired me and now I am doing it with my twins. Let's see how it goes

 

Congratulations on such success!

We started a modified CIO last week, and it has started to help the girls (5.5 months) sleep better at night, but they're still not sleeping through the night. We end up soothing them multiple times between midnight and 4am. Granted, they are easily soothed with a paci popped in the mouth and a pat on the back, but DH and I still wish we didn't have to get up 10 times a night.

I need some advice on what to do when they wake up in the middle of the night. Should I keep checking and consoling, or should I let them CIO then as well?

 

Way to go! CIO is tough, but it's sooo worth it. Doesn't it feel amazing when you actually get a solid night sleep??

 

Congratulations on success! Isn't it amazing?!?! I did CIO at six months old for my boys-one night and that was it. I too did not go in-I felt it would just prolong the process. I couldn't do it with Annabella though. She was a different story-just goes to show that all kids are different. She had spurts where she would go a week or two without waking, and then she'd wake 5 of 7 nights. Finally at 12 months, that resolved itself! :laughing:

As to the bolded, have you stopped feeds? I came to a decision to stop feeds with the boys when they were consistently NOT eating. It would be one ounce one night, or three ounces another. But never a full bottle. Annabella on the other hand-ALWAYS had a full feed in the middle of the night.

When we did the one night of CIO-we let them CIO and didn't check. I could differentiate between the cries, so that helped too.

 

Well, you know what my answer will be I do think that babies can learn to self-soothe at this age without a paci. We have not heard a peep from either of ours in the past week. They wake up happy and smiley, and I think they are getting better, more consolidated sleep.

 

We have stopped feeding them at night. We had gone from two to one feeding at around three months, and then they just stopped taking the bottle all together at four. Usually when we put them down for the night, there won't be a peep for a good three to four hours, but then one or both will start to cry, so we'll let them CIO for up to an hour. After the hour has passed, we'll console...but we usually don't have to console for another couple of hours (and now that we've been at it for a couple of weeks, they rarely cry for more than a couple of minutes).

I keep thinking I should just let them cry when they wake up after the initial crying, but I always find myself getting up and checking on them anyway.