When can i start CIO for night feedings?

The babies still get up 2x/night to eat, and we are exhausted. We put them to bed around 530-6pm, and they wake up anywhere between 1030-12 to feed the first time and then between 3-4 to feed the second time, and then wake up to start their day usually around 645am. It's usually dd that wakes up for the night feedings, and we then wake up ds to eat as I am scared that just when we finish with dd and get back to sleep that is when ds will wake up to eat. I can't handle waking up anymore at night. Last night dd woke at 10pm to eat, and I figured that was just to early so I let her fuss/cry until almost 11pm, then I couldn't handle it anymore and I fed them both. I guess I always thought that our babies would be sttn by now, I remember thinking at like 2months, only a few more months to go of night feedings, and here we are at 5.5mnths and still nowhere closer to sttn.

I am so tired from lack of consecutive sleep - when can I do CIO for nighttime feedings?

Both babies are easily double their birth weights, they eat about 5x/day (every 3-4hrs), and I have tried feeding them every 2hrs to get more feedings in, but it made no difference to their night wakings.
Sorry just needed to vent. I keep thinking that if they would just sttn the days would be easier...I feel like I have no life. I go to bed at like 730pm every night, I have no desire to go out in the evening past 7pm! Argh!

 

aaaah the memories! i was in your shoes with my two until they were 8 months old! they never slept through once, and still demanded a feed at least once a night. finally at 8 months i could take no more. i was mentally and physically exhausted (hubby suffers nocturnal deafness and never lost a minutes sleep to the babies!) in desperation i put them in a bedroom as far away from mine as i could so that if they carried on too much the noise wasnt as loud. from the very first night onwards the nightfeeds stopped. i dont know whether they woke and i just didnt hear them (the distance factor!) or whether they realised the gig was over! from then onwards, whenever they woke during the night,which did (and still does!) happen once most nights, i just went in and told them to go back to sleep. i think they realised i meant business. your babies arent hungry - it's a habit that needs breaking. i guess i was lucky with mine. if only i had been luckier at getting them to sleep completely through, but i figured getting up once to shush them was miles better than getting up sometimes twice to feed them!
they are now 2 years 7 months and sleep very well most nights!

good luck and i hope you find your solution fast- living that zombie-like half life is no fun.

 

The general rule of thumb for no more night feedings is 6 months old. What we did to wean the girls was slowly water down their formula over a few of weeks and then slowly decrease the amount in the bottle. It took a while but they finally stopped waking after a few months of getting only one ounce of water at each feeding (yes, they really held out until the end ).

To water down their formula, I replaced one ounce of formula with one ounce of water every 2-3 days until, eventually, they were only drinking water. Then I decreased the amount of water in the bottle by one ounce every 2-3 days. Our girls were 10 months old when they finally started sttn but they never had a single sleep problem after that. Good luck!

 

Our Doctor mentioned at our 6 month well baby, that if we wanted to try CIO, that it was "safe" to do it then. She explained that before 6 months, their little livers can't regulate their blood sugar effectively and if they wake and want to eat, we should be feeding them. After 6 months, their livers "kick in" and do the work, so night time feedings are no longer necessary. Just make sure when the time comes that they are getting enough during the day if you take away a feeding at night.

 

I'd be reluctant to do it. Waking only twice is actually really good at that age. And even HSHHC says that babies may need night feedings up to 9 months. If they're waking up, it's because they're hungry.

You totally need and deserve sleep! So how about having DH take over one of the night feedings?

 

We just did it last night with DS. My guys have been getting up at 11:30PM, 2:00AM and 5:00AM. It is killing us.
I did BF them both at 11:30PM but then when DS woke up at 2AM we let him cry for 45 minutes. It wasn't full blown
screaming; it was annoyed fussing. Had he been screaming, I probably would have gone in there.

DD is trickier! She is quite an active sleeper and gets arms and legs stuck in the slats of the crib and wakes up crying (we don't use a bumper). Anyhow, she gets upset when she gets stuck so I have no option but to pull her out and BF her to calm her down.

We put DS down last night at 6:45pm and he is still sleeping at 7:40AM. I have to figure something out about DD -- They really should be able to go longer than 3hrs at night!
Hope that helps -- our guys are just about the same age.

 

I agree with Holly. Talk to your pedi about it too because it depends on more than doubling their weight- like if they were born early, small, etc. They might need the extra nutrition since their little tummies can only take so much at a time. :hug99: and I hope you guys get some sleep soon.

 

I think waking twice a night at that age (and they were a couple of weeks early) is acceptable. They are probably waking out of hunger not habit at that age. Most books dont recommend CIO until they are about 6 months and even that differs with each baby. Good luck. I know that you need sleep-it will come!

 

No advice, just wanted to give you :hug99:

 

:hug99: What about doing a dream feed before you go to bed for the night? This way you don't have to be woken up?

 

My boys were ready at 5 1/2 months. Here is my story.

QUOTE(seamusnicholas @ Jul 23 2007, 03:24 PM) [snapback]341738[/snapback]
Around 5 1/2 months, I decided to try CIO. Before doing CIO, my boys would have their 7:00 bottle and then go to bed. Then they woke between 10-12am for another bottle AND then 2 times during the night. I came to the realization that they did not need to be eating that much at night anymore. They had 4 6-8 oz bottles during the day and solids twice a day. I finally realized they are eating out of habit and I could not do it anymore physically. My boys are big boys and were in no way lacking nutrition!

I decided that I would give them one bottle each after their 7:00 bottle if they woke up crying and then if they cried anytime after that, I just let them cry. We did that for about 2 weeks. After the first night of not feeding them after their last late night bottle, during the day they began to drink 8 oz consistently rather than sometimes 5 oz. Then, after those two weeks, we did a true CIO after their 7:00 bottle to eliminate all night feedings. They cried a little during the night but I just left them and they ended up sleeping anywhere between 6-7. When they woke in the morning, they were happy and not crying of hunger. That proved to me that they were eating out of habit.

So officially, I would say 6 months and 1 week until completely sleeping throught the night.

Also interesting was that I have heard if they wake to eat even if it is just a little, it is out of habit. My boys though were eating a lot at night. Well, I stopped feeding them anyways. My boys were in the higher weight percentile and my Dr. said they wont turn into skeletons if I didnt feed them in the middle of the night! So, even though my boys drank full bottles at night, with a few days of CIO, they didnt wake to eat anymore.
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Here are notes from my journal during this time:

On Tues, when they usually wake for their 1st middle of the night feeding, I let them CIO. I did not feel bad at all when I heard them cry. THis is because I knew they just ate and diaper changed. One slept right through the others cry and then the next hour the reverse happened. I also did not feel bad because I made the decision to CIO because I was so tired and it felt great to not get up and get a bottle! They basically cried on and off throughout the night.

The next night, they slept until 4 (huge for us!) and then I had them CIO. They woke at 6:00 and were ready for their bottle. The good thing is they ate 4 8oz bottles that day. They had room since they were not getting calories at night.

Last night they woke at 5:30 and i had them CIO until 6:00.

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We never went in to sooth them. I always felt like that would be taking a step backwards and they would expect me to come in when they cried. I wanted them to teach themselves how to fall asleep on their own and how to go back to sleep on their own after waking inthe middle of the night.

They sleep through each others cry to this day.

 

Can DH help you at night?

What I am doing is slowly reducing their formula for the night feeding by .5 ounce every 3 days. I then increase a day feeding by .5 oz as well, so they are getting the same amount daily, just at a different time.

I think they are still waking out of hunger, so I wouldn't do CIO. How many ounces are they taking total during the day?

 

QUOTE(isis @ Jul 15 2008, 01:05 AM) [snapback]877008[/snapback]
The babies still get up 2x/night to eat, and we are exhausted. We put them to bed around 530-6pm, and they wake up anywhere between 1030-12 to feed the first time and then between 3-4 to feed the second time, and then wake up to start their day usually around 645am. It's usually dd that wakes up for the night feedings, and we then wake up ds to eat as I am scared that just when we finish with dd and get back to sleep that is when ds will wake up to eat. I can't handle waking up anymore at night. Last night dd woke at 10pm to eat, and I figured that was just to early so I let her fuss/cry until almost 11pm, then I couldn't handle it anymore and I fed them both. I guess I always thought that our babies would be sttn by now, I remember thinking at like 2months, only a few more months to go of night feedings, and here we are at 5.5mnths and still nowhere closer to sttn.

I am so tired from lack of consecutive sleep - when can I do CIO for nighttime feedings?

Both babies are easily double their birth weights, they eat about 5x/day (every 3-4hrs), and I have tried feeding them every 2hrs to get more feedings in, but it made no difference to their night wakings.
Sorry just needed to vent. I keep thinking that if they would just sttn the days would be easier...I feel like I have no life. I go to bed at like 730pm every night, I have no desire to go out in the evening past 7pm! Argh!


What we did, starting around 2 1/2 months, was that when they (or one of them) woke up the first time, we put them in their swings. If they were really hungry, they'd let us know. If not, they'd drop off to sleep. Before we knew it, DD wasn't waking up until 4 am. DS wakes up for a paci but no bottle. DD slowly started STTN and has been doing it pretty consistently since about 3 months or so. She occasionally has a couple days where she wakes up for a bottle at 4ish. DS doesn't need a bottle overnight but will wake up crying. Usually we put him in his swing and he sleeps peacefully the rest of the night. It's getting later and later that he wakes up crying and he's slept through a couple nights, so I think we are on the way. I don't know if it would work starting at 5.5 months or not, I don't think it is an approved method of sleep training, but for us, it has worked fairly well with no crying. I still need to get DS STTN, but I think he's on his way - I hope. I live in fear of the day that they are too big for the swings.

 

I might be in the minority but my peditrican said we could sleep train at 4 months. Mine were more than double their birth weights (5 pounds each) when she said that. She said it would take 3 days and she was right. They cried for 1.5 hours the first night (complete torture), 30 minutes the second night and 10 minutes the third night. Now they go to bed at 7 and get up between 5:30-6. It's still too early for me but they are thriving...up to almost 20 pounds at nearly 9 months and happy as clams!

It's a horrible 3-day period but the end result is happier mommy, daddy and babies!

 

I also think it happens to be hereditary how well they sleep. My DH and I were both great sleepers and we have been lucky with our kids as well. Rachel was just under 4 pounds at birth and slept through the night at 12 weeks...Danielle was 10 weeks. Now, Natalie is 7 weeks and started sleeping through the night. I think they are capable of doing it much earlier than the 6 months so my philosophy is give it a try for three days and see if it works. I haven't had to do anything with Natalie, but with Rachel, I gave her some water in a bottle and that seemed to do the trick. She was sleeping through, just not consistently so I knew it was possible. Good luck and give it a try.

 

We are breastfeeding, so the bottle/formula/water option doesn't work for us. But I like the idea of trying cio for 3 nights and see what happens, if it doesn't work then they weren't quite ready. I think ds will get it fairly quickly, but dd will be the tough one. Thanks for all the ideas!

 

here is the update - last night dh and I decided we were going to do something, what we weren't quite sure tho! So, we did a dreamfeed with the babies before we went to bed at around 830pm, and then hoped that would tide them over past their normal 1am feeding. Well guess what, at 1am, dd woke up and screamed. So, I thought she can't be all that hungry, it must be more out of habit - so we got out the soothers (we have never really used soothers, as they have never really liked them), and were all ready to go and try use them, when dd fell back asleep. She screamed for about 6 min, and that was it - then she fell back asleep until 4am!
So, it kind of worked, we let her fuss/cry for 6min and back to sleep she went for another 3hrs - so I think she is not always hungry when she wakes up (hard to tell sometimes because she will always bf). So tonight I think we will try the same thing again and see what happens. NOt sure if the dreamfeed helped or not, but we are going to do it again tonight anyway!

 

Just wanted to send some :hug99: for you being so exhausted. I hope you have the same or better luck tonight! :hug99:

 

I would try it for at least one of the middle of the night feedings. Good luck. Hope they STTN for you real soon.

Dianna

 

Well I'm glad it sort of worked last night! 6 minutes of crying is not much, that does sound like habit to me. Follow your instincts, you know what is best for your babies and it sounds like things might be looking up!