Sleep training methods/ CIO?

[mels823]

Who is doing this? Who is thinking of starting?

Background: LO is currently 5 1/2 months. Used to sleep through the night, until her crib transition. (Sttn really means that she would wake up occassionally but since she was in the rnp next to me i'd pop in a binkie and she would fall back asleep).

Now that she is in the crib, I have been giving her a bottle once during the middle of the night.  She sleeps from around 7 pm until 1 AM, has the bottle, then back to bed until 6 AM.  Sometimes she only has an ounce or two.  I really don't think she needs the bottle, I think it's just routine at this point. 

Is anyone letting theirs CIO? How is that going? I am scared that she will not ever get past this bottle in the middle of the night phase.  Suggestions?? Curious to hear what all of you ladies are doing, have done, or plan on doing!

[aggiebug]

So I really think CIO depends on the child. Some kids it will never work for while others it really is the best way for them.

DD has led us down that path because it is what works for her, but she sleeps well once asleep. CIO is more for falling asleep. She will be an inconsolable mess in our arms and we put her down and she is asleep in 5 minutes. Just because that is what works for DD doesn't mean it works for all babies.


IT does sound like the bottle is for soothing and not for sustenance. A few thoughts I had that may or may not work for you.

Do you have a white noise machine? For some babies that is all they need to help them fall back asleep.


You may also just go in a soothe her without a bottle, give her the pacifier and maybe pat her back or even pick her up and rock her until she is settled again. This may need H's help if she associates you with MOTN food.

One thing I have read is that for some kiddos its a timing thing. So they wake up at 1am like clockwork so you try to drag out when they get a bottle to 1:10 or 1:15 at first, and you slowly make it later and later until she drops it entirely.

[mands1125]

Not yet really. I let her "fuss it out" for like 5 minutes but then I go into her room. If she doesn't start sleeping good again soon, we are going to start something around 6ish months.

[miniwheat]

Personally, I till think our kids are a bit young for sleep training. If I sleep train it will be closer to 9 or 10 months.

I think that lots of babies this age still can only do about 6 hours between feedings. I plan to continue to give my DS 2 bottles at night until he is at least a couple months older. My oldest didn't drop off her night feeds until she had a varied diet of solid foods so I anticipate DS to be the similar.

[aggiebug]

miniwheat I agree except she was STTN until she was transitioned to a new bed so I feel like this is more about learning to self soothe than to sleep train if that makes sense. I don't think I could do full force sleep training at this age but encouraging her to work on soothing herself yeah I can do that.

[miniwheat]

aggiebug, Agreed. And I think also, we only know our own kids, so all of our answers are going to be so different cause we only have a good idea what our kid needs. I know my kids aren't sleepers, so I don't force the impossible on them. I just keep on trying and secretly feel super jealous of the STTN babies!

Just from doing this once already, I know that eventually they and we figure it all out so I feel more comfortable just letting it be with this baby, But I am so tired!!

[misshart00]

I just wish my kid had some consistency. Sometimes, he'll sleep 11 hours and other times, he'll sleep three. DD was always a good sleeper so I'm pretty used to that.

[osumegs]

We are doing sleep sense and started it last week when she was around 4.5 months. We always said we couldn't do a cio method of any sort. This is a modified one where you are there comforting them. We had tried several other forms of getting her to sleep, and she wasn't responsive. She may not have been ready for sleep training, but our previous method of nursing to sleep was resulting in an hr of her screaming anyways. We decided to give it a go to see how she responded. She did really well. Yes, we did have 45 min of crying and comforting touch for the first night which broke my heart. However, it was still less crying than when I was nursing her to sleep. Second night it took 13 min, 3rd night 2 minutes.

[osumegs]

Oh and also we are still doing 1 MOTN feed. We didn't feel comfortable with her weight issues dropping it yet.

[MommyOfAMiracle]

The bottle in the MTTN is probably comfort since she's used to you being closer to her. If that's what comforts her right now, then I don't see a problem with it. If that's what's working, then I would let it be.
She will slowly become more independent as time goes on.

Just my opinion.

[mishka29]

We've done the sleep sense training program.

IMO, sleep trainig is about learning to self soothe not about sleeping through the night. Once they learn to self soothe they sleep better bc when they wake up and aren't hungry they go back by themselves.

My LO puts herself to sleep at naps and bed time. Before she would only nap with my nipple in her mouth - every single nap. She does not STTN, we usually do one feed maybe two. When I'm done I put her back in the crib and she puts herself to sleep.

If you don't think she needs the bottle then trying waiting 5 min, then next night try 8, then 10. See how it goes.

[mels823]

Thanks for all of the responses!

I think this week I'll keep doing things the way I have been, and on Friday night I will try just comforting her until she falls back asleep (since I won't have to worry about being sleep deprived at work the next day). I'm going to look into this sleep sense thing!

[duckker]

Since we got her a zipadeezip, she's been sleeping until 3 am or so and then waking to feed. A couple of nights, she's slept through until 5:30 or 6 (usually when she was swimming the afternoon before). My mom suggested that if she doesn't drop the 3 am feed on her own to sub a few ounces of water. (I don't think she needs to eat--she's really halfassed about it and usually passes out after 5-10 minutes.) Apparently, mom did this with all five of us, and after a few nights we decided it wasn't worth waking up for. She noted this was the ONLY thing about parenting that worked for all of the kids...

[mommadozer]

aggiebug we are in the same boat. DS has been sleeping in his crib and through the night since 3 months minus the 4 month old sleep regression.

CIO does not work for DS. UGH! We were in the car last night on the second leg of our 5 hour drive home, DS would not stop crying. DH kept saying DS will CIO and fall asleep. Nope, nope, nope. I had to stroke his hair behind his ear to calm him down and he finally fell asleep. CIO definitely does not work on all babies.

DS is 5 months and he is figuring out bedtime on his own now. If you stick with the same time and routine, it should click for most LOs.

[junebugjam]

Jun 29, 2015 9:13:10 GMT -5 misshart00 said:

I just wish my kid had some consistency. Sometimes, he'll sleep 11 hours and other times, he'll sleep three. DD was always a good sleeper so I'm pretty used to that.

This is my child. We did Sleep Sense almost a month ago, which I know is young, but he would sleep one 3 hour chunk and then be up hourly. What I find though is sleep training is more about going to sleep on your own than STTN. He STTN a few times, but now has a pretty consistent pattern of up twice a night to eat, although the times in between vary.

Anyway, to answer your original question, I have done sleep training but it sounds like your kid still sleeps better than mine so I probably won't be much help.

ETA: now that I've read all the other responses I agree with what mishka29 said re: sleep training. Even though I feed him MOTN, I just lay him down when he's done and he puts himself back to sleep. Puts himself to sleep for bedtime and naps also.

[wimcgrath]

We did a Ferber type method for when DD regressed (she had been STTN for a while and then suddenly would wake up- wasn't hungry, just wanted comfort). It worked and she's much better at self soothing in the middle of the night.
However, we are currently going through an epic nap war. I went back to work for 3 weeks (teacher- end of school year), and DD regressed back to only napping in her swing. I started CIO today for naps so that she can get to sleep on her own in the crib. It has been a rough day.

[lotsofdotts]

I put Brady down for a nap today while he was still awake. The pedi said I should start trying that so that he would learn to go to sleep without nursing or rocking so that he won't have so much trouble when he goes to daycare. He did cry and we let him go. After 7 minutes he went to sleep. He never had any frantic cries or anything really bad, so it worked today. We will try it again, but I am not going to just let him cry horribly for a long period of time.

[abseptember]

I'm in a different boat than most since I have twins. For my older DD, CIO never worked, she eventually started sleeping. The boys were sleeping 6-8 hrs straight but the stretches are getting shorter and shorter. Like 3-4 hrs the last several nights and I know they aren't hungry. We will likely try CIO bc I am solo on night duty and comforting 2 babies at the same time is kind of impossible. They are now sleeping on their bellies and I think they are still getting used to it even though they get there by choice.

[FlutterOfYoshis]

osumegs, mishka29, junebugjam, When you did Sleep Sense was it a book, a paid subscription to a program,...? I'm trying to look into it myself.

[mishka29]

Jun 30, 2015 16:23:28 GMT -5 FlutterOfYoshis said:

osumegs, mishka29, junebugjam, When you did Sleep Sense was it a book, a paid subscription to a program,...? I'm trying to look into it myself.

I googled sleep sense training program PDF (hint hint). If you go to the website I think you can order it and videos. Junebug knows more about it than me

[osumegs]

FlutterOfYoshis I paid just to have access to the videos because dh will not read stuff I give him. He's lazy like that. The pdf had everythjng you need though

[misshart00]

I just accidentally did CIO. I put DS down and he was fussing/crying but i decided that I would rock him or whatever after I changed DD for bed. By the time DD had pjs on, DS was out. Hope it sticks.

[junebugjam]

Jun 30, 2015 16:23:28 GMT -5 FlutterOfYoshis said:

osumegs, mishka29, junebugjam, When you did Sleep Sense was it a book, a paid subscription to a program,...? I'm trying to look into it myself.

I googled sleep sense and bought the "program." It's basically just buying access to the info and there are different levels. For $19 (I think) you can get the pdf of the book (but if you can get it for free just by googling like mishka said I'd totally do that). I paid $47 for the book + videos, but I didn't watch the videos after day one so I can't say they were really necessary. Then there's a higher level that includes more but I don't remember what exactly.

If I could go back I would just do the book. It was a very quick read and I felt like it was all that's necessary.

[missys]

I'm thinking of doing sleep sense as well. For those who are sleep training, are you still swaddling and is LO in their room? I'm trying to figure out what to tackle first or if I should combine some of these. I know I need to deswaddle at some point and move O into his room as well as let him learn to self soothe. Any suggestions on what to take in what order?

[junebugjam]

Jul 3, 2015 18:20:02 GMT -5 missys said:

I'm thinking of doing sleep sense as well. For those who are sleep training, are you still swaddling and is LO in their room? I'm trying to figure out what to tackle first or if I should combine some of these. I know I need to deswaddle at some point and move O into his room as well as let him learn to self soothe. Any suggestions on what to take in what order?

My LO is unswaddled (went cold turkey) but we do use the Merlin suit. Once he starts rolling consistently I will probably have to give that up too but for now it's a big help. He sleeps in his own room for all naps and bed. We did naps and bedtime at the same time and kept it consistent with his crib so he knew crib means sleep. He has since slept in the pack and play at my in-laws and done fine there too.

I would do all transitions at once (swaddle/room). Self-soothing with come with practice.

[mishka29]

Jul 3, 2015 18:20:02 GMT -5 missys said:

I'm thinking of doing sleep sense as well. For those who are sleep training, are you still swaddling and is LO in their room? I'm trying to figure out what to tackle first or if I should combine some of these. I know I need to deswaddle at some point and move O into his room as well as let him learn to self soothe. Any suggestions on what to take in what order?

I was co-sleeping with LO until about a week before we did our sleep training. Then I started her in the crib at bedtime but would bring her to bed with me after first wake up. We cut the swaddle cold turkey. I'd probably recommend this to you as well.

I don't think it hurts to try and start the transition so they are familiar with their crib and sleeping in it. But if it doesn't work out then don't stress.

[FlutterOfYoshis]

Piggy-backing off of @missys question--when you ladies started sleep training did you do both nighttime and naptime training at the same time? Or did you do nighttime only and do whatever worked to get LO to catch up on sleep during the day?

[wimcgrath]

Jul 3, 2015 20:05:25 GMT -5 FlutterOfYoshis said:

Piggy-backing off of @missys question--when you ladies started sleep training did you do both nighttime and naptime training at the same time? Or did you do nighttime only and do whatever worked to get LO to catch up on sleep during the day?

I did nighttime first and am now tackling naps, but I think I should've done it all at once to make it a clearer thing.

[junebugjam]

Jul 3, 2015 20:05:25 GMT -5 FlutterOfYoshis said:

Piggy-backing off of @missys question--when you ladies started sleep training did you do both nighttime and naptime training at the same time? Or did you do nighttime only and do whatever worked to get LO to catch up on sleep during the day?

I did it at the same time. I read that it would be confusing to the baby if he got rocked/nursed/whatever to sleep for naps but not bed. Took longer for naps to get easier but I'm glad we tackled them at the same time.

[osumegs]

I dropped the merlin suit at the same time. First night was rough but it got better. We did night training the first night, then started naps the same day. The naps seem to come and go on success rate, but it helped us to do all at once.