You’ve gotten your head around what sleep training means and then possibly came to the conclusion that CIO is the answer to your particular sleep issues. The next big hurdle is figuring out which method of CIO is right for you? And by “right for you” I mean that it:
A) Solves the problem of having your child fall asleep without you
B) Is something you and your partner can successfully execute (minimal user error)
C) Involves the least amount of crying possible
Luckily the list of CIO options is rather short. In fact there are really only 2, which you are probably familiar with from reading Ferber and Weissbluth.
The Ferber Method
Check and console comes in many varieties but probably the most well-known is outlined by Dr. Ferber and in case you aren’t familiar, I’m including it here. You put baby in the crib and leave the room. However you make brief consoling visits (~15 seconds, a few kind words, back rub, then leave) according to the schedule below.
From Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, Richard Ferber, MD. (p. 74)
| Day | At First Wait | Second Wait | Third Wait | Subsequent Waits |
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 10 |
| 2 | 5 | 10 | 12 | 12 |
| 3 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 15 |
| 4 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 17 |
| 5 | 15 | 17 | 20 | 20 |
| 6 | 17 | 20 | 25 | 25 |
| 7 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 30 |
Vanilla CIO
AKA Weissbluth method, where you kiss baby on the head, tell them you love them, put them gently in their crib, and walk out of the room.
CIO Comparison
| Name | Ferberizing | Weissbluth/CIO |
| Also known as… | Graduated Extinction, Check and Console, Controlled Crying | Extinction, no-peek |
| How to: | Return to child every X minutes to console for ~15 seconds then leave. | Put baby in crib, walk out, close the door. The end. |
| Pros: | Parents feel less guilty because they are providing some degree of soothing. | Less likely to unintentionally reinforce crying with ongoing intervention. |
| Cons: | Intervention may lead to longer crying by sending mixed signals | Parents feel generally crappy about it. |
Which Method is Best
For situations where CIO is appropriate, I’ve long been a staunch proponent of Weissbluth/CIO method over “Ferberizing” because I’ve observed that Ferberizing has two significant downsides:
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Prolonged Crying
Some (most?) babies tend to amp up when they see you. On a 10-point scale, if a baby is crying at level 7 and Mom walks in the door, that baby is often going to jump to level 11. So Mom’s well-meaning presence is often working against the goal of minimizing crying. Also going to your crying baby can also have the unintended consequence of reinforcing the crying. Psychology majors are probably familiar with the term intermittent reinforcement. The basic idea is that if you reinforce (by coming in to soothe) the negative behavior (crying) intermittently (every 5, 7, 10, 12 minutes) it will continue longer than if you never went back in to the room at all. Weissbluth also maintains that “full extinction” results in less crying overall.
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User Error
The more times you go in to pick up your crying child the more opportunities for the dark well of parental guilt you are feeling to suck you in so that you go back to whatever soothing behavior (rocking, nursing, etc.) you were trying to get out of when you started down this path. And each time this happens you are vastly increasing the chance that the next time (and rest assured there WILL be a next time) you try CIO it will be a horrendous prolonged nightmare for all. When you see people on baby forums talking about how CIO for them was a total disaster, I can almost guarantee that the underlying issue was user error.
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For these reasons, I’ve generally been an advocate for the Weissbluth/extinction method of CIO. So as with most things I went on the Internet to look for validation of my own personal brilliance which included reading the most current academic research on CIO (links at end of post). What I learned from the academic research is this…
Research on Cry it Out
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You are in good company.
About 25-50% of babies over 6 months and 33% of toddlers/preschoolers have “sleep problems” (i.e. bedtime is a nightmare, they wake up repeatedly at night, or both).
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It’s not about food.
Newborns ABSOLUTELY need to be and SHOULD be fed on demand, at night. But when your almost 1 year old is nursing all night long, you don’t have an unusually hungry kid. You have a sleep problem.
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Thing generally don’t get better by themselves.
It would be awesome if kids would just outgrow the “terrible sleeper” phase all on their own. It would also be cool if they would make you a killer martini. However neither of these things is going to happen.
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Your non-sleeping baby/toddler will grow into a non-sleeping kid.
You can deal with the issue now or three years from now because it’ll still be there.
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Not sleeping is a big deal to your kid.
It impacts their mood, development, learning, performance and health. Seriously, it’s important.
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When your kid sleeps everything get’s better
Kids who are sleeping are more secure, predictable, and less irritable. Also? Sleep training doesn’t impact consumption of breastmilk (yay!).
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Cry It Out Works
Baby forums are bursting with CIO horror stories (was horrible! didn’t work! have to re-train every time the kid sneezes!). Which is a shame because the academic research on this sort of “behavioral modification treatment” shows that almost without exception, it does work.
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What I DIDN’T find was any evidence that one method works better than the other. But there is ample evidence that either method works just fine.
Least Amount of Crying
Of course the single most important question is: does one method result in less crying than the other? Because while “solves the sleep problem” is our #1 goal, minimal crying is easily the #2. I could find nothing that answered this question so I asked Dr. Jodi Mindell, psychologist who specializes in pediatric sleep medicine and is the associate director of the Sleep Center at Children’s hospital in Philadelphia. Because she was the primary investigator on much of the cry it out research and is also the author of the popular book Sleeping Through the Night. Her response?
[pullquote type=”1″ align=”center”]
Unfortunately those studies comparing duration of crying have not been done, at least as far as I know. – Jodi
[/pullquote]
Bummer.
So while I’ve been vocally pro-no-peek for years, apparently both work fine and you can choose whichever method works for you and your kid. But here are a few parting thoughts that may help you figure out which method is best for you.
Which CIO Method is Right for You?
[list type=”checklist”]
- If you go to your child periodically will you be able to leave after JUST 15 seconds of soothing?
- Does your baby cry more or less if you enter the room (and not pick them up, nurse, rock, etc.)?
- Can you let your baby cry and resist the urge to peek/intervene?
- Does not going in to your baby feel unimaginably wrong to you?
- Have you dabbled with CIO before? (If yes then I strongly encourage you to go with the no-peek/intervention method).
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Anybody have any thoughts on one method vs. another? Experiences or lessons learned you care to share?
[box type=”blank” class=”border-dashed2″]Sources:
Behavior Management of Infant Sleep Disburbances
Efficacy of an Internet-Based Intervention for Infant and Toddler Sleep Disturbances
Practice Parameters for Behavioral Treatment of Bedtime Problems and Night Wakings in Infants and Young Children
Empirically Supported Treatments in Pediatric. Psychology: Bedtime Refusal and Night Wakings in Young Children[/box]
I tried both. My son is a scream louder after I leave the room no matter how much soothing I’m trying to do. I feel horrible but I know my son. If he doesn’t go to sleep after 15 minutes of crying then he’s not tired enough or overtired. I think it’s about two things, knowing your child and realizing that it simply can’t be true that crying for 15-30 minutes will not screw up years of love and support for your children.
Agreed and well said!
This is one of the most convoluted posts I have ever read. Double negative makes no sense. Whatever point you are trying to make is unclear.
Personally, the ferber method worked for us, but only until my daughter was 8 months old. Then she started to cry longer and we switched to weisbluth. Hate hearing her cry but she cries less than half as long with weisbluth.
We did a version of the Ferber method and after a few short weeks our kids both have slept just fine.
Now if our 2yo cries, it’s usually for a reason. Although if I can’t figure out a reason I’ll let her cry it out these days.
http://dirtyrottenparenting.com/2012/01/21/co-sleeping-is-for-wimps/
I like to give older kids (2+) 1-2 callbacks. Lovey fell out of the bed? OK I’ll come get it. Thirsty? OK here’s some water. Still futzing about in there? Now we’ve got a limit setting problem at which point I use my words to say something like, “This is the last time I’m coming in. I love you, have good sleep, and I’ll see you with kisses in the morning!”
At that point, if I don’t hear the smoke detector, I’m not going back in ;P
Hi, we started CIO at 7 weeks with our son the Weissbluth way and i can say it was the best decision we ever made. Before we did CIO our son used to not sleep at all during the day and wanted to be held all the time but just after a week the problem has been solved. He will still sometimes fuzz for a couple of minutes but go to sleep afterwards and wake up much happier than before. Yes it was very hard in the beginning but all worth it at the end.
I’m not generally an advocate of CIO for such young babies but I’m glad the outcome for you was such a positive one!
We did the same with our daughter and she has been an awesome sleeper since! I feel like a better parent because of it. Our daughter is now 17 months, has been great at self soothing since a very young age and I think is a more agreeable, happier baby because of her sleep habits.
Main question about CIO: My almost 5 month old goes to sleep just fine without us, swaddled and in a dark room. BUT! She wakes up 2-4 times in the middle of the night. I only try to feed her once, but often need to feed her twice or it doesn’t seem like she’ll go back to sleep. My husband always “gives it a go” before I eventually feed her. We are currently trying to ween her off feedings (ferber method – on day four), and she’s doing okay… but still wakes up crying even when I know she’s not hungry. How does CIO apply to middle of the night? It seems like it’s always discussed only in the “going to bed” context. Do we just ignore her when she cries in the middle of the night and hope our upstairs neighbor doesn’t hate us?
I think Ferber is discussed as a “bedtime” thing because it’s a tool for helping babies learn to fall asleep (at bedtime) without you. It sounds like what you are trying to do is wean off night feedings. This can be a rocky task with CIO because if you have a legitimately hungry baby the crying can go on for a looong time.
If things aren’t going more easily for you I would suggest a more gradual approach outlined here:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
If she takes a bottle I would definitely have Dad give it (you’re on the right track with the whole Dad gives it a go thing). Best of luck to you!
This is EXACTLY our situation right now. She is 5 months and wakes up often during the night. We have no problem putting her down for naps AND at bedtime. So what do I do now? Do we ignore her when she wakes up? Right now I am trying to give a few sips of water which calms her down, then I put pacifier back into her mouth and she falls back asleep. Then we do all over again in an hour or two…HELP!
Any advice on this issue? We are in the same boat? Should we just let her cio? We wake and feed her at 11/11:30 to give her a top up. We don’t give it to her when she wakes so she does not then expect food when she wakes two hours later. But we really want to stop the frequent mid night waking. We have tried weaning off feeds and every other method, so we are at cio now.
Any updates from you ladies? My 6mo will put herself to sleep for naps and bedtime (since we Ferberozed) but is up 5-7 times per night. She’s not hungry. She’s down to 1 nursing session and barely eats. We thought it was the binky but she can put it back in now and still cries even when it’s in her mouth. Our pediatrician says she’s “messing with us” and to just let her cry. Wondering if a Ferber method would work for this (apparently not?) or do we have to go extinction style?
In the same boat over here too. We’ve been sleep training My almost 5 mo old son with Ferber method almost three weeks now. Things have gotten better and we don’t feed him until at least 5, but he’s still waking up a couple times a night. I let him cry and check every 20-30 min. Hoping we are on the tale end of this! We’re
So tired’
We used Weissenbluth’s method with my daughter (who was colicky). If she woke up at night and we knew she wasn’t hungry, we just let her cry. It’s tough, but it worked. She is 2.5 years now, and potty training and a baby brother aside, she’s a fabulous sleeper at night! Good luck ladies.
I don’t think this is the place shame mothers in the way they decide to parent (is there any place for that?). I would never leave my child to cry for a long time, or even more than a few minutes, without tending to her. And I’m sure many other parents who NEVER thought they could let their child cry have considered it because of sleep issues. Some babies can wake up to 12-15 times per night and a sleep-deprived parent is generally not the most responsive, patient parent during the day. I completely agree that in the grand scheme of life this is a short period of time, but severe sleep deprivation can cause anxiety, depression (increased PPD), weight gain, heart disease and the list goes on. I did let my little girl cry (more like whine) for 2 and 4 minutes at a time for a few nights because I couldn’t function with the lack of sleep anymore. She did learn very quickly how to fall asleep on her own and now when she does wake the 2-3 times per night I (or my husband) attend to her immediately and pick her up for a snuggle if she needs it. I agree that babies need to be responded to and loved to the fullest but I disagree that a very well loved and attended to child will turn into a sociopath because she cried in her crib for a few minutes. Sometimes a parent needs to go to the bathroom and the child might scream the whole time, should we forgo that? 🙂
Jennifer,
It’s too bad in today’s culture that having a different opinion and sharing contrary information that has the ability to be helpful, is considered shaming. If you study the actual meaning of shaming, this isn’t it. And I think you and I both know that a couple minutes of fussing, whining, or crying is not the issue here. It’s very natural (and safe when done correctly) to sleep with your baby until they are more independent. Mom gets more sleep this way so sleep deprivation is less of an issue. I’m just an encourager of doing what feels natural and not believing that a baby is “messing with you”. It’s a baby. They aren’t even capable of that at such an age. Doctors are not parenting experts. A baby’s life is about survival and growing and thriving… And bonding. They are, afterall, our most vulnerable citizens. So no shame here. But trust yourself. If it makes you feel uncomfortable or guilty, then it’s probably not what you were designed to do as a mother. I’m in the trenches too with 3 kiddos under 4. I know the sacrifice but I also feel more at peace that my priority is meeting needs right now. Your body grew and birthed a baby. It can do amazing things! Nighttime parenting is just the next phase of nurturing. You can do it peacefully for both you and baby.
Are you kidding me Cami?? So did you happen to ask all of your “selfish, over confident” friends if they cried it out as babies? You just happened to take a poll? What a crock of crap. Clearly you do not agree with the bulk of how this site suggests to sleep train, so why are you even here? To troll? Get out of here.
It’s so sad to read that parents just want to let the babies cry…. If my mom cries I will go, if my husband cries I will go and of course if my baby cries I will go and soothe him. A it’s the role of being a parent, to soothe, to be there, to give peace, to give security, to let them feel they are loved. The cry at night could be anything : hunger, need of love, pain, cold, hot… A famous Doctor, Dr. Estivil wrote years ago this method of leaving the babies cry and years later he said that produces more anxiety and stress in the babies, even though they are not crying any more. He felt guilty for making that mistake.
Love this article! Honestly, it’s one of the best that I’ve seen that’s a really concise comparison of the two methods.
Very kind of you to say. This is part of a bigger CIO series and it is a hot topic (hot in that I’m getting heat for it and hot as in I get a gazillion emails wondering about how to do it) so I wanted to check the research to make sure I could back up what I was saying 😉
We went for the Ferber method which from my reading seems to imply that the peeking method is for the benefit of the parents rather than the baby. This style suited us better for peace of mind that he was actually ok. When we went into his room we would say to him ‘it’s hard learning how to do something new but you are ok’ – I think it made us feel better :)I also got my husband to do the first night as I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hack it.
In terms of your other posts and the Ferber book – it was so helpful for us to be clear that the aim of the version of CIO we did was not to cut out night feeds but to make sure our little fella learnt how to fall asleep on his own.
So anyway, our boy is 8 months old, goes to bed (generally unless we are in the grips of a wonder week) with no worries and naps like a champion (sometimes squawks a bit but generally fine). Not every day is the same in that his naps can be a bit of an ish in terms of times and his wake up times vary and he wakes up for one feed a night but I am a happy mum. I know that I could ‘do something’ about the night feed but for now I am going to leave it and see what happens particularly as the one feed jumps around in terms of time a fair bit so the method of pushing it out later and later doesn’t seem to apply.
Thank you for helping us to not be scared of CIO regardless of what the method is!! People often comment to me how happy a little boy he is which I know is in part because he gets the sleep that he needs.
Congratulations! BTW you can gradually cut back on night feedings in a really gentle way that might work wonders with no tears:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
Worth keeping in your back pocket for when you’re ready anyway. Also good for you for having Daddy take over (this will definitely be one of my suggestions for the how-to post). Like grilling and fixing the toilet, this is a great job for Dad to take on 😉
I think I have read every single bit of your site (slightly obsessed) so am definitely aware of the different approaches to cutting out the night feeds. I don’t know why I feel sceptical about the less minutes on the boob approach as everything else I have felt sceptical about has worked, white noise, controlled crying etc etc.It’s probably bc I have never paid much attention to how long he feeds for but these days I would guess it’s 10 – 15 minutes total. I think I also like having the night feed in my back pocket for sleep extension. Like this morning he woke up at 5 for his first feed and then went back to sleep which is a wonderful, wonderful thing 🙂 It’s probably also a bit of mum guilt – ah it is everywhere.
Oh don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of the 5:00 AM feed to sleep. If it’s a choice between getting up at the uncivilized hour of 5:00 AM or nursing baby back to sleep for an hour or two, I’ll ALWAYS take the former!
Hi Alexis,
I have to say, I stumbled upon your blog at a dark and chaotic time and am SO glad I did! We have 4 children, who are 8, 4, 2, and our youngest (and the reason I’m here!) is 5 months. He’s going to be our last baby, so needless to say, he has spent a lot of his early months being held. We coslept until about a month ago, when my back and sanity couldn’t take it anymore. (He needed to be attached all night, and as soon as I tried to take him off the breast he would be instantly livid, so cosleeping went from being the only way I’d get any sleep to being just a different kind of not sleeping hell.).
We did the Ferber graduated cry it out to teach him to go to sleep on his own in his bed (first we tried the swing, followed your advice, no go), and after a rough first week, he’s doing much better. He will go to sleep on his own at night when he first goes to bed….but then he’s up 4,5,6 times in the night and cannot settle until I nurse him. He usually is dozing after only 3 or 4 minutes on the boob, and when I put him back in his bassinet, he calms himself and goes back to sleep. I had thought that once he could settle himself, the night wakings would decrease, but not so….and I don’t think he can be hungry that much, as we nurse a lot during the day, at least 7 or 8 times and often more.
Also, his napping is dodgy…he takes a good 2 hour nap in the morning, swaddled in the swing, but in the afternoon, everything falls apart. Sometimes nothing works, the last few days I’ve managed to get about 45 minutes out of him in his bed. Then he’s happy for about half an hour when he gets up, and then he turns into a wild animal. He won’t usually take another nap, but he is so tired and miserable….and with 3 other kids, by bedtime we are ALL unhappy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I’ve tried the swing, the bassinet, the pacifier, no pacifier, rocking him to sleep (which he used to love. Not anymore, apparently.) thanks for your time,
Jen
It’s REALLY hard to say. One or all of these could be possibilities.
1) Because he was so latched to you for his entire life he still has a strong sleep association with nursing. Time will help. Also make sure you are REALLY separating nursing from sleep. IE don’t nurse right before you put him in his crib – separate nursing from crib. So maybe your bedtime routine would be bath, boob, books, song, bed. Try to get a good 20 minute gap in there.
2) Because he slept latched to you we have NO FREEKIN IDEA how much he was eating at night. It could have been nothing or 20 oz. Who knows? So maybe his body is used to this constant flow of food so he’s effectively created a “snack habit” which he’s continuing because his body is used to it.
3) He may be sleep deprived. I don’t know for sure how things were going before all this started but clearly he’s not napping well now. Tired babies sleep poorly. If he’s awake too long, naps too short, etc. – this will lead to night wakings.
This is probably hard because you have older kids but I would do whatever I had to do (stroller walk, babycarrying, swing, car ride) to get some sort of 3rd nap in especially if his 2nd nap is short/rocky. Maybe you bribe the older kids with snacks or something while the family goes for a “nap drive?” I know – not ideal.
Also I would work with a lovey, maybe one you stick in your bra so it smells like you. Loud white noise. DARK room (he’s old enough that any stimulation will work against sleep).
As for the night feedings I would assume it’s habit and gradually wean him off them with the method here:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
Once you get to 1 minute you’re done with that feeding. Frustrating because you have so many – I get it. But it’s my best guess as to why he is feeding so much at night. Let me know how it goes!
Hi Alexis,
Thanks so much for this article, very informative. I was wondering if you had heard of the Sleep Lady Shuffle in the book “Good Night, Sleep Tight”. The author claims that her method is a gentler sleep training approach. It’s basically assisted CIO… sitting next to the crib for 3 nights occasionally patting/shushing the baby until she falls asleep. Then the next 3 nights you sit farther away from the crib, next 3 in the doorway, then final 3 in the hallway, etc. It’s supposed to be a more gradual approach to teaching baby to fall asleep on her own.
I don’t know if you have heard of it or know of anyone who has tried it… I’m curious!
Thanks!
I have the Good Night Sleep Tight book but have -0- experience with how the shuffle works. My guess (and really it’s just a guess) is that it makes things extra rough even though the intention is to be more gentle. Why? Because…
1) Usually babies cry more when they see you (even if your goal is to be a soothing presence) because you aren’t doing whatever it is they want you to do.
2) If it takes that many days (presumably 12?) then it’s taking longer than your average CIO project (which is generally 2-3).
However I don’t really know so if anybody else out there as any thoughts, feel free to chime in!
Hi Alexis,
We have a 2 years 4months old and a newborn (12 weeks). We ferberized the toddler when he was about 6-7 months and it went smoothly. Although there were a few hicups where and there working on naps, waking in the night, etc. everything was pretty easy. Now that we have the newborn, things have changed. The 6 weeks were ok, now big problems (waking up occasionally at night when baby cried, fell back asleep). Now, in the past 2 weeks, he’s been waking up on the middle of the night screaming “Daddy-up” or “Mommy-up”, he even said “baby” (we have him in a crib that has been tented for 6 months or so). Given the issues with a sibling in the house, we have been attentive to his needs, going into his room to rock him. He’s been going down after then, but then every couple of nights, he would wake up after 2 minutes and begin the process again. A few night ago, I tried a modified Ferber, by letting him yell for 5 minutes, go in, yell for 7 minutes, etc. until we got to 20 minutes and it was almost time to wake up! Tonight, he wouldn’t go down. This is new. Within 2 minutes of putting him down and closing the door, he would scream “Daddy-up”.
First, I assume that he is working through his sibling issues that he now realizes the baby is going to stay (I ready that 3 months is about when they start to realize this).
Second, I am not sure this is the best time to CIO or Feberize given the sibling issues.
Third, there is not a lot of information out there on Ferberizing a toddler. He is primarily yelling, not crying, it just seems he is very frustrated and anxious.
Any insight/advice? Thanks!
Sorry for all the grammatical/spelling errors. I was typing during his yelling!
PS – this is the FOURTH time the sibling up all night routine has come up THIS WEEK. Clearly need to write about this and come up with a clever name for it. Big Boy Bed Bounce? New Baby Nightmare?
Thanks for the advice! I think the article should be called “You mean it’s going to stay here???” or “It’s not going home?!?!”
From what I have read, the third month or so, is when the older sibling realizes that the baby is not a temporary thing.
We pretty much did the extinction/CIO thing with him. He cried (Daddy Up) for about an hour the first night, about 20 minutes the second night, but by the third night he was sleeping just fine.
He is still not taking the longish naps he used to (2+ hours) and is waking up in a bad mood (somewhat unusual for him). But he is in a much better mood as he is sleeping at night.
Actually this is classic sibling adjustment attention seeking behavior. Which doesn’t help you feel any better about things – but maybe it helps to know you aren’t alone?
If you haven’t checked it out, I would use ALL the suggestions here: http://www.troublesometots.com/helping-your-baby-welcome-new-baby-sibling-transition/
Fundamentally he is seeking attention. He’s pretty upset because his world has been upset in a major way. And it’s totally unacceptable. However letting this continue will just lead you all to a slippery slope of sleep deprivation (him and you) which makes it all but impossible to be a good parent.
I would find lots of ways to give him positive attention during the day – predictable 1:1 time with each of you, special jobs to do to help the baby, small treats (pick out a new book, go for park visits in the evenings), consistent routines, etc. But then set clear, loving, but firm boundaries at night. That it’s time to sleep, you love him, and will see him in the morning. If it helps you can try a reward/sticker chart for every night he goes without calling for you. Tell him you’ll come back 1-2 times but then say you aren’t coming back till morning. If you say it you MEAN it.
It can also help to get a toddler alarm clock a la:
http://www.amazon.com/Stoplight-Sleep-Enhancing-Groovy-Butterflies/dp/B002TKLN3W
This give you a visual cue that it’s not time to play or call for Mommy. Hope this helps!
So my 13 week old has started waking between 8 & 9pm after going to sleep for the night at 7 – it’s almost like she’s treating bedtime like a 4th nap. Last night we decided to let her fuss a bit – I knew she wasn’t hungry or that her diaper was full, so she really just wanted to hang out. Everything I’ve read says you can’t/shouldn’t do CIO until 4-6 months, but after about 20 minutes of fussing and crying last night, she went back to sleep. So I’m wondering – is this really CIO, or is is just part of helping her fall asleep on her own? I can’t seem to find good guidelines on how long I should let her cry, and last night I could tell that her cry was more of a frustration cry – that decreased over time so I didn’t intervene. Just curious on your take – should we keep up this strategy, or is she still too young to learn anything from that 20 minutes of fussing?
I think all parents should let their babies fidget about a bit to see if they’ll fall asleep. You listened to your instincts and were right. No I wouldn’t call this CIO – I would call this “testing the waters” to see if she would fall asleep on her own. Had she continued to cry, or if her cries became louder (rather than quieter) you would have gone to get her. Which was great.
She is too young to “learn” from that but sometimes babies will settle themselves if you give them a little time to practice so it’s a great thing to test now and then.
I have read both the Ferber book and the Weissbluth book and found both to be interesting, informative and helpful. For me, a dedicated sleep tracker (I have an app on my phone that is constantly in use), the biggest difference between the two authors is their advice on the amount of sleep a baby needs. Ferber says my almost 6 month old needs 12.5 hours of sleep a day (plus or minus 1 hour). Weissbluth says she needs 12 hours a night plus about 3 hours in naps. To me that difference is more important than if I check on her while she’s learning to put herself to sleep.
They’re actually pretty close in their estimates. I’ve merged the two in the post (see below). And the truth is that all the estimates are just that – estimates. Plus different babies will nap different amounts – there are newborns taking huge chunky 2 hour naps at a time while others will take diddly 20 minute naps throughout the day. Thus you end up with two wildly divergent babies in terms of sleep even though their parents are doing all the right things.
I have to disagee. I’ve reread the chapters in each book to make sure I undersrand each author’s stance.
Ferber – 12.5 hours plus or minus 1 hour for a 6 month old. He states that sleep requirements vary ‘surprisingly little’ and leads the reader to believe that most healthy children will fall within this range (11.5 to 13.5 hours)
Weissbluth – 11 to 16 hours, with the 50th percentile falling at 14.5 hours for children 4 – 11 months.
So a baby needing about 14.5 hours a day is right in the normal range according to Weissbluth, but in Ferber’s opinion asking a child to sleep 14.5 hours a day is excessive and could lead to the ‘too long in bed’ problems he discusses.
I know they’re all just estimates and you have to determine your own baby’s needs through trial and error. My point is that there is a significant difference in the parent’s expectations based on whichever figure you read/accept.
wow .. great post . no wounder why people had to say a lot .. i really agree and like many of their comments ..
thanks for posting this …
Glad it helped! More to come on this subject (soonish I hope).
Hey,
this are really informative stuff you wrote ..
Thanks
Penny
Glad you find it helpful!
Hi Alexis,
Our 4 month old sleeps pretty well at night. He will usually go down @ 8pm and only wake once to feed and sometimes will go all night without waking until 6/7am. However, due to his acid reflux, he has been sleeping in the fisher price rock n play sleeper since birth. He also has a good moro-reflex still and if we try putting him down in his crib, he will startle himself out of his sleep and start screaming. When does the moro-reflex subside? I forgot to mention, he was born at 36 weeks so will it take longer for him to outgrow the startle reflex? If we have to we will do CIO once he has to go in his crib which will be soon, @ 6months, as he is going to outgrow his RNP sleeper.
The fisher price pampasan chair has a weight limit of 25 lbs. Personally if he has reflux I would stick with the swing (even if it’s not swinging) because the angle will REALLY help you manage his reflux. Also if you are struggling with the moro-reflex, are you swaddling too? That tends to help a lot. It’s hard to sway when he’ll outgrow (adjusted age vs. real age?) but generally things subside by 6 months (no promises).
Personally I would invest $100 to keep the swing going if you’re dealing with reflux. There is plenty of time to gradually wean him off without CIO – also CIO can be a rough ordeal for refluxing kids 🙁
so glad to have found this post. My wife and I are starting the ‘adventure’ of trusting that our 11 month old can learn to work out his nigh wake ups on his own! 11 months of no more than 2-3 hours of sleep in a row is taking its toll. Finding that at the start of this journey , as it has been in many past struggles/uncertainties, most of the anxiety rests with us versus our perfect little son.
I hope it goes well! Getting out of night wakings can be tricky if those night wakings involved eating. And by tricky what I mean is “involve lots and lots of crying.” So I hope yours is not tricky 🙂
Hello, I’m not sure when this was written, but I’m curious how it turned out. My almost 8 month old, who was sleep trained very early on via CIO NO peeking is now waking 2-4 times a night and for his morning feed at 530am. Clearly, I’m exhausted and at my wits end. I’ve been going in and replacing the paci – which I know doesn’t help my problem but he tends to go right back to bed after. The issue is I’m doing this roughly 3-4 times a night. And his father lives and works in France, so I’m alone. Any advice? Should I just do CIO all over again? He’s a very determined baby and last time I let him cry it out (about 3 weeks ago), he cried for more than an hour and had post traumatic hiccup breathing for the next hour. Very sad indeed. What are my next steps? SOS.
Hi Alexis,
My 14.5 month old slept thru the night at 10 weeks until a year. When she turned 1 she started to walk, weaned from breastfeeding, had an ear infection and molars coming thru. Needless to say she slept horribly and we did whatever we could to get her to sleep. After falling asleep on her own for a year she seems to have lost the ability bc of these set backs. In the past 3 months she’s only slept thru the night a couple of times and is usually up 3 or 4 times. We tried to CIO one night and she screamed for 4 hours. She’ll stand in her crib and doesn’t know how to lie herself down. Does 4 hours of crying mean it won’t work for her? Any suggestions? Mama and daddy are melting down. 🙁
Thank you!!
Hard to say (I would need more information to say why you are having such a rough time of it). If you were feeding her when she woke up then going cold turkey will result in a hungry kid who screams and screams (hungry kids don’t generally fall asleep well). Also one key is to put her down awake – if you’re doing something else (feeding, rocking, etc.) to sleep then when she wakes up she’ll be disoriented and that will result in lots o crying. It is possible that she’s getting stuck standing up although most kids are pretty adapt at figuring out how to get back down (are you SURE she can’t get back down?). Also depending on how she’s napping, short naps + frequent night wakings = one severely overtired kid. And overtired kids cry more. Which creates a vicious circle.
Have you made any progress?
Help…I’m having the same problem! My almost 10 month old baby was sleeping very well (7-6 with 1 nightly feeding) but has now all of a sudden began screaming when we put her down! I read about the object permanence and do believe it has to deal with that but I fear she can’t lay back down once she is standing to put herself to sleep! I must say I wasn’t putting her awake and last night tried but after 2 hours of her crying we found her gripping tightly to crib and exhausted but couldn’t sleep. Everytime we tried putting her bak down she began screaming! we felt so guilty that she slept in bed with us which she has never done! She naps between 1-3 hrs a day so I don’t think she is overtired….I just don’t know what to do!!
It’s probably a combination of separation anxiety (big time for that) and getting stuck upright. Give her as much practice as you can during the day. Stand her up at the coffee table and help her learn to navigate getting back down. Tons and tons of floor time, yes?
Babies usually figure out the “get back down” thing relatively quickly if given enough opportunities. Also use the night video monitor to keep tabs on her. If she gets stuck you can “try” to put her back down. Just be mindful that this doesn’t become a game (she learns that standing up will get you back in immediately), right?
I think the research would say both of these babies are crying for too long- it is not working for them. I would try an alternate method of sleep training (like the baby whisperer Tracy Hogg) and not continue to do something harmful to them that could be really damaging. Trust your instincts and don’t keep trying something that isn’t working.
This is really interesting .. i will look forward for more interesting blog like this ..
Thanks Evan – I’ll do my best 😉
Oh geez! I ended up CIO with my 10 month old and she went to sleep (bedtime) within 10 min. Awesome! It was so successful that I tried naptime. Bad decision! She cried off and on for an hour. As soon as I thought she was asleep she started up again. It was the worst day. I ended up driving around for an hour just to let her nap because she was so overly tired and stressed from my trial. First, I never should have kept it up for that long and second, I think naptime was too soon for her. I can’t remember when but I think it was a month or so later I ended up being able to rock her to drowsy not to 100% and her naps were longer. Now at 16 months I just put her in her crib awake for naps and bedtime and she goes to sleep. Of course, I have to make sure that she is tired but not overly tired and she sleeps great. I am terrified that I have just jinxed myself, haha! My point is that I agree that every child has their own timeline and they are capable when they are ready with some guidance.
I’ve found CIO for naps to be a bit rougher. I hate to say that because I’m not suggesting that it can’t work and that parents shouldn’t try. But it’s not the “obvious solution” that night CIO is. Your experience in trying it out sound like what I hear about. A. LOT.
I’m REALLY glad that you were able to conquer naps by gradually weaning off the rocking. And yes – putting an awake child in their bed and walking out of the room is it’s own special joy isn’t it?
We have a similar situation as described by Marieka (posted April 20, 2012 at 10:15 am) – our now 6-month-old is able to put himself to sleep (albeit with some fussing) just fine for naps and when going to bed at night, but wakes up every 1.5-2.5 hours and will not go back down unless I nurse him. He never fell/falls asleep on the boob but feeding seems to make him drowsy enough to easily fall asleep again afterwards. Up until 3.5 months he would only wake up 1x or 2x to feed and readily go back to sleep after. Around 3.5 months he even started sleeping longer stretches right after going down for the night, wake up 1x for a feed (about 7 hrs after the last feed before bed), go back down and sleep for another 3-3.5 hrs, and then wake up and start the day. After about 10 days of that he suddenly started waking up more often than ever, 3-4x per night. Up until now it has gradually gotten worse so that he literally wakes up every 1.5 hrs at times, as outlined above. I am not intending to night-wean him as I think that 1 feed is fine, has worked well for him in the past, gives him the comfort he might crave and ensures that my milk supply doesn’t drop (pediatrician said that he doesn’t need any night feeds at that age, though). It seems to me that he has lost the ability to sleep longer stretches at night, so the actual problem seems to be his constant waking and not the feeds as he is not waking because he is hungry (he often just nibbles a little) but once he’s up he won’t go back down unless he is fed. Has the feeding at night per se become his sleep prop although he never falls asleep on the boob? If I keep refusing to feed him until 6-7 hrs after the last feed before bed via Ferber’s CIO (my husband goes in to reassure…), will he eventually get used to not being fed all night long anymore and will that allow him to sleep better? He generally has a problem with easily getting overtired as the 2 long naps that he takes are more in the morning and noon/very early afternoon so he goes a long stretch without sleep after that (can’t seem to be able to get him down for a nap in mid/late afternoon)- I do realize that this might have to do with the restlessness at night. I would very much appreciate your thoughts/suggestions on that (LOVE your blog, BTW, real eye opener!!)!
Hey Katharina,
YES – your boobs are his sleep prop. Or to sound more serious, “Your baby has a strong sleep association with nursing.”
Personally as you are headed down this path I would night wean. It’s great that you want to keep your milk supply up but nowhere is it written that you need to night nurse in order to day nurse. If you are REALLY worried you could always night pump. But seriously – do you really want to night pump? Ugh….no.
You are a human pacifier. Yes this is comforting but no its not good for you or him. It’s been a week or so since you wrote (sorry I’m SOOO behind) so hopefully all is going well with your night weaning efforts? If NOT then you may want to consider…
a) Full weaning as I suggested. Sometimes when you have baby with a STRONG association with nursing, trying to nurse 1-2X a night causes more problems than it solves. It effectively intermittently reinforces the waking/seeking to nurse behavior. And that reinforcement can lead to a lot of crying.
b) Going from Ferber/check and console to full extinction. Again Ferber is a form of intermittent reinforcement. It often works like GANGBUSTERS but for some strong willed babies it just leads to days and days of crying. So if your problem is ongoing, it’s probably time to switch methods.
Again hopefully all this advice is moot because your Ferber methods have worked like a champ and everybody is sleeping fabulously 🙂
Also, I am always putting him down awake and there are no (other) sleep props involved (white noise plays all night from iPod). And one more thing: the gentle weaning method of cutting the feedings short by 1 minute every night or so would not really work as the feeding times are all over the place – I never know when he is going to actually have a full feed vs. just a quick nibble.
Yep the weaning thing only works for babies you are legitimately EATING A HUGE MEAL. He’s comfort nursing and probably getting very few if any calories from the experience. So your issue is not to gradually move his caloric intake from nighttime to daytime. Your issue is to remove his strong nursing/sleep association because that association is preventing he and you from getting good quality night sleep.
Hi Alexis, Thanks for your website. I’ve found it very useful and clear. I have a question. We would like to go for the CIO approach for our 6 month old so that she can learn to self-soothe. Over the last month, I have been putting her to sleep (naps, bedtime and during the night after her breast feeds) with rocking/bouncing unless she falls asleep while feeding. This typically takes between 5-10 minutes but sometimes up to 20 depending. But using this process, she naps well (2 naps totally 2.5) and sleeps by 6.30pm (with a sleepy feed around 9.30pm). After that, she typically wakes 2 times a night (waking up around 5.45am) and at least once I feed her. The other time varies – if i can settle her without a feed I do so. Having read through your articles, I realise CIO is not about weaning babies off night feeds and I am fine with waking up twice for now. I have two questions. 1) iCan we use the CIO approach in advance of weaning off her the night feeds? And 2) Once we start, I assume we use the CIO approach consistently for bedtime and naps for it to work. Do I then also have to use this approach for her wake ups during the night (including the feeds) or can I rock her back to sleep? As our daughter sleeps in a cot in our room (been reluctant to move her until she sleeps through as the other bedroom is right down the hall!), we would really like to keep the during the night soothing sessions as is (to tackle later) but will this undermine the whole process?
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Gaya,
So I’m assuming you’ve had NO luck with gradually weaning off the rocking? Rocking, IME, is the easiest “soothe to sleep” method to wean off. But not always so here we are.
I would do this:
1) Check the post below (pretty much my whole thought on CIO how to do it)
2) Move nursing up a bit in your bedtime routine. It may not matter but it could help. Have a bigger gap between nursing and putting her in her crib. So your new routine would be nurse – bath, books, bed.
3) Put her in her bed and leave. I really do feel that there is less crying overall this way.
4) When she wakes up at her normal times at night – go feed her. If she falls asleep put her down. If she doesn’t fall asleep put her down. Generally this doesn’t matter so much but I wouldn’t intentionally rock her to sleep if she hasn’t organically FALLEN asleep. If you feel you MUST rock to sleep in the middle of the night – give it a few nights. This may be OK – some babies will “learn” based on bedtime and are drowsy enough for night feeds that it doesn’t matter. For some it WONT be OK. If you don’t see the bedtime crying reducing dramatically each night then you know that the feeding/rocking is mucking things up.
5) Don’t do CIO for naps. Frankly she’s napping well so for now I would leave well enough alone. If she were taking 20 minute naps and waking up in a fit you would have a problem. But you don’t. And having her sleep one way for naps and another at bedtime won’t matter.
6) Once bedtime is going smoothly (lets say in 3-5 days) you could start gradually night weaning off the feedings. You’re really feeding her 3 times a night, yes? So you must be keen to start knocking a few of those out. Pick the one that is most objectionable and start cutting back on it. It may take a few weeks to be “done” but it’s well worth it 🙂
Good luck and let me know how things go OK?
Thanks Alexis. We’re planning to give it a go starting next weekend so I’ll let you know how it goes. Typically, I feed her twice a night if you count the ‘night’ as 10-6am but I have to admit I am not sure she really needs these – it just been the quickest way for us both to get back to sleep. It may be a habit/comfort thing but I’m not sure. Partly because she is a very quick feeder even in the day (6-8 minutes!) so when she doesn’t feel for long at night, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s not hungry. Also, there are times at night when she wakes up and needs resettling but refuses a feed and just wants me to put her back to sleep or needs winding. (That said, we had a bad night last night where she fed twice but was up for an hour between 3 and 4 wanting to play – we ignored her until she was ready to sleep again!)…
In terms of weaning off the rocking, I have tried in month 3 (putting her down when she’s awake etc) but when she protested and I didn’t leave her for very long as I was then just keen to get her sleeping at a reasonable hour (post colic memories). Then in month 4/5, we travelled a lot and so getting her to have the right amount of sleep was our priority.
Just wondering how things went? Hopefully great! Also wanted to throw out – older babies become quick feeders because they’re efficient. That being said night supply tends to decrease for everybody so if she’s only on there for 4 minutes at 2:00 am, there’s probably not a ton of eating going on. My guess is that it’s more about comfort than calories. So I would definitely consider night weaning – gradually – just to buy you all some uninterrupted sleep! (No rush though!)
Hi Alexis, Well we were all posed for starting two Saturdays ago but then from the Thursday before, we noticed terrible teething symptoms and by Saturday evening there were too many doubts in our mind for us to go ahead with the certainty you need. THEN, on Monday she developed a bad cough and cold (causing her to throw up her all her feeds for a few days!) Anyway, after a visit to the doctors and medication she seems to be on the up. We’re hoping she’ll be back to health by the weekend and we can get going! (Incidentally, during the teething days, she woke up to feed almost hourly at night but when the cold kicked in, she went down to only one feed at night…so I agree it seems less about hunger and more about comfort).
Hi Alexis,
So… we started on Friday and I think its going pretty well! Friday night, we put her to bed at 6pm and after a couple of minutes of major panic crying and some cuddles, I left her for 15 minutes and to my amazement it all then fell silent. During the night she woke up three times to feed (9.30pm, 1am and 4am) but went straight back to sleep to wake at 6.30am. Although that is quite a lot of feeding, it was the first time she a) had put herself to sleep in her cot, b) had had a complete night without rocking! and c) had managed to sleep past 5.15am! So we were very thrilled. Then Night 2 – it took only 3.5 minutes before she fell asleep, she only had 2 wake ups (10am and 2am) waking up around 6ish. I was SO happy…perhaps prematurely. As night 3 went a bit awry. She missed her afternoon nap (our fault – we went out for lunch at a friends and she found it difficult to sleep there) and then when we put her down at night she screamed ‘up’ rather than ‘down’ (unlike the previous nights) and I caved. Picked her up after 12 minutes and held while she slept (but no rocking!). She then woke up twice (11pm and 2pm) and again I had to hold her for her to sleep rather than put her in her cot straight away. So that felt like a step back and I was a bit nervous about last night. But I held out – she fell asleep after 15 minutes (although again it did feel like crying up rather than down) and she woke 3 times at night (9pm, midnight and 3am) but settled easily afterwards. The morning wake-ups have stayed between 6am-6.30am. All in all, though its tough (and I imagine will be for a few days more) I am AMAZED at how quickly she’s been catching on. The only thing is (and I am not sure if this is guilt creeping on making me oversensitive or if its true) but she does seem a bit subdued in the day and a bit clingy. My husband has noticed it too. He normally gets all the laughs and attention as she sees me so much but that hasn’t happened much over the last couple of days. Perhaps its just her way of adjusting to the changes. (Her daytime naps have been fine although she is currently doing 2 hours in the morning and 1 in the afternoon – rather than her typical 1.5 hrs split). Will let you know how things progress into next week. Thanks for advice so far. Not sure once we get this cracked (fingers crossed) whether to move to self settling for naps or night weaning next. Any suggestions welcome!
Sorry I missed this (comments in the middle are harder for me to spot) so this is a tad late but…
I hear you about the “crying up vs. down” thing. But I would encourage you to make a commitment and commit. It appears that even if she sounds like she is crying up, that the “up” part is very brief is you can just let her get it out of her system for a few minutes, yes?
Also I would like to point out to you that your daughter is now sleeping 1:15 LONGER at night than she was. THAT IS FANTASTIC. You’ve just increased her total amt. of night sleep by 10-15%. That’s HUGE.
That is a significant increase in sleep which is awesome for everybody. So while you are agonizing over 15 minutes of crying (which really is tiny, honest it is) I’m seeing a baby who is getting significantly more sleep. So from my viewpoint, the tradoff is MORE than worth it.
Lots of things can make a baby a bit more clingy. These things ebb and flow over time – they want you all the time, they could care less, they think you are hysterical, they’re bored by your silly faces. I understand that you feel guilty and that the 15 minutes of crying is causing her deep emotional harm but really, 15 minutes is nothing. So why is she not laughing at your husband? I don’t know – maybe he needs a few lessons in baby tickling (note: I can offer these as I am a master baby tickler). Maybe she’s got a small virus going on. Maybe the moon in in the wrong part of the sky.
But I’m not worried about the 15 minutes. I think the extra sleep she is getting is awesome and if you’re consistent, I think the 15 minutes will go away pretty quickly. Good luck!
hi.
I love your website/advice! This is my second time reaching out to you. My 5 mo old has never been a good sleeper but generally did well at night with bad day time naps or great naps and bad night time sleep.
Recently we went on a family vacation which included 3 hour time difference and many family members helping (carrying her all day and putting her down for naps). It was great but now my baby is a terrible sleeper. My drowsy but awake is now out the door and she needs to be held to sleep. (I think family was putting her down sleeping and I was not be vigilant enough).
My dr gave me the ok to try CIO, I am leaning towards extinction (wisebluth) but is 5 mo too young? At one point he says not to use it under 6 mo.
Also, I want to attack both night time and naps at the same time so it won’t be confusing to her. (which wisebluth is against but seems to work) My thought is CIO for the first nap (in the crib) and if that goes terriblly wrong walk her for the following naps. I just want her to learn as quickly (thus painlessly) as possible to settle herself. What do you think?
Thanks in advance,
Sarrita
I would suggest my CIO plan (see link below). I would continue to hold for naps and put her down awake for now and focus on night CIO full extinction. You want her sleeping WELL during the day, as much as possible, as tired babies cry more. If she’s doing CIO for naps then naps will generally be short to nonexistant which means she’ll be EXHAUSTED going into bedtime. Thus it becomes a whole big messy day of no sleep and lots of crying.
It won’t mess things up to do things one way for day sleep and another for night. Also once nights are going well the day thing is easier to sort out. So I would strongly suggest you use my plan (below) and go with full extinction at bedtime.
My 2 cents…
THANKS!
We just finished Day 3 of CIO full extinction.
I could not have done it without you!
So once P falls asleep she is amazing. Got a little better each night- yesterday she fell asleep at 8, yelped at 11 (settled herself quickly) woke at 3 for a quick feed (again cried when I put her down but fell asleep within seconds), yelped at 5 (I crossed my fingers that she would fall asleep and she did) and woke at 6:45!! I am SO proud of her.
My question is- her crying when I put her down for bed is still the same as day 1 (around 50 minutes). I always wonder if she is overtired- she take 3-4 catnaps a day totaling about 2 hours total. Super frustrating but I think that is just how she sleeps. Even if I hold her, drive her, stroller her- she only sleeps tops 45 minutes (unless she has had a bad night of sleep- then she will sleep over an hour and a half). Am I doing something wrong? Her initial crying is not getting better.
Any advice to help me over this hump will help.
THANKS!
Sarrita
Hi Alexis.
I wanted to give you an update and THANK you again.
First you were TOTALLY RIGHT about the naps being easier to sort out once the night sleep improved. I can basically (for the first two naps) put her down drowsy but awake and she will play on her own for a bit and then sleep! really this is like a miracle!!! the last two are a bit sketchier -I put her down drowsy and BARELY awake! 🙂
The crying at night has still not gotten better tho- well we are down to like 30 or so minutes of crying (we are on night 6). I am not sure if a) she is a slow learner b) she is just tired from the entire day c) it is just not working for her.
I started on this path and really want to stick with it. I guess I just wanted to know- is this normal? or should i chalk her up to the 30% it does not work for.
THANKS!!!
Sarrita
Alexis,
Huge huge huge fan. This is our second time writing in. (The first was about the fact that I am still swaddling my 5.5mo old). Anyway our LO was giving us 6-8 hours a night, with a paci reinforcement here and ther, until rotavirus hit our house. He’s better, but sleeping is horrendous. Its almost like he’s accumulated this sleep debt he’ll never overcome. He wakes every… hour… on … the hour… AWFUL. So since a flu interrupted what was a pretty content lil sleeper, can I attempt CIO to get him back on track? Should I wait a full 30 days to get his digestive system back on track. We had about 14 days of diarrhea and some vomitting. But the sleep is miserable. I dont want to CIO however if its in-humane given he’s getting over the flu. Any advice appreciated! Thanks. Katie
I guess it depends on how sick he is (now) and how awful his sleep is? I also wonder – why is he waking up?
If he’s waking up because you’re nursing/rocking/etc to sleep then you have a “can’t fall asleep” problem which is causing him to wake up all night long due to object permanence stuff. This happens a lot when kids get sick because you do whatever works to help your miserable baby actually get some sleep.
This would also be a case (provided that he’s fine now health-wise) that CIO might be a way out.
However if the problem is that he’s waking up constantly because he’s still suffering from some discomfort (tummy cramps, nausea, whatever) then CIO will go poorly and won’t really do anything for you.
I don’t believe it takes a full 30 days for a digestive system to get back on track (seriously? 30 days?). Is there anything you can do to help matters in the short run? Stroller naps? Swing?
Not sure if that answers your question but I’m a bit fuzzy on the details so I hate to jump in with, “Yes put your possibly sick baby down and walk on out!”
Hi Alexis,
Your website is a lifesaver! I’ve written a few times before and your advice has been so helpful. My LO is almost 6 months and, thanks to your advice, has been sleeping wonderfully in his Rock and Play Sleeper for the past month or so. He’s slept in the RNP since birth, except when we used the swing to help him learn to put himself to sleep. He can now sleep in a non-moving swing or RNP, but prefers the RNP. He goes to bed around 6:30, wakes up to eat between 8:30 and 9:30 and then sleeps 6-8hours. This week he rolled over and we decided to transition to the crib, as we’re afraid he might try to roll over in the RNP. Plus, he’ll be sleeping in a PNP at daycare in a few weeks and we want him to learn how to sleep flat (not sure if this matters or not).
After reading here, I thought it would be an easy transition, as he’s been putting himself to sleep for all naps and nighttime. It hasn’t been easy! We are on day 3 of crying at bedtime (naps are still in RNP to keep him rested). He doesn’t cry for too long at bedtime (40 min night 1. 25 min. night 2, 30 min night 3, though he didn’t cry in the RNP) BUT he wakes up ALL NIGHT LONG!! I’m not kidding…he opens his eyes at least once every half hour that we are awake (love the video monitor!) Sometimes he turns his head and goes back to sleep. Other times he lays there awake for a while and talks to himself. He doesn’t always cry.
He never woke up like this in the RNP. We don’t go to him. He is now so tired all day long, he is taking monster naps. Today he woke up at 5 am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. He used to go back to sleep after a feed in the RNP. He went down for nap 1 and slept for 1.5 hours. Nap 2 was 2.25 hours. Nap 3 was 1.5 hours.
He was a good napper before, but not like this!
Any advice to ease the transition? Am I doing something wrong?
OK, we’ve been doing this for a week and it has gotten better, but there are still night wakings that didn’t use to happen. He fusses (with some real crying mixed in) for almost an hour before falling asleep. I am going to try to push his bedtime back, but this means most days he will be up 3.5 hours before bedtime. The past few nights have gone something like this:
6:15-7:00-fuss and cry, but mostly fuss
7-9-sleep, but with wakings because of startling. Able to put himself back to sleep (he stopped startling in the RNP but maybe that’s because the space is so small? In the crib, he startles often. He’s not swaddled).
9:00-Eat
9:20-4:00-sleep for an hour or 2 and then wake up and cry/fuss for 1-2 HOURS before falling back asleep. Before the crib this didn’t happen. He tries to soothe back to sleep-he sucks on his hands, he sucks on his sleep sack (which is both cute and frustrating because he’s putting his feet in his mouth and a few times it looked like he fell asleep that way but then woke up a few minutes later probably because it’s uncomfortable to sleep with his legs up!). During this long stretch, he startles himself awake multiple times and tries to go back to sleep. He turns his head from side to side, arches his back, and kicks his feet (more like slams them down into the crib-our whole house booms). Sometimes he falls asleep, only to startle within a minute or two. This goes on for 5-10 minutes before he gives up and opens his eyes and then is awake for hours.
Two nights ago, he was awake from 10:50-1:00 and I didn’t go to him. He fell asleep from 1-3:30 and then I fed him (he usually eats between 3:30 and 4:30). Slept until 6:30.
Last night, he was awake from 12:30-2. He cried and fussed and tried to sleep. I didn’t go to him. He fell asleep and slept until 4:30. I fed him. Slept until 7.
Could it be the 6 month sleep regression that just happened to coincide with the crib transition? Could he really be hungry? Need soothing? He seems himself during the day (except very tired).
I’m sorry for writing a novella of my baby’s sleep, but I am so puzzled (and tired because I can’t sleep well worrying about him).
Jennifer,
No this is not really “a common thing that happens” and I’m a bit perplexed. It could be that the 6-month sleep regression is throwing a monkey wrench in your transition plan. Hmmm….well this is what speaks to me from your novella (ps. novella is more helpful than, “Baby won’t sleep, why not?”)
– The crib banging/booming is really normal. He’s just figuring out how this new stuff works – what does it do? It makes a HUGE NOISE! How exciting!
– Maybe the he needs more soothing. The RNP gave him lots (it contained his startle reflex, was angled, and probably moved/rocked when he moved). Maybe he needs more than the crib is giving him. Although frankly at 6 months you don’t have a ton of options other than loud white noise.
– Is he falling asleep ALL BY HIMSELF? Lots of people rock baby till they’re almost asleep and even though they think they’re putting baby down awake, from baby’s perspective, they’re essentially already sleeping. That can lead to lots of protesting at night now that he’s missing out on the extra RNP soothing. The same can happen with a feed that happens right AT bedtime.
Personally – given the possibility of the 6 month sleep regression messing you up – I might consider temporarily putting him back in the RNP. The startle thing makes me think he may just need a little extra soothing still. Sure most kids are in the crib by 6 months but it doesn’t sound like things are going well and perhaps if you wait a few weeks (say 1 month) and try again, it will go more smoothly.
Unless you think it’s unsafe because he’s flipping over in which case it’s OUT.
Had a second thought a few minutes ago…
How much does the RNP move when he’s in it? Does it bounce/sway really easily when he’s bebopping around in there? (I’m less familiar with the RNP than traditional “swings”). I’m wondering if the RNP moves enough when he’s in there that he hasn’t really been weaned off the motion because he’s still HAD motion. Baby swings are pretty heavy machines and they don’t move much when baby moves, but I’m wondering if the swingy motion of the RNP has kept him USED to motion and now the crib is a huge non-moving strangeness for him.
Thoughts?
Hi Alexis,
Thanks for your thoughtful replies. I’ve been waiting a few nights to reply, just to be sure things had really changed.
I don’t know why it took him so long to adjust to the crib, but I think he did finally make the adjustment. I’ve been keeping him up longer during his last stretch (2.5-3hours), which pushes his bedtime later (7-7:30). This (and time to adjust, I’m sure) has seemed to help him fall asleep in a timely manner (except when he decides to roll over and get stuck on his tummy…) 🙂
He is waking up less at night and staying awake for less time. He’s still napping in the RNP, but I’m thinking of trying the crib soon just to see what happens.
Who knows what his problem was, but I guess that’s the thing with babies!
Your advice is much appreciated. The baby sleep thing can be maddening when it isn’t working, and it’s so awesome to have this website as a resource. Thank you!!
PS:
You are quoted in my house more times than I can count! Every time hubby and I have a baby sleep discussion (a hot topic these days), you hear, “Well, Alexis says…!”
Alexis says thank you for telling me that you guys actually say, “Well Alexis says…”
cuz that is awesome 😉
Hi Alexis! I am so glad i found your blog…my 9mth old daughter has always been a crappy sleeper, but now she’s using me as a pacifier 3 or 4 + times, waking every 1.5-3.5hrs during the night. I did try CIO a few months ago but failed. It’s time to try again now…. And i think we need to do extinction. However, as she’s been waking to go on the boob but isn’t really eating, when she wakes do i a. ignore her, b. Do the gradual reduction of time attached to the breast or c. go to her and comfort her/resettle without feeding? Eg Pick up/put down technique UK babywhisperer style?
I did CIO at bedtime the night before last, and she cried 15min only… But last night she was so tired she dozed off feeding and went to bed very sleepy (stirred on being put down probably doesn’t count as being awake) and went back to sleep straight away. It’s all complicated by the fact that she’s pretty much always overtired and in the loop of bad naps – bad night sleep – bad naps etc. Her day naps are horrid, she’s only had 1 afternoon nap in more than a week. And yesterday she had a 40min morning nap and nothing else all day.
ok so not wanting to jinx myself but a few days in and my baby went to sleep within 2 min and just a few fusses tonight. Hasn’t cried for more than 15min any night (so doesn’t count as cio really) and has had naps being put down awake. Since we started bedtime cio she’s woken only twice a night for last few nights, and can settle pretty quickly without a boob-ifier. Thanks Alexis for the inspiration i needed to take charge and do something about my baby’s sleep problem!
jinxed myself. Can put baby down in her bed awake at bedtime and she’ll go to sleep pretty quiclky by herself, but the night wakings are back… Eg last night she was in bed 7:05pm, asleep at 7:10pm (no crying), but woke 10:20pm, 11:40pm, 4:00am, up for the day today at 6:15am. I resettled her at the first waking and fed her at the second two. I left her the night before to cio for 30min at a waking and she was hysterical…. Am i back at square one??
it’s square one. Either i have broken my baby by a few periods of hysteric screaming, or it’s these never ending lumpy gums that don’t seem to do anything, or whatever, or is she extinction bursting? I don’t know. Too tired. She’s slept through twice in 9.5months, and that was in april.
I’m guessing it’s a combo going on and my guess is this:
1) There is some extinction burst stuff going on there.
2) You’re nursing too close to bedtime. Putting baby down awake solves the object permanence “where did Mommy go?” issue. However when you’re nursing RIGHT AT bedtime you still have a boob=sleep issue. So she’s still looking for that sleep connection when she wakes up at night.
Reorient your bedtime routine so that there is at least a 20 minute gap between nursing and bedtime (boob, bath, book, bed).
3) Habit eating vs. Intermittent reinforcement. When you’ve been acting as a human pacifier night weaning can be REALLY difficult because you don’t know how much comfort suckling vs. actual eating went on. Is she legitimately hungry or is it just habit? And sadly I don’t have an answer for how to get around that mystery.
However when she wakes and sometimes gets what she wants (boobs=sleep) then you’re in effect rewarding her waking and crying. So…where does that leave you?
Two options:
1) stop night feeding entirely. This can be a 1-2 rough night and done process if she was “mostly suckling” or a big mess if she was actually eating.
2) Try a dream feed by offering her the boob PRIOR to her waking up to ask for it. This can be a challenge if she’s super inconsistent in waking. But this get’s around rewarding the crying but still meets her hunger needs.
So if she ate at 11:40 and 4:00, you would proactively feed her at 11:00 and 3:30. If she woke at other times you would ignore her, or have your partner go in for some brief non-food soothing. Does that make sense?
Fantastic blog, Alexis. I’ve recommended and shared links to it so many times! So full confession: I stumbled on your blog when my baby was a few weeks old and made note of all the great advice you gave. I even bookmarked several pages. But then I forgot about it! My only defense is that I’m a sleep-deprived, forgetful new mom!
Now my daughter is 5.5 months and I Googled “cry it out” and here we are again. (While I’m glad to “see” you again I am also sad because it means we’re having sleep problems again!)
My baby slept in a swing for her first 4 months due to acid reflux. Reflux resolved at 4 months, so we successfully transitioned her to a bassinet. After three weeks of sleeping on her back pretty well, she was too big for the bassinet and we transitioned her to a crib. The first night in her crib, she slept for 8 hours! It was the first and last time. Sleep has been erratic and gradually getting worse since then.
The sad story in bullet form:
-She’s always been put to bed drowsy but awake
-We started a bedtime routine at 3 months and only changed it a few weeks ago to space the feeding from the sleep
-At 4.5 months her bedtime went from 9 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (Naturally. We didn’t force it.)
-She uses a soother 50% of the time and doesn’t need it put back in if it falls out
-From 3 months to 4.5 months, her nighttime sleep would look like this: 5-hour chunk then 4-hour chunk then 3-hour chunk. But for the past month, she wakes every 2-3 hours!
-For the past few weeks she screams when she sees the crib. We can be in her room looking at different things (mirror, glider, toys, etc.) but as soon as she sees the crib, SCREAM. So we’ve had to change the bedtime routine to feed her again to calm her down just before we put her in the crib (drowsy but awake).
I know you shouldn’t do CIO until 6 months but she seems aware enough to know what the crib means (i.e. bedtime) and to be fighting it, so I think she’s ready to learn that bedtime is her friend.
Here are my questions:
1) For the past 2 weeks we’ve been night weaning off of the bottle (diluting the formula) after reading about it in a book. The book had recommended diluting the bottle for all night feedings (not just to drop off one feed at a time as you suggest). So far it hasn’t worked. She hasn’t dropped any feedings and has woken up more frequently and taken sooooo long to fall back asleep, often needing rocking and a soother (she used to be able to fall back asleep without assistance). I then found your blog again (Hallelujah!) and read that you should only do night weaning AFTER doing CIO to establish a painless bedtime. Since we’re already knee-deep in night weaning (we’re at 2.5 oz of formula per feed), can we start CIO for bedtime and continue night weaning? So continue to give her less and less milk per night feed, then put her down and walk away?
2) We wonder if the crib is the problem. She hasn’t needed motion in more than 2 months, but both the swing and bassinet were smaller spaces. Problem is she’s too big for both (and rolls over a lot in her sleep). Thoughts on this?
3) She fights naps if it’s in her crib and they’ll last for 30 minutes tops. If she’s in the car or stroller in my arms, she naps for 2 hours. Should I consider CIO for naps once nighttime sleep is sorted? (Once, not if, right? RIGHT!)
Thanks for your guidance! You are wonderful to be giving us new parents such encouragement!
Patricia,
I’m in no way insulted that you forgot about my site. It’s MY site and sometimes I forget about it too 😉
Well here’s what I’m wondering. CIO is typically a tool for babies who have not figured how to fall asleep on their own despite all their parents best efforts. HOWEVER you say you are putting down awake. So….CIO may not be the answer UNLESS you are putting her down mostly asleep (or really 100% asleep from her perspective).
If however you feel she is generally falling asleep on her own then I’m not entirely convinced CIO is the answer.
I don’t know you or your baby but what I’m wondering is this: maybe she still has some reflux. If she REALLY had reflux (and it’s always so hard to know for sure) I would be surprised to find out that it’s 100% gone at 4 months. The more likely scenario is she still has some lingering heartburn. This would explain the “screaming at crib” thing far more than the idea it’s too big.
If there is even a suspicion that reflux is somehow in the picture then the real problem could be that when she is flat on her back she gets heartburn. Before I went down the CIO road I would go back to the swing. Even if it’s not moving, the angle will help mitigate any potential tummy discomfort. I would try a non-moving swing first and see if that doesn’t help make a big difference. If you don’t see a BIG difference, turn the swing back on and see what happens. Give it 2-3 days (don’t give up on day #1) because if my heartburn theory is right, it’ll take a few days of sleeping upright for things to sort themselves out.
Again I’m not there – you are. But based on what you’re telling me that’s the direction I would go first.
Alexis — thanks for the awesome site. For us, Extinction ended up winning out over Ferber’s progressive waiting, hands down, because our check-ins would only infuriate our baby. But we’re going on week two now of Extinction and are still having a problem with out 7-month-old waking up in the middle of the night 1-2 times a week and either crying for hours before going back to sleep or crying until dawn (when we go in and pick him up). Some background:
For the last four months, our exclusively bottle-fed baby, who has never co-slept with us, was waking up literally over 10 times a night looking for his pacifier and/or wanting to be picked up, and he’d be awake for an hour or more every night around 1 or 2 am, crying. Two months ago(when he was almost 5 mos old), we tried Ferber–which failed, and we abandoned it after a week. (He missed all of his naps and would wake up every night in the middle of the night and cry until dawn.)
Two week ago we tried Weisbluth’s extinction method, and it worked within DAYS. Our son now GENERALLY sleeps for 9-10 hours STRAIGHT, and he goes to sleep within one minute of being put down–whether at bedtime or nap time. It used to take up to an hour to put him to sleep, and even then once he hit the crib he would often wake up crying. Now, usually when he wakes up in the middle of the night, after a minute or so he just falls back asleep, and we often probably don’t even notice. It took only a couple of days for him to forget his pacifier–to which he was previously so badly addicted that he needed it replaced every time it fell out. Naps are good; bed time is GREAT.
However, we’re still getting random random nights during which our baby wakes up between 1:00 and 3:00, crying. I wait 15 mins to see whether he’ll go back to sleep, then go in to change his diaper, then get him drowsy again and put him back down. He cries instantly and goes for hours before falling asleep, or–for the later wake-ups, cries until morning (in which case I give him a bottle, and he either falls back asleep or starts his day at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am). He’s not hungry in the middle of the night, since he’s been weaned off of night feedings for over a month now and will actively push away any bottle offered him before 6:00 am. He doesn’t have reflux any more, per our GI. Any advice on what we should do now that it’s been 2 weeks of training and we have these outlier nights? THANKS!
I can’t decide what to do in the middle of the night when he’s refusing to go back to sleep… Do I continue indefintiely to let him cry for hours in the middle of the night? When are we no longer in “sleep training mode?
Ayesha,
You don’t specify but I get the idea that your baby is literally crying FOR HOURS a few nights a week. I’m picturing the scene – it’s 2:00 AM and your baby wakes up, he cries for 45 minutes while your partner and you feel awful and debate different approaches to handle it. Finally you cave and go in with a bottle and a cuddle only to get brushed aside and now he’s even MORE angry and you don’t know what to do. The sun is coming up on the horizon, everybody has now been awake for 2 hours and you’re just sad, frustrated, and perplexed.
Then you get a few good nights and breathe a sigh of relief only to find the same thing happening again. Am I right?
Well I don’t have an answer for you but here are possible things to consider:
1) You mention that there is a history of reflux but the GI says you’re done. Sadly unless he did an endoscopy he can’t really know that. Also reflux comes and goes. So if you HAD reflux there is always the risk that you HAVE reflux. It’s SOOOO hard to say but anytime there is a history of reflux floating out there you have to consider the possibility that it’s the root cause of what is going on.
Also reflux babies tend to cry more because crying leads to reflux pain. So even if he’s mostly over it, he could start complaining a little bit only to have the crying irritate some mild irritation so that it is now major irritation.
Just saying that with reflux, you never really know so it could be complicating your efforts.
2) This could be a really horrible extinction burst. It’s pretty uncommon to cry for hours and hours, but it could be what is happening.
3) It could be a LATE 6 month growth spurt (these things are all “about” so the fact that baby is 7 months doesn’t rule anything out). This would leave baby just generally hungrier (possibly) and more difficult to settle.
It’s really hard to say. I would definitely give him as much soothing as possible. If it IS reflux, he would be happier in an upright position so you might want to hold him that way (on your shoulder) for a while to see if it’s helping to calm him down. Also if you think there may be something there, possibly talk to your GI about medication just to rule it out?
If he’s crying for hours and not falling back asleep I might try to soothe him a bit. As you said, change diaper, soothing words, hold him upright (it could be he has gas so you might try bicycling his legs a bit). Give him a solid 20 minute soothing to see if he can be calm enough to put back in his bed.
You don’t want to “feed into” the night waking habit but it feels like there is a decent risk that there is an underlying issue that could be making things worse than normal. Which is why I might be a little more generous about going to him while ALSO being mindful about not feeding into the habit (or at least keeping in mind that you’ll need to gently wean off your night interventions).
Sorry I don’t have a cleaner answer for you but hopefully that helps.
I came across your site via another blogger who posted about sleep training. I wish I had looking into all this when my son’s ped. told us to quit night feedings at 4 months. He is BF at home, bottle when I’m at work and doen’t seem to take to the bottle well; I’m worried he needs to catch up in calories and therefore one of his wakings is to eat and do just that). Between going back and forth on the night feed, a sleep regression and teething, my baby is pretty confused. (insert mommy guilt here)
He’ll be 6 months tomorrow and I’ve hold Hubby we are sleep training this weekend as I will be off work for 5 days. We tried the ped’s advice of patting/pacifier when our son woke up at night (the pacifier is a whole other issue of mine — I hate the stupid thing, Hubby and ped office seem to thnk I am crazy). This works for a little bit on a good night. But usually between 2-5 he will wake up and not go back to sleep no matter what we do. We’ll get him soothed, then he’ll be quiet for 10-20 minutes and then wake back up. After an hour or two I end up nursing.
I tried putting him down for a nap yesterday. I was by myself and it took me 50 minutes to get a 15 minute nap. I was trying a modified method of checking on him every 10 minutes and it took me a few checks to realize that my presence was making it worse. When I went in he thought it was playtime, when I turned my back he’d let out an ear piercing scream and the process would start again. The only reason I ended up going in at all after the first few checks is because he has learned to stand, but doesn’t yet know how to sit back down once he’s completely up. He tends to clutch to the crib for dear life (teeth included) and seems genuinely freaked out that he can’t get down.
I’ve never been opposed to CIO. I just figured we’d try a more genlter approach first. But our son is relentless and determined and this gentler way isn’t working (for us…apparently it works for my mom who takes care of him during the week). Between yesterday’s nap fiasco and reading through your CIO info I think the ‘no peek’ option is going to be best for our son.
I didn’t think one was necessary, but given my son’s standing situation, I want a video monitor. I feel like if we can see that he isn’t in trouble when he first wakes that would help me not go in or even peek through the crack in the door (he’s great at sensing when you’re just oustide of it). Do you or anyone else have advice one way or the other with that?
Get a monitor! Other commenters have mentioned that you also might be able to keep an eye on things using an iPad or iPhone so that’s another option. Yes they’re expensive but as you’ve noted – going in (or listening at the door) just exacerbates things. So “buying” some visibility is a worthy investment.
The paci WAS your friend when he was a newborn. It’s not your friend now. Please tell your hubby that I totally 100% back you up on this. Putting him down awake and then popping the paci in all night long doesn’t get you anywhere. So if you’re going to do it you should DO it and ditch the paci full stop.
Nap CIO can be a bit of a mess though so if you’re working on nights during your 5 day break you may want to hold on doing naps at the same time. Some people have HUGE success with CIO at naps but not all. So I don’t mean to scare you off, but it’s something to think of. If he has short 15 minute naps all day, there is a good chance that bedtime will be a bit of a mess too.
Anyhoo – good luck with your 5 day project!
Help! I just ran across your website while searching online to see how long the average “cry it out” span of time takes before working. We are on Night # 9 and I am exhausted and feeling guilty as my baby is currently crying in his crib. 🙁
My son is 15 months old and still breastfeeds before bedtime and at wake up time. He has always been perfectly happy to go to bed. Staying asleep has been the issue of late. He was sleeping through the night but then at 12 months we had a series of colds, teething, ear infections…which led to night wakings and me nursing him as a form of comfort. Ten nights ago, I went in at 2 am to a crying bab, who as soon as he saw me, yelled “all done!” and giggled like crazy. 🙂 Adorably frustrating but also a wake up call (no pun intended…) that this waking is now a definite habit!
Cry it out (no peeking) night one was horrible. Night two (peeked a bit) was actually better. Night three and four he slept throught the night! I thought we were in the clear! I sang the praises of cry it out! Welcomed back my beauty sleep and banished my foggy brain. But nights five until the present (no peeking again) are back to horrible. Crying for an hour at a time around 1130pm and 430am. Will this get better? Am i being unreasonable that nine days seems like a lifetime? Or is it because he is older that it is taking longer? I need some hope! And some sleep! 🙁
So he falls asleep happily on his own but wakes up to play with you?
If the issue is that he wants to nurse the KEY is to separate nursing from bedtime. So make sure there is a significant gap (20-30 minutes) between when he last nurses and then goes happily into the crib.
I’m not sure why he is waking up 2X a night (hungry? wants to play?) but you’ve committed to no more going in. It’s been 9 days so I would STAY committed. I think some of this is extinction bursty stuff (check link below for more on this). And some of it is habit.
What happens when he cries at 4:30? Does he go back to sleep after 1 hour? Or does he cry till 5:30 and then you start the day? Sometimes early AM CIO can go poorly because they’ve gotten enough sleep so that it’s literally HARD to fall back asleep.
I’m going to go with a) he’s an older kid and a little more strong willed and b) this is extinction burst behavior.
None of that solves anything or probably makes you feel any better. But hopefully you’re almost done?
Hi Alexis,
I have been in pacifier hell with my 6 month old for the past 2 weeks. I am bleary eyed, sleep deprived and am feeling soooo frustrated! So, here’s my baby’s sleep history:
0-6 months: Angel baby! I thought I had hit the jackpot of the baby lottery. When she was first born she would sleep 5 hour stretches at night and 3 hour stretches during the day. Starting at 6 weeks, they became 6 hours stretches at night. At 7 weeks, 7 hour stretches, etc. So, by 12 weeks she was sleeping 12 hours straight with no feeds. She was magical! All I needed to do was swaddle her, pop in a binky, shhh and pat her a couple of times and she was out. See you in the morning, baby. Sometimes, she would require middle of the night binky reinsertion (foreshadowing!) but go right back to sleep. BTW, she sleeps in a crib. Happy, rested mommy and baby.
~6 months: Devil child! She learned to roll over so we decided to cut out the swaddle. With that change she starting waking a few times each night and we would go and replace the binky, shhhh and pat her till she relaxed again. I thought this was reasonable considering she wasn’t used to being able to move her arms and the movement would really wake her up. But then she started to wake up more…and more…and more! We were up to 8-10 times a night replacing the pacifier. I hate the baby realization of object permanence! Sad, tired mommy and crankier baby.
Now: So, we realized the pacifier needed to go! Her hand coordination just isn’t at the point where she can find it and replace it in the night by herself. She’s still pretty spazzy. Anyway, it has been 48 hours without the pacifier and I need to know when it will get better! She still roots around looking for it and cries in her crib when we put her down for naps and sleep at night. It takes much longer for her to fall asleep and she still wakes up all night long. I have been shhh and patting her till she falls asleep, but know that this will have to go eventually as well since it is just replacing one prop for another. My thought was a binky is either in or out whereas I can gradually decrease/eliminate the shhh patting thing. Once the binky has been forgotten (When!?!), and she can fall asleep without rooting around for it, I’ll start gradually reducing the shhh patting thing until she can fall asleep on her own.
My question is, is this a good plan? Should I just let her cry it out instead? She was just so good before, when I hear her crying I think something is really wrong. BTW, when she starts to fuss and I wait to see what she’ll do, it always escalates to wailing. Advice?
I think it’s a good plan. Also? It’s only been 48 hours. I hear the twinge of desperation in your voice, the hint of OMG THIS IS NEVER GOING TO GET BETTER!!! But it will.
Check out some of the success stories in the comments of the link below. This may make you feel better?
And you’re right – much easier to gradually wean off the shush patting. Good luck with everything!
Thank you! I guess I just needed some validation that my instincts and interpretation of your recommendations were correct. A little encouragement goes a long way as well. 🙂
I guess I just thought when she was old enough to understand the object permanence thing, she would be old enough to put the paci back in herself. Oh, how wrong I was. Thank you again!
We did Weissbluth “extinction” sleep training for our 6 month old. Prior to training, he wouldn’t fall asleep unless he was in our bed with me laying next to him and with my boob in his mouth! My hubby works nights and so I was alone dealing with all the 10-12 wakings a night. So something had to change…
First night, my bundle of joy screamed for 2 hours before falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. Second night: 1.5 hours. Third night: 1 hour. Fourth night: 15 minutes. Fifth and every night since then? It’s bath, boob, lullaby, night-night and my son sleeps thru the night 12-13 hours. He wakes up several times, but just turns his head and goes back to sleep. He is 9.5 months now.
I am SO grateful for Weissbluth and his methods. Prior to using CIO, I tried Pantley’s No Cry sleep solution. For us – it was a joke: my son seemed to “catch on” to what we were trying to do ‘gradually’ and he just fought with all his might lol. Also in my sleep-deprived state, I don’t know if I could’ve lasted through 10-day-long sleep training schedule, then reevaluate, see what worked and what didnt, then do another 10 days, and so on, like Pantley suggests.
Our bedtimes (6pm) now are such a joy, I have my evenings back to cook and enjoy dinner (and other ‘activities’ lol) with my man, and mornings are pure bliss when my happy well-rested baby greets me with a huge smile and a loud “mama”!
P.S. before sleep training I had to change baby’s diaper 2-3 times a night because he’d pee so much from all the night feedings. And of course, each change was prime opportunity to fully waken and wanna play. Now, at bedtime I slather Desitin THICKLY all over his butt, slap a Pampers Overnight on him, and that’s it till the morning. In all his life, my son has never had diaper rash 🙂 and no leaks! None!
Thank you so much for sharing your story!
I too have a love/hate relationship with Pantley. I dig that she’s trying to give people a no-cry option. But I don’t care for the guilty, “don’t give up if you love your child!” messages that pervade the book. Or the idea that if you’re getting nowhere you just keep trying indefinitely until either it works, or your child graduates high-school.
Overnights are a MUST. Worth. Every. Penny.
hi Nwunye,
my son is 5.5 month and we tried CIO last night (first night) and it was aweful. We put him down at 8p, woke up at 10p and let him cry until 10:40p (sleep on his own) but then he woke up again a few times at night. one time we fed him (feeding time) but the other two we just let him CIO.
did yours wake up in the middle of night too?? did you let him CIO.
We fel so guilty to let him cry so many times coz each crying took at least 40 minute to an hour until he fell back asleep. I wonder should i continue?? I’m so tempted to go in his room and give him his pacifier which he requires so much to fall asleep with.
May I start off by saying that I think I’m in love with you? I don’t know who you are but this article reads like a love story to me (teehee)
Actually, I’m in the thick of full out extinction method with my 11-month old sleepless monster. He has been the most resistant punk about everything I have tried. I am a single mom and have battled serious mommy guilt over letting him cry so he won every single time I’ve attempted the more gentle Ferber method. Eventually, without fail, he would win the battle or get sick, or my schedule wouldn’t allow it or [insert any excuse here]. Last night was night two of just letting him cry and he is already catching on. In the video monitor, I’ve found him sitting up and swaying to sleep. But eventually he does fall asleep. He slept for 5 hours straight last night and that’s the longest stretch we have accomplished. Right now he has been in his crib for 30 minutes crying for a nap. I don’t know how I’m going to make naps work and I’m willing to take any suggestions 🙂
Thanks again for your awesome article!
Yes please, cry it out nap post please please!!
(Good work Jessica. Hope your sleepless monster catches on.)
I have a partner and sometimes I feel like we are JUST BARELY GETTING BY. I can’t imagine solo-parenting a baby. So I figure that it’s even MORE critical that you are taking steps to preserve your own health and sanity because you don’t have a handy backup parenting hanging around. 11 months is an eternity when you aren’t sleeping so good for you for turning this ship around!
I would consider leaving naps well enough alone while you focus on getting his night sleep sorted out. If he’s overtired from crying/not sleeping during the day that’ll work AGAINST you at night. So temporarily you might want to hold on the nap stuff.
And let’s face it – he’s 11 months old. If he’s a hale and hearty almost 1 year old he’s TOTALLY capable of sleeping more than 5 hours at a time. So I would buckle down and:
– Be uber consistent at bedtime.
– Don’t peak (but use a night vision monitor to peek digitally).
– Start night weaning.
– Get to a 11 hour night.
As a single mom I think this is a huge step for you in terms of sanity-preservation!
THANK YOU for this post. Super helpful. Here’s our quick story and request for advice…our daughter took to Ferber very well when we started at 4 months. She’s slept like a dream (ha!) up until 2ish weeks ago, now aged 23 months. 2-3 weeks ago she started waking up in the middle of the night, several times, with the fear of god in her voice, screaming out to us to comfort her. She sounds completely terrified and goes from complete sleep to screaming. I’m quite positive it’s not night terrors because she calms and holds us the minute we walk in. We hug her (she’s still in her crib – we don’t lift her out) for a moment and tell her it’s time to lie down and go to sleep. She obliges, we rub her back for a few minutes until she goes to sleep (generally within minutes) and we creep out of the room. A pretty simple process, but it’s a 2-8 time a night occurrence and she’s clearly not putting herself to bed. The initial put-down has devolved into us staying with her as well. My fear is that this is all anxiety/fear based and a Ferber/extinction method won’t address the underlying problem – that she’s scared. But perhaps this fear is unfounded? Help?
I don’t actually think she’s scared. I think she’s freaking out because you’re not there. Maybe angry/startled is a better description?
If you’re there at bedtime she’s going to remember that and wake up later to find you NOT there. Thus she freaks out, “WHERE THE HECK DID MOM GO!!!!” Which is why she then needs you to go back and recreate her sleep association (you there) throughout the night.
So I think she has a you there=sleep association and that is the root problem. Thoughts?
So as a CIO veteran (sigh) I wanted to share one lesson or counterpoint to your preference for total extinction. I chose Ferber because I couldn’t imagine NOT checking. BUT I was very careful to do the visits right. Very short, no picking up, just a few words to let him know it’s ok and it’s time to sleep, then out. 15-30 seconds tops. They were not soothing at all, in fact, they made him angry.
I named this (creatively) the “Ferber visit.” And I discovered that once CIO was successful and he knew how to fall asleep on his own at bedtime, the “Ferber visit” was a useful tool in the complicated land of post-CIO night wakings.
Night wakings are hard because you have to decide what to do, preferably immediately so as to avoid the trap of “let cry for 30 minutes, realize baby is hungry, THEN feed.” Basically for us there were 3 options when he woke up: 1. Daddy soothing visit (maybe for several minutes or longer); 2. Mama feed; or 3. Mean Mama Ferber visit (“no milk, time for night night, mama loves you.”)
All three have had their place over the months as we reduced night feedings and night wakings.
Legit hunger? feed.
It’s 9 pm but maybe legit hunger because he hardly ate all day but I’m still making him wait until 10:30? Daddy soothe.
Not hungry, we think he’s just awake for no reason? Ferber visit.
The GREAT thing about the Ferber visit was that it was a way to let baby know that neither food nor soothing was going to happen right now. The Ferber visit seemed really effective in giving him that message, and he’d often go immediately back to sleep.
So I truly believe in our case the Ferber visits reduced overall crying FOR NIGHT WAKINGS, after the bedtime falling asleep skill was mastered.
Rereading this it occurs to me that maybe “how to decide what to do for night wakings” would be a useful follow up to the night weaning post? It seems that many babies reduce their wakings to 1 or 2 predictable feeding times after they master falling asleep on their own, or even stop waking entirely.
But it seems there are a lot like mine who learn the bedtime thing just fine but then continue for months in maddeningly erratic waking patters where you’re constantly having to decide, feed, soothe, or let cry? A post with some more detailed guidance about that might be useful?
(I hesitate to even say this because personally I am more or less ok with night now and want to hear more about naps, specifically any tips on CIO for naps, establishing consistent napping times in the 2 nap stage, and dropping from 2 naps to 1. But whatever there is only 1 of you so maybe I’ll have that stuff for the next baby. 🙂 )
That is really helpful how you have laid that out, Kate! I agree that more tips on how to determine what to do in the middle of the night would be great! (i.e. baby wakes up at an unexpected time, won’t settle for daddy soothing … and tips of what techniques daddy can try for that anyway)
For what it’s worth, although we still have a night waking issue at 9.5 months – we have had some nap success. By establishing a naptime routine similar to bedtime routine, and allowing some fussing (with checks) to fall asleep in the first place and extend sub-1-hour naps, things have sort of fallen into place with 2 naps per day at semi-predictable times. It did take a few months though for them to more consistently lengthen and it’s still not perfect, but it seems to have helped us have more pleasant days.
Hi Alexis! Avid reader of your blog. A little too avid. 😉
Our 6 month old’s sleep schedule just blew up in our faces, and I’m sick of reading La Leche crap. Seriously, is all their advice just ‘co-sleep’ and ‘breastfeed more’? Co-sleeping isn’t for us, and I nurse a bazillion times a day. Sorry, mini vent.
I have scoured your site, and all of the comments, and would love to ask you a few questions:
– our son is one of those infamous 45 minute nappers, although he’s pretty happy afterwards. Lately he’s been able to take longer naps here and there… today he took 2 45 minute naps within an hour of each other. How can we squish them together?? Once he wakes up from a 45 minute nap, there’s no way to re-settle him back into nap mode…. besides which, it’s usually hell trying to get him to take the nap in the first place.
– I like breastfeeding and whatnot, but he still nurses like a 2 month old, at every 1-2 hours. He’s on solids now, and he loves it, and his sleep vastly improved for two weeks after introducing them, but now everything has gone to poop… he’s waking up again at least 3-4 times a night… and full nursing sessions where he’s really eating (emptying both boobs, not just hemming and hawing).
– I’ve been trying CIO at night and with naps, with decent success… but his daytime routine is lacking. As briefly mentioned before, I’ve done the LLL ‘baby led nursing’ since he was born. He wakes up between 6:30a and 7:30a, nurses, eats food half an hour later… and from there on, I put him down for a nap when he rubs his eyes, and feed him whenever he whines (he’ll never refuse). Do you think that a strict routine is what our little guy needs?
Alexis, our son is SUCH a busy boy during the day, with tons of energy, and always hungry for boobs. I’ve been dead-mom-walking since the 4th month regression, and feel like I’m looking down a cliff with this one. He’s in WW 26 and just turned six months… but, as usual, I feel like all this is my fault. Sigh.
I’m right there with you and La Leche. In concept, it should be such a great helpful resource to give new moms support. But there is too much “if you love your child at all you must forgo your own needs, sleep, and personal hygiene until they are 5” stuff going on in those meetings.
I went to one meeting with the 400 nursing challenges I was having and was told, “The ability to nurse our children shows the depth of our love for them.” I JUST made it to the car before I burst into tears.
So right there with you.
The truth is I think the best strategy falls somewhere between the La Leche “nurse constantly and cosleep” method and the stupid-strick Babywise crapola. And finding that midpoint requires a bit of finesse. And it’s REALLY easy for things like growth spurt, ear infections, teething, etc. to pull you out of that balance.
To your questions:
1) Re: naps. I think he’s doing great. You can’t squish them together but you’ll get a longer nap here and there. They’ll get more frequent. And before you know it, it’ll be the norm.
http://www.troublesometots.com/your-nemesis-the-short-nap
2) 1-2 hour nursing during the DAY? That’s a ton. Is he really emptying both boobs every 1-2 hours all day long? Or are some of those happy snacks?
I think that maybe some small tweaks might help. For example popping him on the boob whenever he whines could be encouraging him to snack a little. Also solids can trip you up as they’re largely calorie-free. (See link below for more) Busy active babies often snack all day because the world is simply TOO exciting to stop to eat. So they get just enough to skate by and then make up for it at night.
I think that there is probably a few things tripping you up and the article below (I hope) addresses most of them. Why not head over there and see if that doesn’t give you any hints on some small modifications to make?
Hi, Alexis! Thank you very much for taking the time to help me. I have to say, I was pretty relieved that I wasn’t the only one who was, frankly, shocked that the LLL really equates breastfeeding with love. The self-righteousness is over the top.
Since the time I first wrote to you, I started keeping a log of his wake/naps/feedings/sleep schedule. Briefly: he wakes up every 3-4 hours at night, 2-3 times a night; sleeps a total of about 11 hours; nurses every 3 hours or so (with maybe a nurse/snack here or there), and eats solids 3 times a day. So, I’m actually surprised that he doesn’t nurse NEARLY as much as I thought. HAH!
So, I’ve been really reading your CIO articles, and have decided to go Vanilla CIO. Last night we tried it – I mean, REALLY tried it, both feet in – and he cried for 10 minutes, then fell asleep for 3.5 hours. So, it was pretty successful, for the first time. I tried it again for a nap today – and that was TERRIBLE. He basically lost his voice from the crying. I will take your advice, and just do CIO at night until his night sleep is fine, and THEN do CIO for naps if he needs it… his naps are still 35-45 minutes, but he wakes up happy. It’s been very hard for me, as I’m trying to get him on a nap schedule, but that requires me to be home most of the time, because he doesn’t always sleep when we’re out… it sort of messes up his schedule.
I think I should be happy that he wakes up only 2-3 times a night. 🙂 I’m guessing tonight and tomorrow will be hell again, but hopefully it will improve after that. I don’t know why his naps have suddenly gotten WORSE, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s due to his ever-growing list of abilities and accomplishments.
If you have any recommendations or observations, I am eager to read them. 😀 Thank you so much, Alexis. You do so many mommies, daddies, and babies such a wonderful service.
We started the Ferber method tonight with my 7 month old. He has never been a great sleeper but recently things have gotten much worse. He goes to daycare and is a horrible napper. Usually he takes 2-3 30-45 min naps. He has never slept through the night but usually will go right back to sleep when he wakes until recently. Now the only way to get him back to sleep is to bring him to my bed. I know he is sleep deprived all the time. Any ideas on how to improve his napping at daycare? I’ve asked them to follow a consistent schedule but it hasn’t happened. Thanks for any advice!
Hey Marie,
I’m afraid I’ve yet to solve the daycare sleep problem. Ideally they can carve out some space that is dark and use loud white noise to try to dampen the noise/distraction of the kids around them. Often the issue is that it’s simply too bright/loud to sleep. If they’re open to a swing that might be another way to get naps to be a bit longer (although he’s at the older end of where swings work so I wouldn’t push super hard as it may only buy you a month or so).
The consistent schedule thing is key though so if naps are all higgildy piggildy then you’re fighting an uphill battle. Unfortunately both threats and bribes have proven to be ineffective when working with daycare so I have no great fix to how to coax them into greater consistency 🙁
If he’s overtired from poor napping his bedtime may need to move up. I know this it the LAST thing a working mom wants to hear, but it may help his night sleep. Good luck!
Wish me luck! We are on night 2 of full extinction. Night one went fairly well….about 25 minutes of initial crying and then general whimpering throughout the night punctuated with two 5-10 minute episodes. For those doing full extinction…does it get worse before it gets better….what are your experiences. I think tonight I will put in some earplugs for the first crying episode and let hubby monitor him. Sigh, hoping Alexis is right about this being a quick method!
I said quickEST, not necessarily quick. Although 25 minutes IS pretty quick and I hope that you are quick to be ready to quit the crying business 😉
Thanks Alexis! 2 quick questions:
1. We are doing extinction from about 9-10 pm until 7 am. His normal wake up time before was 7-7:30am. Is this reasonable? Also, his naps have been erratic since we started. I’m just trying to get them but not worry about them now. Is that correct? Please tell me that my son won’t turn into an angry little guy now that we are doing this! I keep trying to tell myself it is for the best but it really stinks.
Also, does it get worse before it gets better? I saw you say that it takes USUALLY 3-4 days. What do those days (or nights) tend to look like. I have one unsettled and grumpy boy today.
Ok, we are on night 5 and so far so good. He is 6 months old, goes down at 8ish and I will go in there after 7am if he starts to cry. So far, he has only grumbled and had a short cry throughout the night and doesn’t cry for more then 10 seconds at the beginning of the night. Phew…has anyone else who has done full extinction found that you need to be rigid on his awake time too? Next is naps…do we handle them the same as the nights?
I’m not sure what you mean by ridged on his awake time. You have a 6 month old who is sleeping 11 hours at night and this is FANTASTIC.
Babies wake up when they wake up. So it’s 30 minutes earlier – makes sense as he’s actually getting better quality sleep than he was before. So not a problem in my book. He’s also getting a goodly amount of sleep at night so having him sleep longer is probably not very realistic (some babies will sleep longer than 11 hours but most don’t).
So in my boat, you’ve achieved success!
My 5 month old baby has NEVER fallen asleep without being nursed. (She had reflux until 3.5 months and nursed constantly and has developed an insane sleep association)
During the day she will only sleep while being held AND nursing. I wear her and nurse her for her naps. If she unlatches from me for any reason, she wakes up. So basically i am a human pacifier. She will not take a pacifier, (i have bought every kind and try them nearly daily) and she will not take a bottle. She screams hysterically when she is in the car or stroller (if she is tired) because she cant nurse, so therefore she is never in stroller and car rides are absoultely horrific. At night she sleeps swaddled in a swing with it moving and i nurse her whenever she wakes up. Usually 3 x a night. Clearly, i need to sleep train her for going to sleep and for daytime naps. We tried the weisselbuth meathod at 3 months. Night one she cried for an 1 hr and 45 minutes, night two was 2 hours, and then night three was 2 hrs 15 minutes! She was also waking up every hour or two throughout the night. We decided to wait until she was older because we thought the crying was supposed to lessen each night and we simply couldnt continue doing it at that time.
My question is, do you suggest the ferber meathod? She is now at that stage where she is crying for me when i am out of her sight so i dont want her to feel abandoned, but i want the quickest results. Also, the daytime is really the issue as far as how it is effecting my life and my family (i have an older daughter). I literally have to nurse her for every nap, no matter where we are. If we are in the car for an hour, she will scream for an hour. If i have to go to an appointment and leave her with my husband for an hour, she will just scream for an hour. Until i can get to her, and then she latches on and passes out. So…can i sleep train her for naps and going to bed all at the same time? I just need her to learn to self soothe and the sleep association with nursing is debilitating. Also, should i just cold turkey the swaddling and the swing? Just do it all at once? No swaddle, bye bye swing, no nursing…goodnight?!
Ps..clearly she has the urge to suck when she is tired, but i should mention that she does NOT suck her fingers(which my older one did). You would think she would, but she doesnt. She tries to but for some reason it almost upsets her more and then she gives up and just goes berserk.
Hey Kate,
What you’re describing isn’t really typical. I mean it could just be that your baby is unusually sensitive. But I’m wondering about the reflux.
You say she had it till 3.5 months – how do you know she is done? Spitup is not really an indicator – discomfort is. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/reflux-101-when-baby-cries-too-much/
What I’m hearing in your post is that you have a baby who needs way more soothing than “average.” What I don’t know is if this is just because it’s who she is, or is something else going on? And when you say she’s done with reflux, I then wonder if she really is. Because even the most devout lovers of nursing will typically calm down if Mom isn’t around for a while. The fact that your baby will scream for as long as your boob isn’t in her mouth makes me suspicious.
Screaming for 2+ hours 3+ days in a row is also not typical. I’m not saying that it NEVER happens, but it also makes my spidey sense tingle.
Would you be willing to try a week of prevacid just to see what happens? Clearly she also LOVES to suck so a drug trial isn’t going to make that go away. But it’s going to be a rough slog to break that association if her tummy hurts (note: crying exacerbates reflux so CIO will go poorly if her tummy doesn’t feel good).
Anyhoo if it were me, I would be circling back around to talk to the pediatrician.
PS. It takes anywhere from 3-5 days for most reflux meds to build up in their system. So you need to stick with it a little bit.
Hi Alexis,
Thank you so much for your quick response. You make a good point. My LO was on Zantac until 4 months. It did seem to make a difference during those times in between feedings as far as her comfort level went, but it did not make a big difference as far as the amount of nursing that she did or the ability to fall asleep without nursing. I weened her off the medication at 4 months and she has done great. She really does seem to be happy and comfortable at all times…until she gets tired. Which is every 2 hrs. That really is the only time she cries, if I am not able to nurse her.
The situations that I run into, however, are having to be in the car when she is tired, or having to be out and about during nap time. It is during these times that if she can not nurse, she just goes hysterical. There are also times when I have appointments. I had route canal recently and I HAD to leave her for a number of different visits. All three appointments, my girlfriend (bless her heart) watched her for me and when it came time for her to sleep she just lost it. No amount of tummy holding, bouncing, shushing will get her to sleep. She doesn’t end up passing out like a normal little baby would, she calms down for a bit, but then starts rubbing her eyes and starts up all over again.
My older daughter fought sleep as well, but never like this. She was never one of those babies that just “fell asleep” mid activity or in the car or stroller, but she would suck her fingers and chill out at least. We took a 7 hour car ride once when she was 2 and we left at 6 pm thinking she would sleep the whole time and she stayed awake the whole way. If I may quote my mother, “Katie, when it comes to sleeping your kids are WEIRD”
So while I am absolutely willing to take another look at the reflux situation, and to put her back on zantac to see if it helps the situation at all, my instint is telling me she is just not able to soothe herself when she gets tired.
I am desperate for help, and I realize that I am not your average case, but if you WERE going to advise me on how…or if…to sleep train this baby yet(pretending that reflux was not an issue) what would you tell me to do?
I simply can not go on doing what I am doing. I nearly rear ended a car in front of me last week, driving to the airport (30 minutes away) because when I am driving I am frantically checking the rear view mirror while she is crying because it is heart breaking. I try to avoid the car as much as possible, but I have to take me older daughter to school and activities. I am hoping if she learns to self soothe than she will be able to fall asleep in when she is tired even if I cant nurse her.
thank you for your time and I really appreciate any advice you may have.
One more thing… Is doing cio in the swing an option? I don’t care about her being in the crib yet. Could I strap her into swing After bedtime routine, without the swaddle, and do the cio line that? My hope is that she starts sucking her finger… Thumb… Own tongue… Etc.
Hey Kate,
Well your intuition is better than mine. But keep in mind that when you wean off, it often takes weeks (even up to a month) for the level of irritation to build back up to the point that you see issues. Thus it tends to creep up on you stealthily. Also Zantac is one of the weaker drugs and very weight dependent – so babies can often outgrow the dose. So the whole thing is really tricky.
I do know that babies with reflux will SCREAM LIKE A BANSHEE in the car the WHOLE TIME. It’s one of the reasons I think you have reflux. The car seat & buckle is the worst position for a kid with tummy issues. So again, all I can say is that my spidey sense is tingling all over this.
Taking reflux off the table…
Yes you can do CIO in the swing IF you are watching (night vision monitor) and/or you have a graco 5-pt harness. It is highly unlikely that your 5 month old can tumble out of a 3 pt harness (Fisher Price) but just in case you would definitely want to use a night vision monitor to see what is going on.
Given the 2 hour nightmare you had prior I can’t guarantee that the swing will make much of a difference, but it might? Whenever there is a whiff of reflux I like babies in swings so I would go in that direction regardless.
Another non-swing option is to try the Pantley pull off (discussed in the post on pacis below). It takes much time, patience, and consistency but can be done.
Let us know what you try and how it goes – lots of people are probably desperately reading this to see what you find out 🙂
OK- So I figured I would give an update in the event that anyone would like to know how it panned out. I am currently 8 days into the sleep training. I decided to do it in the swing (with it moving, Vanilla CIO). I also decided to do it during the day too, with naps, because quite frankly, the days were really more of an issue than the nights. I just couldn’t hold/nurse her for all of her daytime sleep anymore. It had to stop.
The first 3 days were what you would expect. Crying for about 45 minutes to 1 hr before finaly falling asleep at night. During the day, she cried for about 20-30 minutes before each nap. She takes three per day.
By the 3rd night, she fell asleep after crying for 15 minutes and slept for 12 hours. She woke up every two hours throughout the night, but only whined and fell back asleep within 5 minutes each time. That was a fluke however, and she is currently waking up twice a night to eat and going right back to sleep. SUCCESS!
As of today (day 8) she is still crying herself to sleep for her naps and at night, but it is never for more than 15 minutes. And there were two naps where she didn’t cry at all!
I am HOPING that I can get to a point where she doesn’t cry herself to sleep at all (do babies even do that?), but I can deal with 10-15 minutes for now. I don’t know how, if at all, she is self soothing yet. She is not sucking on her fingers, which I thought she would do,since she is such a fan of nursing, but I should mention that the crying is not nearly as desperate as when I tried this in her crib at three months.
My next hurdle…seeing if she will fall asleep in the car.
Who cares about the car – THAT IS FANTASTIC! Trust me, screaming in the car is cakewalk when you’re not exhausted yourself 😉
Really amazing and fantastic – thanks so much for sharing!!!
Will she ever stop crying for 10 minutes at bedtime? Honestly? I don’t care. Seriously. 10 minutes is her letting off a little steam, telling you she isn’t happy about going to bed, whatever. I know it’s no party but some babies are like that. She may stop but if she doesn’t, don’t sweat it. You did great 🙂
Thank you. Thank you. I am definitely going to talk to her pediatrician about the reflux. I guess I assumed since she wasn’t vomiting anymore and seemed so much better that it went away, but perhaps she is still uncomfortable. I agree…it is NOT normal to be that way in the car and it has been that way since day 1. At the time I attributed it to her reflux, and then as she got older, I assumed it was just her tempermant. As my ped has said, though not common “some babies just don’t like the carseat”. We recently drove to NJ from Buffalo, NY for a funeral and I hung over the car seat nursing her until she fell asleep and was able to pull off from her for the majority of the trip (overnight) and it was the first quiet car ride I had in 5 months. Uncomfortable, but quiet. She woke a few times and I just repeated the process until she fell back asleep. Now if only I could hire myself a full time chauffer!
I will let you know how it goes. Thank you again for all of your advice.
Kate
Alexis,
A lot of things I read about CIO say that it is important to watch your baby for some kind of magical time to put them down, when they are tired, but before they are too tired. If you get the timing right, there should be much less, or even no crying.
I find this very stressful. I just can’t spend my days staring at my baby for some magical moment. I have a 4 year old to attend to and a household to maintain. I CAN get him in the bed at approximately the same time each day. I CAN adjust if one nap was not as good by putting him down a little earlier for the next and so on.
Do you feel this magical moment is necessary? After CIO, wouldn’t they have learned to settle even if I put them down a few minutes late? I’m not talking about keeping them up on purpose or letting them go WAY too long, but does 5 or 10 minutes really make that much of a difference?
I also was never able to figure out the “magic moment.” And frankly most babies don’t give you good signs so it may be IMPOSSIBLE to see “the moment.” Although learning how to self-settle doesn’t guarantee you a smooth transition if the timing is off (too early, late). Although I’ve found that 5-10 minutes doesn’t make a difference but 30+ minutes does.
My best advice is to watch the clock. These guidelines might help: http://www.troublesometots.com/are-you-keeping-baby-awake-too-long/
Then your clock is more of a guide so you aren’t stressed about watching for the magic sign – you just set a timer for X minutes. I have a cheap Timex with chrono function – works like a charm!
Hi Alexis! Thank you for keeping up this site! I have been stalking it since my baby boy was about 5 months old, he is now just turning 9 months old. Since turning 5 months old he has never been a great sleeper, lots of night wakings. We have tried everything, has been a long road of sleep deprivation. Just a few nights ago though I decided it was time for full extinction and guess what? Went really well. Night one, 10 min crying at 7:30 bedtime, 5 min at midnight and 8 min at 12:40. Up at 3:00 and I wait until 3:45 and I take him back to bed to nurse and try to sleep until 6 something. Night two, no bedtime crying, but up frequently with super short cries. Up at 3ish and again I wait until 3:45ish for bed with mommy, nurse, sleep for a bit. Night 3, 5 min cry at bedtime and not a peep until 3 am…same story. So, yay!?
Anyhew, I have been getting him around 3-4 am for quite some time and bringing him back to bed so we could get more sleep. But, as of late, he is wide awake when I get him because he’s been up since 3ish waiting for me to get him at 3:45 or 4:00, nurses and then plays around until 4:30 am and then is restless until 6ish. So now I feel like he is trained to wake up at 3 or 4 and rewarded with mommy snuggle time and now he is just wide awake and not settling and nobody is really getting much sleep anymore between 3 am and 6 am.
Any suggestions on how to start getting him to just sleep past 3 or 4 am? Maybe it is time to cease the early am co-sleeping, maybe now it is too distracting for him? He will sleep on/off, just so restless.
Oh, nap times……he sleeps about an hour from 9-10 in the morning. Sometimes I can nurse him back to sleep if he wakes up, sometimes not. I nap with him in the afternoons and he sleeps 90 min to 2 hours, usually 2:30 to 4:30 or thereabouts. Bedtime, lights out is 7:30.
Thanks for any suggestions!!!
Shannon
Hey Shannon,
Congrats on the great progress!
Well if it was just about food the easy answer would be to set your alarm to ~2:30 and go offer him a dream feed BEFORE he wakes up to hopefully, prevent him from waking.
However you’ve got a complex scenario because you’re crib+co-sleeping which is a bit of a tricky wicket. I suspect what is really going on is that he’s at the peak of separation anxiety and really just wants to be WITH you all the time. So you’re gut instinct about him being “rewarded” with food and mommy snuggle time is right on the money.
I don’t know if you’re accomplishing anything by having him wait fro 3:00 till 4:00 for you to come get him. The short term answer might be just to go get him at 3:00. However that doesn’t solve the “awake for an hour thing.”
This is REALLY common at this age – they want to be with you and have had enough sleep to fight sleep in order to enjoy your company. If you weren’t co-sleeping I would say to go to him, use your words, and leave well enough alone. In your bed it’s harder but can be done. If you can put him between you and your partner or the wall, turn your back to him and ignore him. Use loud white noise. Don’t reward his desire for play time by responding, talking, etc. So bring him to your bed, nurse him, ignore him. Yes?
Easing off the early am co-sleeping would definitely be something to consider. But at this immediate juncture he’s already NOT sleeping even with your soothing presence so I wouldn’t imagine things would go better if you left him in his crib.
Let me know what happens – OK?
Hi Alexis,
Quick update and question. We have done about 2 weeks of extinction CIO and some nights are great and others there is some random waking and very different morning wake up times. If he wakes up at 3, 4 or 5 am do we ignore it if he has shown that he can sleep through till 6 or 7? We always have the same bedtime but wondering if he is testing the waters during the night since sometimes he have got gim at 4:30 or 5 am?…also, how long after Sleep training at night is established to you start cio for naps?
Hi Alexis,
We went down the CIO method before for about 6 weeks straight and the best we could get our darling 9 month old night owl to do was 45min and then he passed out from sheer exhaustion. His crying would ramp up exponentially the longer he went (the first night was nearly 3 hours of screaming bloody murder – running himself hoarse). We tried the occasional soothing and he would scream louder when we wouldn’t rock him. Once he did fall asleep, he would still wake up 6-10 times during the night.
So my question is, is it okay for him to scream so much? What about when he wakes up during the night? Do we make sure he isn’t hungry or anything major and let him go back to crying? Skimming through the comments – many people say it takes a few days, but what about if it persists for longer?
Hey John,
Is it normal for a baby to cry for hours and hours for weeks? No. Some babies will cry for up to 30 minutes every night but it sounds like what you’ve got going on is waay worse than that?
My sense is that something is going on. I don’t know what but something. It could be that going in to do occasional soothing is intermittently reinforcing the behavior. It could be that bedtime is too early/late. It could be there is some underlying medical issue (ear infection or what have you) that is tripping you up. So it may be time to talk to the pediatrician and rule that out just to be safe.
Also to be clear CIO is really for bedtime. Handling night wakings may or may not be appropriate for CIO. For example if he’s been eating all night long and wakes up hungry and you don’t feed him he’s going to cry a ton. If however he’s waking up 6-10 times a night and crying for 5 minutes then that’s pretty typical.
Everything I’ve written on CIO is here. Check it out – maybe there is something there that will help you figure out what is tripping things up?
http://www.troublesometots.com/cry-it-out/
Heeeeelp! Now that our son is an AMAZING night-time sleeper since CIO he just stinks with naps and fights them. I can get him to go awake in the swing, swaddled with a paci (something we don’t do at night) but lately he has been fighting that too and only seems to sleep one sleep cycle….has anyone ever done CIO for naps? I’ve heard it is really hard and takes a lot longer then the nights….any help would be appreciated! What’s the next step here?
Hi Erika,
I’ll write about nap CIO. Eventually. But it is generally harder and takes longer than nights 🙁
There are lots of things that could be causing your baby to fight naps. Depending on his age it could be a simple sleep regression (6 month olds like to do that). I’m also guessing the paci is the root of the issue. Check this out for more details:
http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-and-loose-the-pacifier/
Thus the answer may not be CIO, it may be loose the paci. Which may or may not result in crying 😛
Thanks a lot Alexis. I think for now I’ll just try to get him good and drowsy before putting him down and see how that goes. Again, can’t complain too much when he does sleep through the night! Waiting eagerly for your CIO nap post! Thanks for all your help!
UPDATE: So, I have been trying for a week to have naps in crib a la cry it out. Not going well. He often can’t sleep longer then one sleep cycle. Sigh. Today I have decided to pack it in, put him back in the swing for naps and try again later. He is 7 months old. I get the feeling he is just so exhausted and it isn’t working for him right now. As for night sleep, still awesome so small miracles….anyone else have this issue? Is it silly for me to be forcing the crib like this?
Sounds like he’s not quite there. Only getting 1 sleep cycle for naps is a common issue. If you can put him down AWAKE in the swing then I would stick with that for now. Then work on gradually weaning off the swing in a month or so (see below for tips).
I have just tried this after a 4 week sleep regression mixed in with my 6 month old also being sick (badly congested). After 6 months of little sleep I hit a wall this past week and knew it was time to CIO. I have read and read and read many sleep webistes and books and have found your website to be concise, great and honest. Thank you, I can’t wait to share it with everyone I know!
Thanks – I try to be concise and honest. I figure people who are miserably exhausted need things spelled out (at least I did when it was my turn ;).
Thanks for your thoughts on sleep, I have a few issues I’d like to run by you.
My breastfeeding baby is 5 months and napping terribly. First I’ll tell you about the night. We Ferberized him 4 weeks ago at night, using a 7:30 bedtime, and he wakes 1-2 times to feed (we are working on weaning the 2am feed). He usually falls asleep on the boob at these times. Should I be waking him up before putting him down in his crib? He then wakes between 6:15 – 7 am. He does cry for about 10-15 min when I initially put him down at night. Is that normal? And what about the random times he wakes at 10 or 11? Do you think I should just keep the door closed?
During the day he is a cat napper. He usually wants about 4, 30-45 min naps. Sometimes he will sleep longer at his 1-1:30 nap but that is because we are out walking the dog during this nap (he always sleeps in the pram). Getting him to fall asleep awake for nap time is torture. He will usually cry for about 20+ min and I take Ferber’s advice and just call the nap off if he is crying for more than 30 min. I wait at least 30 min – watching for cues then try again, sometimes to no avail. Today he was awake 5.5 hours before falling asleep on the third try. I wonder if I’m making his nap times to loose? I’ve tried rigid times but they didn’t seem to be when he was tired and resulted in a lot of crying. When I try to just go on his cues and keep the awake time between 1.5-2.5 hours I always worry that he isn’t really tired yet and I’m trying to force his nap. He loves to try to fall asleep on the boob, in my arms and in the car. Am I just not breaking his associations well enough?
Maybe the problem is I’m reading too many sources. He seems perfectly happy on a day of cat naps. I’m just worried about his little body not getting the chance to grow properly. Should I be cutting back his night sleep to make room for more day sleep? His bedtime moved up at the end of daylight savings, maybe it should be 8:30?
Hey Christina,
Do NOT cut back on night sleep. That road leads to madness OK? Honest.
He’s having a hard time falling asleep on his own. And he’s not navigating sleep cycles so you’re stuck with short crappy naps (read this for more on that):
http://www.troublesometots.com/your-nemesis-the-short-nap/
But he seems to LOVE movement as you get huge naps in the pram. So I’m wondering if using the swing for naps wouldn’t help you get LONGER naps and help break the nurse-to-sleep habit with fewer tears? Can you get your hands on one to try for a few days?
If he’s not napping well his bedtime should probably be no later than ~3 hours after he woke up last. And at this age you want it be pretty consistent. So if he takes his last nap at say 3:30 then he should be on target for a 7:00 ish bedtime.
Good luck!
Hi Alexis, my wife and I love your site! We have just started with the Ferber/Weisbluth method – probably a mix of the two …I’m all for the latter but my wife prefers the former!Any way, my question is: our 18 week old is doing really well after two nights of CIO and last night we didn’t hear a peep from 7-3am. He usually had a feed at 2:30-3ish and I was wondering if we should stop this feed alongside our CIO? If he cries and we go in because we know he’s hungry, won’t that back up his cry and response? We want to get this right! I think we should keep up a night feed at lest till he’s 6mths but font want him to think we are coming in his room because he cried. What do you advise?
I’m generally on the side of “feed them” when babies are <6 months. Your little guy is little and asking him to fast for ~12 hours may not be a realistic goal at this point. So if he's used to eating at 2:30 then feed him at 2:30! You'll only reinforce the crying if you wait at 2:30 and THEN feed him. Does that make sense?
If you're really worried (I don't think you should be) an alternative would be to set your alarm for say 2:00 AM and go offer him a dream feed BEFORE he wakes up.
Good luck!
Thanks for all the great advice on this site Alexis. Our 14 week old sleeps well during the day: up at 7am, sleeps at 9-9:45/10, 12-2/2:30 and either a nap from around 4-4:45 or a 20 min snooze on the breast if she has slept well at the earlier sleeps. I don’t think she’d make it through to bedtime without that snooze (she gets very frantic when she is tired). Our problem is that she goes down well at 6:30/7pm after bath, massage etc, but wakes up every night anywhere from 7:30-9pm and then doesn’t settle for a couple of hours. The last few nights we have left her to CIO for up to two hours rather than getting her up – it’s always fairly low level grizzling, only occasionally amping up, in which case we go in to comfort her for a couple of mins without picking her up etc. Once she falls asleep (eventually) she occasionally wakes at 4am for a feed, but more often than not sleeps until 7am. So it’s not hunger. Do you have any advice on how to break this, or what’s causing it? I know we’re lucky she’s sleeping well otherwise, but it means we have no adult time in the evenings, and no real break from her. I believe in CIO (we used it successfully for our four year old) but have never done it for such a sustained period of time, and am worried that it’s damaging her psychologically… Any advice?
Hello Alexis…so I have found your site because yes I am at the end of my rope on this sleep training thing and have decided to try (read (commit) to CIO. I plan on starting with the Ferber method and have just ordered the book. However, I thought I would get your insight on something first. My baby is 7 months old and has been sleeping in his crib since he was 3 months old…he was never a co-sleeper and I or my husband slept in his room on a twin bed if need be (with him in a bassinet when he was a newborn). Since first putting him in his crib he has had a bed time routine, much like you have outlined…however I was nursing him last, but in the last week have since changed to nursing him prior to his bath. I have tried the method of sitting by his crib while he falls asleep. He does not have much trouble falling asleep and that is not our problem (well it may be once I start leaving the room…but he usually asleep within a couple of minutes of me putting him down). The problem I have is that he wakes several times at night…as most of these babies I have read about do. He wakes roughly 2-3 hours after going down, I used to nurse him at this time, but have stopped nursing him at this time for well over a month yet he still wakes up for this feeding…and cries for about an hour or so. My husband takes the first shift 7pm to Midnight, which if my baby wakes up my husband will go sit by his crib or put the pacifier back in his mouth (I know you are and advocate of getting rid of the pacifier and I plan to do so when we actually start the CIO). However, often just consoling him will not get him back to sleep and often my husband will have to rock him for an hour or so (without feeding) and he will eventually go back to sleep but remains restless. I have gave in a couple times and feed at this time frame, but it does not seem to help he still cries and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or so. My baby is in daycare so I am unsure of his napping schedule (they don’t always write it down and it appears when they do, its 30-40 minutes at a time—as I have no control over this, however, I do on the weekends and ensure he gets 1 ½ to 2 hours twice a day, however even the longer naps does not seem to help with his night time waking). My shift is from Midnight till 530am (which is when we get up for work) and he usually re-wakes about 1230am and I nurse him and usually he will go right back to sleep but not always and is restless most of the time…then he will usually wake up again about 330 to 430am at which time I usually nurse him as I am too exhausted not too (I hope to wean off this feeding time if he ever properly sleeps). Okay so my question is when he wakes up at night do we continue with the CIO method of Ferber at that time as well? Meaning depending on the day (day 1) do we start over with the time frame intervals for that waking or do we let him CIO without going in there? Also do you recommend taking the pacifier away when we start the CIO cold turkey? Or should we get the CIO established before taking the pacifier away. I had always planned on taking it from him by the time he turned one so I don’t have a problem taking it away now…my concern is he does use it as a comfort because he will lay there and play with the flip thingy until he falls asleep however, he usually pulls it out by doing this and it wakes him up. But when I do get him to sleep without it he seems fine and it doesn’t faze him…any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Sorry this was so long. Thanks for your help
I have found the solution for our little guy problem. I am NOT saying that this is the answer for everyone but for the mom’s who are on the way to Crazyville, this bit of info might help. I went to http://noobmommy.com/2008/11/to-ferberize-or-not-to-ferberize.html {not that I don’t LOVE this site-thank you a million times over Alexis} and found that to get my 7 month old {who is 75%tile for weight and height} who was waking up about 4 times a night to nurse was to “FERERIZE”.
However, we didn’t just start there. I started around when my little guy was about 5 months by following Alexis advice, we put our boy to bed awake. Then we worked on pacifier {we did cold turkey and it took 2 days}
WHOOO… BUT now our problem was then was he wasn’t sleeping through the night and the weaning by lessening the time we fed, wasn’t working for us. SOOOO we tried FEBER…. not to be confused with BIEBER – ok not funny but I have more sleep so I think I am funny now instead of just cranky.
Anyway, 2 nights ago. We did it. The plan was: regular bath routine {bath, boob, books, sing, bed} and then we put him to bed. Now he was awesome going to bed {thank you Alexis- and only would cry less than 5 minutes} BUT he woke up in the middle of the night wanting a boob, SO at my wits end we did the FERBER- the first night was HORRIBLE but this little guy was doing it out of habit {waking up at the same time and really not nursing for more than 10 minutes each session} so we stuck with it. He finally got up at 5 and I fed him. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Now fast forward to Naptime day 2- I fed him and then put him down awake in the crib. He cried 1 minute and was out for 1.5 hours.
Fast forward to Night 2 with FERBER. My little angel {not hellion as I would refer to him} SLEPT 11 HOURS. YES YOU READ THAT 11. I was going from him up every 3 or so hours to an 11 hour stretch. Now mind you he did fuss for 1 minute at 12:30 but that was it. He even woke up at 6:22 playing in his bed…. playing…not crying for boob. WHAT??? Crazytown.
Some other factors that might have helped to NIGHT 2 was that, I did feed him RIGHT before bed but put him down awake. AND he didn’t take a late nap that he usually does take around 4 for about 30 minutes. SOOO we our on the mission to stick with FERBER. Now I know that every night won’t be like that but we were happy just to get one night. It might work for you. Alexis thank you for everything.
Cheers
Update- night 3 was a success. He went to bed normal time {6:45} and we didn’t hear a peep from him until around 12:30, he cried one minute then stopped and fell back asleep. This happened again 2 more times during the night then he was up at 5. I fed him and then put him back to bed, he didn’t cry and slept until 7. I think the key to whatever you are trying is to: stick with it, don’t second guess yourself and don’t go crazy worrying if you are doing everything right. Obsessing will only make things worse.
We did CIO (full extinction) about a month ago, after our DD’s (now 8 months) sleep had gotten so bad (while I was trying all the “gentle”/”no cry” methods of sleep training) that she was waking every 1-2 hours and would scream for another hour, despite me soothing her every-which-way. It would also routinely take an hour or more for her to fall asleep at night (with assistance). Then one night she kept me up for 5 hours straight crying (and I had a huge job interview the next morning, which I was exhausted for — although I got the job anyway!)
It took closer to a week to really sink in for her, and nights 3 and 4 were probably the worst. But, now she falls asleep on her own, usually with no fuss (or maybe 2 minutes of fussing). She’s not waking every hour or two anymore either.
However, she does sometimes wake more frequently than I think she should, and I’m confused on what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve been feeding her about 2x a night (4+ hours after she went to bed, and 4+ hours after the first feed). If she wakes before 4 hours, I don’t feed her. I’m fine with that, and figure I’ll work on night weaning later. Outside of that, some nights she sleeps up to 7 hours straight (not often, though), other nights she wakes 2 or 3 hours after either going to bed or a night feed, and cries. I’ve been letting her CIO in the middle of the night, if it’s not feeding time, and I don’t get the sense there is anything else wrong (I have a video monitor, and I assess the type of cry, and what she’s doing). I’ve been very consistent with not going in. She always falls back asleep eventually, but sometimes it can take up to an hour.
But I’m wondering if that’s how this really works? Am I supposed to let her CIO in the middle of the night? Or do I go in there and soothe her? She’s very attached to me, and I worry (based on experience) that if I go in and soothe that A) the crying will get worse/last longer, and B) I’ll be “rewarding” her night wakenings, and reinforcing the kind of behavior I desperately need to stop (it was all the soothing back to sleep I was doing that I believe got her to the prior point of waking every 1-2 hours). How do I handle night wakings, where she doesn’t need to eat, doesn’t need a diaper change, isn’t too hot/cold, isn’t sick, etc., without creating a whole new monster?
I think what you are doing is exactly right – if you don’t think she needs to feed, then letting her CIO is probably the best thing you can do to get her to eventually stop crying and putting herself back to sleep.
Hi Danielle, Just curious how things are now (hopefully much better) as we are also going through exactly the same situation. I have started wondering if i am doing something wrong.
Thanks
we waited till ours was 6 months old and it was so much easier than i thought it would be. it was literally maybe 1 total hour of crying just for one night. like magic, the second day she fell asleep after 1 minute of crying. i honestly wish we did it earlier. we would have saved our family and marriage so much grief and stress. keep in mind up till sleep training we were putting our baby to sleep by doing the worst things possible, like bouncing her incessantly on a yoga ball or rocking her in a bassinet feverishly until you worked up a sweat. my wife didnt want to hear her cry so wouldnt let us sleep train her, but the irony is that she cried the whole time while being put to sleep in those other methods too. i feel bad for my wife because she was trying so hard in the only way she knew how and i know that she too couldnt handle it much longer but was pushing through to be a good mother, but her stubbornness and unwillingness to ever listen to my ideas kept us from doing it earlier. i had to pay a sleep trainer about $700 to come and walk us through us, all so it eased my wife, even though we could have easily done it for free on our own. then when we finally did it my wife was amazed and thanked me, but it sucks that we had to go through hell and back to get there. If I hadnt brought in a sleep trainer we would be here, still bouncing her on a ball at 1 years old and probably in a very unhealthy marriage and household. we are happier and the baby is happier and healthier now. i cant stress this enough to new parents….its OK to let your baby cry a little. its the most natural thing in the world. dont go running to them at top speed the second they make a peep or it will set them up for failure down the road. let them learn patience and self soothing and they will be healthier for it.
Thank you for this. I am the same as your wife and I am STRUGGLING. I rode it out with our first son (breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, bouncing on the yoga ball, etc., etc., etc.) hoping it would get better and while it did in tiny increments, he didn’t actually sleep through the night in his own bed without me until he was over three. Our second son is now almost 8 months and he is just as difficult sleep-wise as the first and this time around I am also working and I can not handle the TIRED. Which is why I’m here, looking at ‘ferberising’ and happy to have found your response because I am right where you were and all your words are so encouraging!
I think Weissbluth is the only sleep author who truly understands colic. I think colic is often mistaken for reflux, but there are a certain percentage of young infants (up to 4 months) who are more irritable, fussy, cry quite a bit, and don’t sleep much or easily. I think for infants like this, CIO/Weissbluth becomes necessary because these infants rely totally on parental soothing (because they can’t soothe themselves) and get very overtired because they don’t sleep like other babies do. So, by the time a baby like this is 12-16 weeks old, you have an overtired baby and completely frayed parents. For these families, CIO is probably the best option.
I think that colic (extreme fussiness) is misunderstood and under-discussed in sleep literature overall, and it would be nice to see an article on it on TroublesomeTots.
I don’t think CIO of any kind is appropriate for a baby that young. Babies under 6 months need soothing, some babies need a lot of soothing. Sleep-training an older baby/ young toddler seems like a totally different experience from letting a 3-4 month old cry.
I don’t know Chaya…I’m sure it’s different for all babies, but I did CIO with my 3 1/2 month old. Had I read the book sooner, I probably would have waited, but I didn’t get it until later.
So I followed my parents’ suggestion, based on how they raised me, and went for it.
It solved all her nap problems within one day (2 naps, and 1 time at bedtime.)
And she’s still wonderfully cuddly, loveable and outgoing at 6 1/2 months.
So I feel that it could work younger if the parent recognizes the ability within their child. I just think you can’t make a blanket statement about it not being good for any baby under 6 months. Because it was good for mine apparently.
I have found this to be true with a lot of expert advice. I think there is variation in when individual babies are ready for things, and this goes for sleep training as well as developmental milestones. My son is only 3 months but he’s already bigger and just as physically coordinated and social as any of the 4 month olds I know. We used to rock him to drowsiness but he started fighting us and now I put him down in the swing without rocking. He still cries before going to sleep but it’s about HALF what it was when I was rocking him in my arms (5-15min instead of 10-30min). I know this isn’t “CIO” but the principle is similar. I think parents know their babies best, as individuals. Maybe the “6 month” guideline should be stated as “6 months +/- 3 months”… because I’m sure some babies aren’t ready until later.
I totally agree that colic is misunderstood, and he has great insight into it. I know for a fact that my baby has “his” definition of colic. He can’t soothe himself. This describes him to a T. At seven months, he still wakes frequently (every hour). I, however, do not agree with the CIO or Ferber approach. I nurse him back to sleep, and he calms instantly, though it takes me about a half hour before I can set him down. It is not restful at all, and I have another child to care for, but it is manageable. Infancy is so short-lived. Anyway, my point is that even though I could not disagree more with the CIO approach, I think it is a shame we overlook some of his other insight (like on colic) because we could benefit from it!
I realize it seems like a cruel process to leave them to cry but most people I talk to who are against CIO have infants that actually cry more every night for a greater length of time (months instead of days with CIO). CIO doesn’t take that long to work and then leaves your little one with a lot more time to get good sleep. Waking up every hour is not benefitical to your child or you. A little crying is hard but definitely healthier than waking up frequently and having fragmented sleep.
Thanks for this page! Our 12-mo boy has been sleeping all night for ages but bedtime is a nightmare! You’ve emboldened us to get more consistent with night time routines and to just leave him in there. We did it when he was 8 mos and it went fine, but somewhere around 10 mos he decided he didn’t like going to bed anymore and will scream for up to 1.5 hours with beief interventions from us. Time to pull up our socks…
I’m on day 6 now of weissbluth media at nigh only. It seems to not be working. Baby is is still crying for an hour and her night wakings weren’t bad the first 4 days but seem to be getting worse… Should I give up and try ferber? She gets shots today so since that will prob set us back… Should I take a weekend break and start over fresh on Monday?
Hello Carly,
I would love to know how things are now.
I’m having a similar situation except I’ve wrapped up two weeks already. Granted,I did change from Weissbluths check and console to Weissbluths extinction 1 week into it. My son cries more after he sees me so I really don’t think check and console can work. My FIL and MIL have put it in my husband’s head that I’m abandoning our son if I do extinction and have insulted me for the last week. he’s not colic in anyone’s definition so I didn’t think this would be an issue. I would love to know how things went with you! 🙂
Love this website! We currently use Babywise with Weissbluth book and love both.
I always feel like asking people who are totally against CIO if their parents in fact used it on them. Because, after surveying my small group of friends roughly the same age, their parents did employ CIO and it worked.
And not one of us turned into a monster later in life. Soooo…I’m just not at all persuaded by the so-called studies (which are totally debunked in the science world in my opinion) that claim children are left scarred for life if CIO is used.
My son was a very good sleeper until about 11-12 months, when we tried to put him on a schedule. At that time, he took three naps a day, and usually slept through the night. He occasionally woke around 2AM for a bottle, but he always went right back to sleep.
Don’t ask me why, but we thought he needed to be shifted to taking only two naps during the day. I guess we thought it would help his nighttime sleep. Anyway, after trying to “train” him, everything went south.
After a couple months of really rough nights, we tried the Weissbluth method. It was SO hard on me, but after about 3 nights it started working. I had some regression, where I started to go back into his room for some brief soothing, but with my husband’s insistence, we went back to total CIO. I have to say that CIO is not for me–it’s really hard for be strong and just let him go. So, I did (and still do) a little Ferberizing from time-to-time.
My son is now 3. He takes a daily 2-hour nap and sleeps about 10 to 10.5 hours a night Because I don’t do full CIO, we usually go for about 3 or 4 weeks of good nights before there is a little regression. Then we do a little Ferber/Weissbluth combo for a couple of nights and we’re back on track.
So, I guess I’m trying to say that the OP is probably right and that if committed fully to the Weissbluth method my son would probably not have those sleep regressions every so many weeks. But, I just can’t help myself from going to his room, so I guess I’m OK with our method.
So I have decided not to go back in after putting down to soothe our 5 1/2 month old girl. It seems to just amp up the crying all over again. Last night she was up 3x to feed and 3x I went in to tell her to keep sleeping. A quick soothing touch, couple of words and out the door. It worked pretty well. But, am I confusing her by going in during the night or is it consistent with bedtime practice? Also, how do I go about getting nursing earlier in bedtime routine?
I need some advice on our 2.5 year old son, who has been having night wakings over the last couple of weeks. When traveling over the holidays, his schedule got off, and we ended up going in to soothe him during the night when he cried from time to time. Now we are back home and it’s been terrible — he will wake up 4-5 times a night, crying very hard. Sometimes he will go back to sleep right away, sometimes it will take up to 30 minutes. Up until last night, I was letting him cry for a few minutes, but if he didn’t sleep quickly, I would go in there. Sometimes all I’d have to do was to open the door and let him see my face and he would lay back down and go to sleep. We have basically ruled out night terrors or health issues. I think he just wants to see me. We decided, however, that this was unsustainable for the parents, and are now doing full CIO at night, which we did for both him and his twin brother with great success as infants.
My question, though, is naps. Should we doing the same CIO approach for his naps? For the past two days I have let him cry for over an hour. He never goes to sleep, so I get him up and he doesn’t end up with a nap for the day. If I were to go in there when he first starts crying, no doubt he would go to sleep. But I’m afraid to keep the crying-reward cycle going. As a result of this lack of sleep all around, he is going to bed around 6pm. He goes to sleep fine, btw. What would you recommend our approach be for naps? I am capable of full-on CIO, I just need some reinforcement that this is likely to yield results because, as you say, it’s not exactly fun.
Following… We are having the exact same problem with our 1yr old son.
I am having a nap issue with my 1 year old and let her cry for up to an hour, but I think Weissbluth said not to let them cry for more than an hour for naps. I need help b/c there are many days (MOST) that this girl does not nap AT ALL! By some miracle, I actually had her napping last week (2 naps most days) and she actually slept longer at night as a result. I need to get this child to nap!!!!!
Hi,
Firstly, a huge thank you for your web page and all your thoughts on this matter. It has been very refreshing to read!
My son is 9.5 months and has had a big sleep problem since birth. Waking multiple times and finding it difficult to soothe etc. our family doctor mentioned the Ferber method, which is what made us look into it.
We tried it less than a week ago and it worked that night!! I was shocked. He only cried for about 20 mins(after a few episodes of soothing). We continued for 4days and it seemed to be working each day, however last night he cried longer and when I went into his room there was vomit everywhere! I was mortified and felt so so so bad. I felt like a bad mother and was later reduced to tears (after I nursed him to sleep).
It is so very hard to do but I know the method works so well. I also think we fall into the int. reinforcement group but I cannot seem to just let him CIO and not be able to soothe him. Wish there was some kind of middle ground.
So was just wandering if you had come across much on babies vomiting whilst practising this method. I have heard of babies vomiting with excessive coughing but not crying?
… Well after the second consecutive night of vomiting with the Ferber method, we have decided to stop. Cannot go through it again and nor do we want to put our son through such a traumatic bedtime. Must say though it did work for four days, however the vomiting is throwing us off. Was nice while it lasted though…
My daughter used to do this. It’s the big nursing session before.
Our son was a terrible sleeper- up every two hours until we did sleep training the day he turned 5 months. We did Weissbluth CIO and the first night he cried 30 min at bed time and woke up repeatedly throughout the night. We did not go in at all and the longest he cried in the middle of the night was 15-20 minutes. We did the same thing for naps- put him in the crib completely awake with his lovey, said night night and closed the door. After three days there was marked improvement and after a week it was completely solid.I think some of the pitfalls parents fall into is not being persistent and consistent when trying to change behavior. If you give up after a day or two of trying a new routine, your child is completely confused as to what to do. I think once you start, you have to completely commit to the process and see it through, otherwise your baby won’t understand what you are asking them to learn as a result of the crying.
Obviously no one likes to hear their child cry, but I completely agree with Alexis that you can do it now, or you can do it later, which from many of my friend’s experiences, is much harder.
Since we did the sleep training, our son has nights when he wakes up, or naps that he has a hard time falling asleep for, but because there is such a solid baseline established of 12 hours of night sleep and approximately 2-3 hours of daytime sleep, the occasional off night doesn’t throw him ( and us) for a major loop.
good luck!!
I did CIO ( probably closest to Ferber) with my 8yo because that’s what I was taught. I started with daytime naps and checked in a couple times the first day or so. then didn’t and I am pretty sure he was sleep trained within the first 4-5 days, no set backs. I can’t remember very well the details but I know it worked and had I not read about AP after having this baby I’m sure I would have had my 10½ month old trained by now. Now, we’re dealing with a titty baby who HAS to nurse to sleep. I want to do what I know has worked for me before. My significant other can’t handle letting the baby cry for more than, seriously, ONE minute. Idk how I’m going to pull this off but I NEED to start NOW! He is working night shift tonight, I’m going to try the other method, not Ferber, and not check in at all as I have a video monitor this way I can keep watch. fingers crossed this can be done BEFORE daddy switches back to day shift next week. or at least there is improvement with minimal crying. because as of now, unless baby is nursing, he’s crying no matter what I do to try to soothe him to sleep. so, either way he cries, why not try something that can offer results?
Hi, thank you so much for this website and all of the information and insight you provide.
My son just turned 9 months and I have been co-sleeping with him (and my husband) out of desperation. I was willing to do anything to get some sleep. He has yet to even be in his crib. I am breast-feeding and am putting him down at night (in our room, in his bassinet) between 6:30-7pm every night. He falls asleep quickly and then wakes every night between 8:30 and 9pm and does not settle down. I nurse him and try to put him back in the bassinet, but he cries until I put him in the bed with me. He usually takes a good morning nap and an OK afternoon nap (both in his bassinet in our room)and he usually fusses for a bit before settling down and sleeping. He has a sleep sack, a lovie, and a white noise machine. I feel like I am doing everything wrong in order to get some sleep: he uses me as a pacifier, basically. I have an almost 3-year-old son as well, and he has slept through the night since 8 months old with few issues. I want to get my baby into his own room and in his crib, but I am afraid the CIO method will wake my toddler every night. Basically, I can’t do anything at night because of this and I want my bed and some freedom back! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
DO the Weissbluth method!! I’ve done child care for 20 years. All kids WILL adjust if you do you bedtime/ nap routine, tuck in, say goodnight and be done with it! They all cry at first, for varying length’s of time, but then they realize that nap time is nap time and bed time is bed time…no other options are available. Some catch on with in a few days, others may take weeks. But assuming there are no medical issues of course, this works every time! And yes, they still love you tons when it is time to get up. 🙂
For us it’s the naps that are killer. We’re trying to transition from the Weissbluth type B to type A method with our 5 ½ month old son. It takes forever to soothe him to deep sleep and he almost always wakes up if we try to transition him to the crib. So with the cry for an hour methos, he’s so tired and will cycle through a cry like crazy then be quiet, repeat for the full hour never really sleeping. I feel like a horrible person, but he cries when I go to soothe him too, and having him hysterical while I hold him feels more unbearable than having him hysterical when I leave the room. Should we keep trying? Am I understanding the methods correctly? Am I a bad mom? I want so badly for my baby to sleep and be rested. I enjoy my time with him immensely, but I don’t want my child to need me every second of the day, either, because I don’t think it’s helpful for his growth and development. I feel like I can’t talk to my friends or relatives about it because the topic is so emotionally loaded for people. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
How did you go?
We tried both methods and found the extinction method the least traumatic for all of us. We realised that he was going to cry whether we were there or not. My husband was the one that put the foot down and said no more going in it just makes him more upset and takes longer for him to go to sleep. My mothering instincts went absolutely crazy! I hate hearing him cry!
So we did a consistent night time routine, including a big cuddle before bed, put him in to bed and closed the door. Lots of crying to begin with, the first two nights were really hard and I slept with a pillow over my head. On the third night it clicked for him, he slept right through with a few short (less an a minute) cries.
Babies brains need good quality sleep in order to grow and function. I was worried that a few nights of crying it out we’re going to cause some kind of damage. In the short and long term a couple of nights of crying (which they were doing anyway) is nothing compared to sleep deprived babies and parents.
18 months later he still puts on an award winning performance as we put him in to bed for a nap or bedtime. It only lasts for a couple of minutes and then he quietens down and goes to sleep. I think on average it takes him about 20 minutesto wind down and go to sleep (he’s not crying through this).
Stick to your guns, you’re not being a bad mum. The sleep training will pass quickly and the you will need to figure out how to do sleep training for yourself!
What she said!
For what it’s worthy, my 5 year old still protests bedtime. Every night it’s the same thing, “I CAN’T FALL ASLEEP! I’M NOT TIRED!” This goes on for about 5 minutes and then he falls asleep till morning.
Also Carolyn, you’re talking about naps and those are a much trickier wicket. Not saying things can’t or won’t improve, but much trickier. At 5.5 months he may need more soothing than he does at bedtime. What do I mean by this? Well you may want to consider swaddle, swing, loud white noise, dark room. The whole crib thing for naps may not quite be happening yet. Something to consider?
So we did Ferber CIO with my son at about 15 months. It went wonderfully. I’m a mean mom and wasn’t phased much by the crying. After five nights he went to sleep and didn’t wake during the night at all. That being said, 2 1/2 months later we’ve transitioned him to a toddler bed in anticipation of a new baby soon. The last five nights have been hell. We’re doing CIO again and my struggle is he gets out of bed now and goes to his door to cry. This means he falls asleep at his door. I don’t want to leave him there all night but I feel like it’s going to be the same issue as falling asleep being rocked if I move him from the floor to his bed after he’s fallen asleep. What do you recommend?
Alexis, thank you so much for your insight! I read all your sleeping posts yesterday and it gave me the courage to try CIO (I was ready) last night on my soon to be 6 mos old. I knew from reading this I had to do extinction. I’ve tried to soothe him with hushing and patting his back before and he screams worse the second I walk in the room!
So last night I say my soothing words, give him a kiss, put him down and leave. I turned the monitor all the way down but could still peek and see the lights. I turned on some music, made bottles, kept looking over. At 8 minutes, still going. At 10 minutes, no lights. Turned the monitor up and no sound. I checked on him an hour later when I went to bed and he was sleeping peacefully. He woke at midnight and I nursed him and went right back to sleep (this is normal feed time) then he woke up at 6:35! In his crib. Not my bed or the swing, in his bed in his room!
I know tonight could go off the rails but I feel so much better now. Thanks to your advice and logic I was able to do it last night and I pray tonight is much of the same!
Just wanted to say thanks again and update. The next night did not “go off the rails” as I had feared. The next night was quicker and easier. After three nights we went to the beach where (in order not to wake the whole family) we went back to ALL our old habits for five nights. But once we got home we picked up right where we left off! A week in he stopped waking during the night to cry. We kept the midnight feed and, guess what, he dropped it himself! All of a sudden I have a baby who doesn’t fuss at bedtime, sleeps in his crib, sleeps until 6 or 7 am, and doesn’t nurse during the night. I didn’t even have to work on dropping the feeding.
It’s so apparent he was ready to start sleeping long stretches and I’m sure he needed it for his development. And wonderfully we’re ALL so much happier in the morning!
My sweet 5 month old has had waking issues since he came out of his “newborn/4th trimester” phase… if he wakes at night, all we hear is squawking and fussing, and he eventually escalates. It is entirely on us that he is this way, as we employed the use of The Happiest Baby on the Block (the 5 S’s) from the get-go. They worked wonderfully for their intended purpose and length of time, and Luke was a well-rested, “easy” baby…until he became able to wiggle and get to his mouth to touch his pacifier, and unswaddle, etc. Then, not so much. So for the past two months we have been in and out, up and down, back and forth replacing pacifiers and loveys, letting him have one arm then two, and on and on, and me agonizing daily over how to fix this without crying. Well, we waited out the alleged Four Month Sleep Regression, hoping it was that. Again, not entirely the problem. Now he is five months, and though we successfully get him to bed by 630/7 awake with a lovey to hold but no pacifier, DF at 1030 with no fuss, we are in a cycle of 2 am to 4 am wakeups, literally every 20 minutes. He has simply not figured out what to do when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He doesn’t eat at night anymore, so that’s not an issue. We know that’s ok because he easily falls back asleep (though not for long) once we re-pacifier and do our soothing. Some nights this happens and some nights he sleeps longer. It’s erratic. But this can’t go on. We are deeply, painfully exhausted. So last night, after 3 times in and out to “help” him at 2, 215, and 240, I said enough. We aren’t helping, we are hurting. I went in to pat him twice after that, and then he just cried and cried, cycling through wails and coughs and falling asleep and then doing it all over. He had his loveys and kept grabbing them and nuzzling, so I know he is capable of learning to fall asleep alone, just like he does at night. It hurt my feelings, but I realized when I went in, he got louder and more upset. So I stopped. He fell asleep at 4am and slept til 7am. So, I guess we are now using the Extinction Method. I never thought we’d be here, but I see no other option, and honestly, he was just as happy to see me this morning as he ever is. I am not a bad mother. This isn’t selfish. My darling boy needs to rest, and rest well, and I want to help our whole family feel rested.
Of course you aren’t a bad mother and of course you aren’t selfish. You are wisely making a change to break out of a pattern that isn’t helping anybody. Kudos!
It’s so hard but you are doing the right thing for all of you. It sucks when you realise that you’re just making it worse with all the well intentioned intervention!
So this is the first night of full extinction CIO for us. My daughter is 7 months old in 5 days. We have always done bottle and rocking/patting/singing/shushing to sleep and she goes down pretty easy, however at about 6 months she started fighting the bedtime routine. She also started waking up more at night (2-3 times when before it was only once) and staying up for around an hour in between. She only eats 2-3 oz at wake times and sometimes nothing at all.
I know she has the skills to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up as she has done it before, but she has never fallen asleep (at bedtime or naps) on her own. After some much needed rest thanks to help from my mom I was no longer a zombie today and was able to read every article and decided CIO was where we are at.
40 excruciating minutes of baby crying have passed, but she is finally asleep. It’s bittersweet… feeling like its the right thing but hurts so much. I will update in a few days.
My little man is just about 6 months old and tonight is night 3 of CIO. I guess we’re doing the extinction method since we don’t check on him or soothe- it doesn’t seem to help. The first night was rough; he was up every hour after midnight crying. I felt like a horrible person. The second night was much better. He cried a half hour at bedtime, 10 minutes at midnight then put himself back to sleep, then up for feeding at 5:15. He slept another 3 hours after that in bed with me. I’ll come back and update in a few days, hopefully there will be less crying!
So quick update. We are on night 4 of CIO full extinction. Here are the cliff notes:
night 1- cried 40 mins, loud and hard, woke up twice at night to “eat” did not fall asleep with bottle, cried for 20 mins then fell asleep
night 2- cried mildly 13 mins, woke up once at night to eat, did not fall asleep with bottle, grumbled 12 mins then fell asleep
night 3- cried mildly for 10 mins, woke up 2 mins later cried another 10 went back to sleep. woke up once at night to feed, did not fall asleep with bottle, laid quietly for 10 minutes before falling asleep!!
night 4 (tonight, Easter night)- had along day, swimming for the first time 🙂 cried 10 minutes hard and loud then fell asleep.
All in all it seems to be working. I have had to use CIO at some nap times too, with success around 10-15 min mark. The biggest challenge has been getting away from the bottle right before bed. She is used to bottle to sleep for naps and bedtime, and she is a difficult eater otherwise. I think once I start shifting her schedule to remove bottle before naps as well it will all fall into place and she might even sttn 😀 Here is to hoping!
Rebecca,
That is a FANTASTIC update! Little rough on night #1 – which is typical – and then essentially nothing. I mean I understand that 10 minutes can feel like an eternity but it’s just her way of expressing her displeasure at the fact that no kid every in the history of time has actually WANTED to go to bed.
Kids this age are often distracted eaters because…LIFE. But when the food bar is closed at night they don’t waste away, they manage to get those calories in during the day. She will too 🙂
Congratulations!
Thanks Alexis! Things are going great thanks to all the things I learned and implemented 🙂 I appreciate the work you do!
I thought I’d update as well. I have such a stubborn baby! Bedtime is going better, we’ve done 5 nights of CIO an crying is becoming less and less at bedtime. However, he’s still waking frequently at night. Last night he was up at 10, 2, and 4:45. I fed him at 10 and 4:45. I let him cry at 2. Shouldn’t these night wakings be getting better? I’m not getting anymore sleep than I was before, and I doubt my son is either, which was the whole reason for doing this!
Stephanie,
Sleep training does not equal night weaning. They are two separate issues. Sleep training simply creates the POTENTIAL to successfully night wean.
I think you’ll find some more help on this topic on the post I link to below. Good luck!
Alexis
Thanks for that link, and I think I’ve realized some of our problems. He is definitely a distracted eater during the day. I’m lucky if I can get 6 oz in him at a time, usually only 4. How in the world do I fix this?
I’ve tried CIO for a month and my 8 month old is still having sleep issues (only at naptime). At first I tried checking on him during timed intervals but quickly realized that made it worse, so I just left him to scream. There has been SOME improvement. In the beginning he was crying for TWO hours, now he cries for about 30-60 mins. I am positive he is tired before his nap. For 3 weeks I put him down for nap and just let him scream. After 3 weeks went by and hes still screaming Ive started staying in his room and rubbing his back. My current routine is bringing him into his room for a story, shutting shades, turning on white noise, rocking him in chair and humming to settle him. He gets very drowsy and I then put him down and rub his back. He seems to fall asleep right away and then jumps right the second I stop. So here is where the issue is…Is it bad to continue to rub his back until he falls asleep (usually 20 mins)? He usually cries on and off and tries to sit up but if i keep rubbing he eventually dozes off. If he gets back up after rubbing for awhile I let him cry, and then its usually 30-60 mins before he falls asleep. Should I change anything in this routine?
How early can you start sleep training? My 10 week old will only sleep at night in our arms and although she is obviously very tired, the bedtime ‘routine’/process can take hours… my husband and I are so tired and frustrated. We swaddle her, bounce her on the exercise ball, sing to her, let her nurse… she’ll fall asleep, but wake up as soon as we try to put her down. Is 10 weeks too early? I will still let her nurse at night when she is hungry, but want to use CIO for bedtime to get her to actually sleep.
What about having her sleep in the swing?
http://www.troublesometots.com/the-ultimate-baby-swing-sleep-guide-for-swing-hating-babies/
I also wonder if you’re trying to get her to fall asleep too early/late. Kiddos at this age are generally awake a looong time before bed and they’re also miserable. This is called the witching hour – for obvious reasons. If so then CIO could be a big mess which is why I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better to experiment with different times/techniques (a la swing). What time does she typically FALL asleep after your hours of epic bouncing? What if you just stop trying to get her to fall asleep before that time?
She had been falling asleep at 7:45pm for a few days as the beginning of her night time stretch. But then she had 4 or 5 days where she would fall asleep at that time, but then wake up when we tried to set her down. I try to keep her awake time at 2 hrs max (asleep within 2 hrs) because she definitely gets wired if we try after that. I’m just frustrated because I know she is tired and she will fall asleep if bounced and held. No one ends up sleeping if we just keep trying. She will fall asleep in the swing, but I’m worried about her staying in it for her long stretch (6 hours) – worried she’ll get a flat head or slip down. We don’t have her buckled in – we have her swaddled with one arm out. Or we don’t swaddle her on warmer nights. We typically shut the swing off one or one and a half hours after we put her in it and she had been doing a long night stretch in it. I just saw on the SIDS information website link that they should not be sleeping in a swing. I was reading up on that site because I wanted to try to put her down on her tummy and see if that would help. So you think 10 weeks is too early?
I have a plan. It worked last night. She fell asleep nursing at 6:20pm and I transferred her to the swing and let it rock for about an hour and a half. Then I shut it off and she continued sleeping till about 9:20pm when she started stirring. Then I did a dream feed and then transferred her to the bassinet. She ate again at around 1:30am and again at 5am and is still asleep and it is 6:45am! I’m going to keep trying this. To be honest, I do not buckle her into the swing because I have to carefully put her in there asleep. She is swaddled with one arm out. I keep a baby monitor on during naps and turn the swing off after one hour (sometimes she keeps sleeping after that). At night, her swing is in the same room as my bed and the bassinet so I’m in there and am going to try to do the dream feed and transfer to bassinet. Thank you for your advice and for your website!
Ladies, Daddies, Alexis,
Anyone experienced things getting WORSE after trying Ferber?
We did two nights so far with our 8 month old and things have gone south… Seems like we did everything by the book (good sleep environment, solid routine, restaurant shut down 30 min prior to crib, maximized naps, exactly followed Ferber table above), and this is what happened:
Night 1: 25 min fuss, woke twice during night (recent norm)
Night 2: 35 min fuss, woke SIX (!!!) times during night + up at 5am instead of the usual 6/7 + seems very distressed this morning.
I think my baby might fire me as a Mom. But I love my job!
I spent the night googling to see if anyone else experienced this and some peeps say sometimes Ferber makes things worse… Oh please, I don’t wanna be that statistic…
Should we stick to in and do at least 7 days? Should we stop now? Thoughts?
Check out the post I link to just down below. I’m guessing THIS is your problem and also the solution…
I would definitely keep at it for at least a week and maybe two. If at that point you are seeing no improvement, it may be time to re-evaluate. But 2 days is not enough, habits that have been repeated over and over can take a while to change! Also check out Alexis’ articles on extinction bursts and why cio didn’t work to make sure you are approaching it the right way.
Thanks for the advice! Yes, I’ve seen those posts by Alexis… I also know what you mean about trying for a full week or two to start seeing results, but my concern is more my baby’s state… Never seen him as distressed as after these first few days of sleep training, so I guess the question is whether CIO may not be the way to go for some kiddos and if yes, how do we know? Ahhh, if only we had all the answers.
I started CIO 3 days ago and it seems to be working. The very first night was horrible. My baby girl cried for 50 minutes. So I’m not sure if she went to bed out of pure exhaustion or she soothed herself? She ended up sleeping for 7 1/2 hours that night. I was completely shocked. The second night she woke up once and the third again for 7 hours. However it seems actually a little more tough during the day with naps. She seems to wake up every 45 minutes and starving. For me it’s ok because she is getting older and is needing a little less sleep and I think it helps also for at night not taking those 3 hour naps anymore. Sometimes though she will cry 5 minutes and fall asleep and other times she will take 40 minutes to fall asleep. So in that sense I start to feel like maybe shes hungry still and then i freak myself out thinking I’m letting her cry and the poor baby is hungry. Then she ends up falling asleep and of course I feel much better. I am going to continue to do this because I feel it has actually changed my daughter for the better. I felt that she was the boss of us and when she wanted to sleep that’s when she would finally go to sleep. After endless hours of rocking, calming, bouncing my back really couldn’t take it anymore. The exhaustion was getting to me so much that I couldn’t even sleep when it was time to sleep. I would rather have a well rested baby and mommy than a cranky, fussy baby and a zombie for a mom. She still laughs and cuddles and plays. It was the hardest thing for me as a mom to do just letting your baby cry thinking she is being traumatized but I feel more confident now knowing that she is gaining the ability to self soothe and becoming a better sleeper which is my main goals.
CIO has yet to work with our 10 month old daughter. She continually gets more worked up. She’ll scream for hours along with coughing/gagging. We need to get her sleeping through the night in her crib! (Right now she wakes 2-3 times and sleeps in our bed).
I’ve been obsessing over how to manage my daughter’s night waking for well over a month. She is 10.5 months old & used to go down for bed & naps without a fuss. Recently she’s been fighting this on occasion but we let her cry for less than 10 min & she goes down. She sleeps in our room & as a bottle before bed.
Night wakings, however, are killing us. She wakes us by standing & screaming-not fussing, screaming. She used to wake 2x but would resettle easily after a bottle, then she became harder to resettle, now we’ve taken away the bottle but started bringing her into our bed. I say our bed, but my husband is sent to the guest room for sleep. She’s a happy child but I suspect has some separation anxiety. I don’t know if I could let her cry for an hour..it would be too hard for me. I’ve toyed with no-cry but realize at this age there will be tears. I have two questions:
1. Do you think there will there be less tears with one of the 2 CIO at this stage than a “No cry” plan?
2. Can I make a 20 minute limit for crying and then just stop or am I “teaching her to cry for 20 minutes” as was suggested by someone else.
In my heart of hearts I feel like a CIO might be less traumatic but I just feel guilty about it. Thanks!
1. I don’t know.
2. Nope (meaning letting her cry for 20 minutes and rushing in is a really bad plan and definitely teaches her to cry for 20 minutes).
I would change bedtime – remove that bedtime bottle from bedtime by at least 20 minutes. I think she has a food=sleep association and you start by breaking that association at bedtime. Then you need to figure out where she’s going to sleep – her bed or yours? You’ve been teaching her to sleep with you (out of desperation, I totally get it!) but if that’s not your plan for the long haul, you’re sending mixed messages there.
When you say she is screaming, do you actually believe her to be in pain? My guess is that she’s absolutely not in pain. If she’s not in pain then the screaming is more about her getting a response from you to a “want” then actual pain or psychical need. If you give her a bottle, her diaper is dry, she’s warm and comfortable and THEN she screams, what do you think is going on? I suspect she’s figured out that screaming = you come running. What do you think about that?
Thank you so much or replying so quickly.I do think that she is screaming because she wants me to come running. There have been times when she is teething (she already has 8 teeth) but that sounds different. I would like her to sleep in her crib in our room for now. I bring her to bed purely out of desperation. In a few months, we will transition her to her own room. We read her several books before her bottle. I will switch the routine to bottle, then pajamas, teeth, and books. Thank you!
I do have a few questions:
I thought that we should night wean first. (We’ve been trying for 2 weeks & have been successful 80% of the time. She developed her first cold and stopped eating much during the day). However, you suggested giving her a bottle, checking diaper, etc for night waking. I’m unclear as to the progression I should take. Should I work on breaking the bottle/sleep association and continue night weaning first and then sleep training. Or, should I sleep train first (while giving her a bottle to make sure she is comfortable?)
2. Could breaking her bottle/sleep association stop the night waking on it’s own?
3. She generally has a bottle before naps but can do down without one. Should I follow the 20 min rule for naps as well? I assume so, but want to confirm.
Thank you so much for your help. I’m so grateful.
I just wanted to add that before we started bringing her to bed, she would wake 2 x each night.
Bed: 8
Wake: 11:30 6/7 oz go down easily (sometimes we’d dream feed and she would sleep until the second wake up)
Wake 3 isn
Wake for day 6/630
We started bringing her to bed when we could no longer soothe her back to bed at the second wake up. Then, the doctor told us to stop the night feed and we couldn’t soothe her for the first either. Now she is in bed from the first wake up until morning and still wakes around 3 but settles easily.
Sorry to be so long, I feel like I just want to stop being wishy washy and get a plan, finally!
So my partner and I have decided CIO is our last hope. Our son is just under 1 years old. He’s never been a great sleeper, but took to his own crib, in his own room from 3 months. Obviously at this stage he still needed night feeds, which would be x2 during the night. When he got to 8 months we replaced the his night feeds with water as he was fully weaned and on solids, but have never managed to successfully get him to sleep through/not wake for the water feeds. When he wakes at 5/6 he normally gets a bottle, but ideally we want to stop this. We are all absolutely exhausted. Its affecting my partner and I at work and with our son being at nursery, by the time he’s home he is passed it.
I have a read a lot about CIO and we feel the no peek CIO will work for us as when we enter the room his cry gets louder/longer. My only query is do we leave him to CIO every time he wakes in the night. I just dont want to give an mixed signals and try and make this as painless for my boy as I can. We started last night, after 30mins he stopped. But when he woke at 3am my partner went through, ad picked him up/nursed back to sleep. We are agreed that this cant go on for all our sakes. So my question was, once he’s down in his crib, we leave the room and do not enter until morning? No matter how many times he wakes and cries?
Thanks very much. I have found this site very useful and hope someone can just clarify that little niggle for me.
Kirstenm
He’s 1 and just drinking water for all these wakings prior to 5 AM right? So any demands for you aren’t about hunger. Personally I would probably do something like this:
– give him a sippy of water. He’s welcome to keep this with him in his crib all night.
– If he wakes either go for 1 minute (use your words, reinforce that it’s time to sleep and that you love him, then leave) OR fully ignore
– No food or bottles until 5 AM. If he wakes near 5 AM (say 4:30) don’t let him cry till 5:00 AM, just go to him with his bottle at that time.
No nursing to sleep, yes?
How long do you let them CIO? Using the Weissbluth method, night 1 and my 6 mo old has been crying for 60 minutes. He seems to be getting louder. What do you do after 60 minutes? How many nights on average will we have to do?
I let him cry for 90 min. I couldn’t let him cry any longer. Why so long? He was full and dry….
🙁
I’m sorry you had a hard time. But there’s nothing to be really gained by picking him up after 90 minutes. Is that a touch on the long side? Sure. Does it happen? Absolutely. Was he full and dry? Yep.
So what happened? Well he had a hard time falling asleep. This is a change, and sometimes kids struggle with this change. It’s hard to step back and let your child struggle. But he’s not in pain, he’s not abandoned, and he’s totally capable of doing this. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to get out of the way and let then figure things out.
Whatever you choose to do going forward, something to think about? Good luck!
Thanks for your note Alexis. Turns out he was getting a tooth. Popped through the next day. I felt terrible as there was something wrong. Shouldn’t be so bad the next time. We are also transitioning from breastfeeding to formula so we have a few changes!
LH
how did it go the after that night? My son is 9 months and teething too. He’s so attached to me but I need sleep. My husband and I just don’t know what to do so we are thinking of cio today. My son is a loud screamer too 🙁 I’m just worried because he’s teething breaks my heart.
My biggest concern is hearing that babies stop crying because they know you aren’t coming for them and that makes them feel insecure and helpless. Is this true? I want to try CIO but I worry that it will make my 11 month old feel like I’m not there for him.. Please help !
There was a long term study on the effects of CIO vs non-CIO. There was negligible difference in effects on temperment (i.e. behavior alphas) long term. SO no, you are not doing long term damage at all.
Do not project an adult mindset onto an infant. It does yourself a dis-service as well as your infant…in many ways.
Infant behavior, from most studies, is highly additive in cognition…a baby is starting to utilize pattern recognition in regards to the world after realizing object permanence.
So if the pattern has been for most of the day you cater to every need and then in one instance you don’t…the baby does not suddenly forget everything that happenned before, especially at 6 months+. The baby will be reacting (sometimes violently) to this anomaly BUT once it becomes part of the pattern, the baby will adjust their understanding of the pattern.
There’s no complex emotional interplay of security vs insecurity involved inside your baby during CIO. Just your own comfort vs discomfort.
Our 10 month old son was sleeping through the night by around 8 weeks. We put him to bed around 8pm and would sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours. He would wake up occasionally throughout the night but if we put his pacifier back in, he would go back to bed immediately (not even sure he was awake when he would cry). Starting about 3 weeks ago he started to stand up in his crib and would wake up in the middle of the night hysterical, and would stand up in his crib. This would happen anywhere from 2-5 times a night. We would lay him back down and give him his pacifier. He would stand up again and throw his pacifier. We would go in each time he stood up and just lay him back down. We would do this until he was calm and not standing or would fall asleep. Now he’s doing this same routine, but he’s teething. Some nights (like last) he was so hysterical, even when we were in his room, rubbing his belly. In order to calm him down and get him to go back to bed, I took him out of his crib and sat with him laying on my chest and that worked. I think he is playing my husband and I, because when he stands up he goes right to the corner of the crib, like he knows we’ll come soothe him, and right when we walk out, he throws his pacifier. Even when we are standing in his room he’ll throw his pacifier but cries for it at the same time. We live in an apartment so I’m hesitant to try the CIO method, but my husband and I have come to the point where we need to try something else, what we are doing isn’t working for any of us. What do we do about him standing up in his crib, and the pacifier situation?
Our 10 month old son was sleeping through the night by around 8 weeks. We put him to bed around 8pm and would sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours. He would wake up occasionally throughout the night but if we put his pacifier back in, he would go back to bed immediately (not even sure he was awake when he would cry). Starting about 3 weeks ago he started to stand up in his crib and would wake up in the middle of the night hysterical, and would stand up in his crib. This would happen anywhere from 2-5 times a night. We would lay him back down and give him his pacifier. He would stand up again and throw his pacifier. We would go in each time he stood up and just lay him back down. We would do this until he was calm and not standing or would fall asleep. Now he’s doing this same routine, but he’s teething. Some nights (like last) he was so hysterical, even when we were in his room, rubbing his belly. In order to calm him down and get him to go back to bed, I took him out of his crib and sat with him laying on my chest and that worked. I think he is playing my husband and I, because when he stands up he goes right to the corner of the crib, like he knows we’ll come soothe him, and right when we walk out, he throws his pacifier. Even when we are standing in his room he’ll throw his pacifier but cries for it at the same time. We live in an apartment so I’m hesitant to try the CIO method, but my husband and I have come to the point where we need to try something else, what we are doing isn’t working for any of us. We need to try CIO. Using either method, what do we do about him standing up in his crib, and the pacifier situation?
Ali,
I just read your post after I posted mine, and it appears we have very similar issues! I saw no one has responded to you. Did you figure out what to do about the teething and standing?
Thanks,
Christina
We did not really figure out what to do. We were going in and laying our son back down when he was standing up. We have been giving him Motrin or Tylenol every few nights, but not all. The night we decided we were going to try CIO he slept thru the night and was sleeping thru the night for about a month. Last Wednesday he reverted back to waking up, not sure if it’s teething again, or that we were at my parents. Saturday night was rough, was up with my son from 3-530p, but Sunday night and last night he slept thru the night. I think it’s a stage that I am hoping doesn’t last long and doesn’t happen often!
Hi! Question about my 2 year old. About two months ago our decent sleeper (great at going to bed) derailed the sleep train big time. What began as fussing at bedtime (not letting me leave his room) ended with him in our bed up to last week. I could not take it any longer and we began ferber. Tonight is night 4 and he had vomited 3/4 nights. As he is easy to vomit and had done so in previous CIO attempts so it was expected. We are seeing some progress with bedtime crying shortening from 1.5 hrs to 40 min but vomiting nightly is very concerning. Not to mention we feed him 2 hrs before bedtime. Another detail is that he falls asleep now after final check with me rubbing his head 10 times and saying I have to go potty but will be back shortly. He’s still awake when I leave . Also I don’t react to the vomit , just clean it up and continue the process. Feeling pretty down right now 🙁 any advice is greatly appreciated!
Hello,
I’m planning to do graduated extinction for my 8-month old daughter. I know it works for her because we’ve done it before, but keep reverting back for whatever reason…. Well, I guess I always fear she’s teething. I mean, she’s going to have many periods of teething but I can’t do this anymore! So my questions are this:
1. Is it ok to do this while she’s teething? If so, just go about the method as usual and don’t be concerned about possible pain?
2. She’s now starting to stand. Should I lay her back down each time I come in to check on her?
Thank you!
Christina,
Did you have any luck getting a response to your questions? I have the exact same ones for our 10 month old. Any update or experience you can share would be great.
Our LO went from sleeping with only 1 night waking to nurse (occasionally 2) to waking up multiple times a night due to teething. We used Ferber around 6 months to get there. In the last few weeks he has gotten 4 teeth along with a double ear infection. He also took his first steps and has been pulling himself up in the crib every time he wakes up.
With the developmental leaps and teething/sickness, we are totally off routine. He is SO stubborn and I just don’t know if this is the right time to try. Things I’ve read say the 8-11 month range is a hard time for sleep training. Just don’t know that it’ll ever be a “good” time.
Thanks for any advice,
Alicia
Hi Alicia!
Gosh isn’t this just the hardest time?! So confusing and we’re just so desperate for any help to know what to do right? So, yes I will share what worked for me and the answers I got. To answer the questions that I had asked on this forum, Alexis said yes you can continue to do it while teething, and no don’t lay down your child for them. Following those steps of advice totally worked for my baby. She got used to laying herself down and going back to sleep on her own.
Also, I don’t exactly remember what the Ferber method is, but I have become extremely dependent on a book called 5 days to a better night’s sleep for your child by Dr. Eduard Estivill. It is the only thing that worked for both of my children, and it was so much easier for me to do than any other method I tried… and I tried them all 🙂 I sleep trained my now 9 month old last month even in the midst of her teething. If she woke up and I knew she was sore, I would just go in her room squeeze a little tylenol in her mouth, and then say the little spiel that I would say to her every time I would go into her room as part of the sleep training… every certain # of minutes. It’s kind of a special version of the graduated extinction. Which I like the best because I don’t feel like I’m abandoning her. And I was afraid to do it while she was teething, but it totally worked. And now we are much happier 🙂 so if I were you I would check out that book. It takes about an hour to read and is pretty simple to implement, especially with the app. Let me know if you have any other questions about it or anything else 🙂 happy to help.
Christina
Hi Christina,
Thank you so much for the reply. Yes, this is by far one of the hardest things I’ve done as a parent! I honestly feel like I would rather labor again than deal with the first night of sleep training over again 🙂
I did see what Alexis said about teething. We gave some Motrin before bed and have moved forward with night number 2. Naps went horribly during the day, so he went down easier tonight because he was extra tired, I’m sure. He’s been up a few times, but with less crying. Ferber has graduated checking, so we’re in that boat. Hoping it continues to improve. It is extremely emotional and tears at your heart while trying to remain logical about teaching them to sleep. Any thoughts on how long it took your LO at night to start laying back down herself? My little man fights it and seems to fall asleep from sitting up so far! When he does bend over, his legs look so uncomfortable. Ughh, so tough and easy to doubt…especially in the middle of the night exhausted 😉
Thank you so much for your response and suggestions!!
Alicia
Hi,
Really need some advice. My 19 month old just got over a week long nasty cold and is now waking up two sometimes three times a night. Before this, he slept through the night and if he was to wake up all I had to do was lay him back down and he was out. During him being sick, we rocked, bounced, and even brought him to bed one night to monitor his fever. I know….. But he was really sick. So now, we are dealing with the aftermath.
My husband and I have been doing our normal bedtime routine with him since he was six months old… And have gone through colds before, but for some reason this one has completely thrown us for a loop. We have used the Ferber method since he was little and it has always done the trick….. For the first time I’m questioning it because it’s three am and I’ve been up with him for almost an hour for the second time tonight. Plus this has been going on for a solid week.
Please help….. Suggestions are so welcomed as we have been scratching our heads for days!
My daughter seems to be a very passionate crier and has shown to be very persistent. My biggest fear with cry it out is that she’ll still be wailing 2-3 hours later. It’s happened while in my arms, having all the consoling I can give. Who’s not to say that it would happen while she’s alone her in crib? Is there a point where I have to cut off crying it out for the night so she can get a little sleep? Would that mean that cry it out isn’t working for her (cause them I’m really up a creek!)? Or am I just worrying too much about something that would never happen?
My daughter is 6 months old. She can put herself to sleep at 7:30 every night, and she also puts herself to sleep for her naps. She is consuming 24-30 ounces of breast milk per day in a bottle. She has started to wake sometime between 11-1 every night screaming crying. If I go in she gets totally frustrated unless I feed her. If I put her to the breast she eats for 1-2 minutes and totally passes out. I do not want to be a human pacifier. I know she isn’t truly eating at this time. Last night we tried CIO-Weissbluth and she cried for 1hr 20 minutes. It sucked. What is going on? I didn’t peek. I watched her in the monitor. Will tonight be better? After crying she slept until 5am, I nursed her then and she slept until 6:30. Help.
Something related to bedtime. Likely she’s eating too close to bedtime or sucking near or at bedtime. I would consider your routine and make sure there is a solid gap between last nurse/bottle at bedtime and her actually falling asleep. Or, if you’re using a paci, stop. Almost all issues stem from bedtime so look there and see what adjustments you can make – see how things go from there. Good luck!
My son is 9 months old. We did Ferber around 5 months after his sleep went all to hell during the 4 month sleep regression, and it worked great for night sleep. We can put him down drowsy but awake and he goes to sleep without a peep more often than not. Naps, however, are another story entirely and have been from the start. He needs motion to fall asleep, which means swing/stroller/car or long periods of rocking if I’m trying to put him in his crib. That was ok for a while but he’s been needing longer and longer rocking lately and he fights against me for a lot of it, and quite honestly my arms and back (and patience) just can’t take it anymore. We’ve tried Ferber for naps in the past and it never seems to get better, he settles a bit when I go in but screams louder when I leave. His room is dark, naptimes are consistent (9am and 2pm), and he acts plenty tired but just doesn’t seem able to settle. Should I be trying full extinction CIO or is there something else I can do?
I realize this is an old comment but this is exactly what we’re going through. Let me know if you found something that worked!
Thank you Alexis! We’ve been doing feber for the past 2 nights with our 6 month old daughter and it is working! She had been waking up all night every 30 minto an hour. I was blaming it on teething, holdays, weather, growth spurt, you name it. This was making a very cranky mama and family. The first night she cried for 25min when i put her to bed and the second night less than 1 minute. She only woke up 2 times each night.the first waking she went back to sleep in her own after 5 min of crying. The second time i nursed her (i have been nursing her only once a night for several months). She slept 11 hours total each night. We tried feber with our son whenhe was a baby but it didnt workfor him. He was older and would stand in the crib and cry for hours snd hours for days and days. We probably didnt doit wuite right.but i was determined to geta good night sleep before ourdaugter turns 1 and fixthe mistakes i made the rirst time. Itcan work if you do it rigt and stick to your guns.
Hi,
Our baby has not got major sleep problems, she is 6 months old and sleeps through the night. I however have to rock her in my arms to fall asleep.
We tried day 1 of sleep training, she cried for 40 minutes and is progressing to histerics where she gets herself into a frenzy where she struggles to breathe. When i go into the room to check on her she would not scream less or more, it stayed the same. I could not bear it anymore and picked her up. It took another 20minutes to then get her to calm down.
Did i give up too quickly? I could not see how she would sleep if she was so histeric. Is this assumption wrong. Is 40 minutes long enough?
Any help please?
Thanks
Charlotte
So I started the no-peek method for the first time last night after speaking with my GP who gave me this website to read when I feel like giving up… Thank you, it has helped immensely.
Mine is a typical common story of a 6.5 month old who wakes at night doesn’t have milk but is wide awake for around 1.5 hours.. Causing all sorts of problems in the home from sleep deprivation including more arguing between myself and my husband. Anyway enough was enough and I needed to toughen up.
Ouch.
Last night was a killer, well this morning really and I really need to know if we’ve approached this the right way. Baby was bathed at 7pm, dried and ready for bed by 7.30, we fed her on our lap in her bedroom and then put her down awake – at least so we thought, I have since read that there should be 20 mins between this feed & bed time. We tend to dream feed at 10.30/11 but she wouldn’t take any milk last night even after trying PU/PD. Normally wakes between 1 and 3 but woke at 4.10am – I have also read that this could be her ready to wake for the day, but seeing as she hadn’t yet woken up we gave it a try and it was hard but easier than I thought, back to sleep by 4.45am. During her crying period she rolled onto her front, which she hates being on nevertheless the crying must’ve worn her out.
5.30am – awake again. I am convinced it’s because she’s uncomfortable, she tends to wake at 6.45-7am in a chatty mood, I asked my husband what he thinks we should do and he said to leave her again. It’s been almost an hour now and she is still crying, still on her tummy and I feel guilty as anything. Should I have got her up at 5.30 eventhough she was crying? Should I have rolled her over? Now that she’s crying, do I need to wait for her to stop before getting her up for the day? Will she start believing she can cry for an hour and then get her way..? She normally wakes in the morning, and from her naps, in a happy mood that tends to be how I can tell that she’s had a good sleep because she doesn’t wake crying.. But of course now we’re trying this method I guess I need to expect new things.. Please help 🙁 I just want to cuddle her – I won’t, I am fully committed but I just don’t know what to do now..? Thank you.
I would definitely put the gap in between nursing in bedtime – won’t hurt, may help.
As for early morning wakings and flipping – you’ve got TWO things going on there. Babies flip over and get stuck/angry in that position. So your new homework is to practice flipping onto her BACK during the day. Put her on her tummy and use toys to entice her to flip onto her back so she doesn’t get stuck on her tummy. It may take a few days but practice as much as you can when she’s happy during the day.
As for the morning – it’s very hard to fall BACK to sleep in the AM. If she’s waking around 5:30 AM and can’t fall back to sleep I would likely go get her. She used to sleep from 7 PM – 7 AM but that’s with being awake for 1 hour in the middle of the night so 7 PM – 6 AM might be the new norm once you close the gap in her night sleep. So I would probably lean towards getting her at 5:30.
But don’t beat yourself up about not doing it THIS morning. There are no easy answers and I’m not 100% right all the time so it was a worthwhile experiment! She didn’t fall back to sleep – OK that happens. Try something else tomorrow 🙂
Why in the world is there a difference between Weisbluth and Ferber (and the NSF) and how much night sleep a child gets.
Weisbluth recommeds easily 2hrs more than Ferber and the NSF. I can’t help but thing the Director of Pediatric Sleep in boston and a Professor of neurology at Harvard would have the 411. So why does weisbluth say more is needed? Where is his science coming from?
Do you have a source for the claim that sleep training doesn’t impact breastfeeding? I didn’t find it in the sources you linked. It sounds like “one-size fits all” advice that doesn’t work for everyone. We waited until my son was over a year to night wean, and when we did, my milk supply plummeted within days. I was really glad I had trusted my gut and not listened to my pediatrician, parents, and the precisely 1/2 of the internet who assured me that he couldn’t possibly need to eat at night anymore, because if he had been under a year we would have gone from EBF to majority formula almost overnight.
(Goes to re-read post.)
Where do I talk about breastfeeding? Where do I make any claims? Uh…wait a second, I didn’t!
So here’s the deal – sleep training is about independent sleep AT bedtime. It is the platform upon which night weaning rests. Many people sleep train to get out of 6-8 feedings a night going down to 1-2.
There are MANY ways to night wean without impacting supply. Also supply and prolactin levels can be brought back so even if your son wasn’t 1, you would have had options. If there is cause for supply concern (which is rare) you could have pumped when you went to bed with a medical-grade pump. You would have reintroduced a dreamfeed.
Also you are confounding 2 separate issues: your supply and his need to eat at night. Does a healthy 9 month old need to eat at night? Nope. Can all Moms go 12 hours without stimulating supply without having supply issued? Nope. Although the vast majority can and do go 10-12 hours without feeding with no disruption in supply. And if you DO find your supply drops below a comfortable level, it can be brought back. So worst-case you could consider night-weaning an experiment and adjust based on how things evolve.
Right under “Research on Cry It Out,” #6: “Also? Sleep training doesn’t impact consumption of breastmilk (yay!).”
Yep. Consumption. Because it’s not about night weaning. Because you’re confusing 2 separate issues – establishing independent sleep and night weaning.
Okay, then, I’m sorry. You have to admit that they’re commonly conflated (e.g. my pediatrician’s “Now would be a great time to sleep train. He doesn’t need to eat at night anymore.”) and certainly I wasn’t considering sleep training in hopes of continuing to get up every 2 hours all night long to nurse. But I wasn’t initially asking for a citation to be snotty; I’m sincerely interested. I’ll rephrase: Do you have a source for the claim that sleep training doesn’t impact breastmilk consumption?
If it’s ” . . . as long as you’re fine with continuing to nurse or pump all night long if necessary,” I don’t think I’m interested. But if there are data-backed sources that explain how or under what circumstances to go about sleep training and/or night-weaning without impacting supply, it would likely change how I go about things with my next baby. The advice I got (“If he doesn’t nurse all night, there’ll be more there in the morning so he can make up the difference.”) just wouldn’t have been true for my body.
I don’t have time to track it down FOR you but that came directly from one of the pieces of research cited above (just not sure which).
What you’re looking for is a data-backed source that will tell you based on science how long you can go without nursing/pumping before your supply dumps. And that, my friend, does not exist. For starters there is scant research on breastfeeding and prolactin production which is technically what you care about. My IBCLC says you can go 1 6-hour stretch without stimulation without impact. That’s not based on peer-reviewed science. How often you need to pump or feed at night before you see an impact on supply is really dependent upon your body and I don’t believe science has an answer for you.
Hi Alexis,
Thanks for this post. I have been using the pick up put down method for three weeks now with my 5 month old and it seems we have hit an impasse. The method has worked to eliminate her hourly night wakings, and was working quite well for the first week. But for the last two weeks it can take an hour+ of crying before she goes down. I’ve learned that PU/PD is NOT a no cry method, because the second I put her down she screams, and I shush pat her and she continues screaming. I usually pick her up after 30 seconds to one minute, but sometimes let her continue on for up to five minutes while shushing and patting.
I feel that since she is crying the entire time anyway, perhaps it would be wise to switch to a cry it out approach. Is switching sleep training approaches mid-way more difficult then just sticking it out?
Also, the shush patting seems to be working slightly better for naps – though it is her nanny that puts her down for naps. She usually fusses/cries for 10/15 minutes and then falls asleep for 30 – 90 minutes. Does it make sense to use two different sleep training approaches for night and day sleep?
Thanks in advance for your advice!
I have four month old twins, and we seem to be smack in the middle of the four-month sleep regression. Used to be the boys would wake for three or four feedings a night (by the breast), going four hours, then three, then two between feeds. Then 3.5 months hit, and bam – a diagnosis for gas/reflux, Mom eliminating dairy, gas drops, probiotics… and (either cause or correlation) hourly awakenings! Now that the babies are waking up to the world more and more, that means they wake each other up. I’m doing all kinds of “mistakes” to get them back to sleep as fast as possible, which means I am a human pacifier, and the poor babies are simply unable to get themselves back to sleep after whatever wakes them up: swaddle escaping, a toot, actual hunger (night nursings are super quick since they’re so frequent)… or simply the end of a sleep cycle.
I have been doing all the nighttime feedings, but my husband who works full time has volunteered to do a bottle feeding and be on call until midnight, because this was just way too much for me, times two!
My question is, does anyone have experience with twins and these methods? I think we are going to try this split night shift duty for as long as we can, but I worry that the both of us sleep deprived will make the whole family upset, which is worse than just me being so.
Another question, if my boys (15 lbs and 13 lbs) are too young/small to go all night without feeding, can we still use CIO or is it intended for babies who can go all night without eating? I’m assuming that’s why it’s generally recommended to wait until 6 months, but I’m curious about this assumption and if others have tried it sooner. A friend/twin mom had her four month old girls STTN at four months.
I think the kindest method is the most effective one, I know how important sleep is!
My current 5 month old has been a nightmare at night, sometimes waking every 45 minutes, and also sometimes just staying awake for an hour or so at night… Just babbling and cooing, not upset until she needs help getting back to sleep. She sleeps in a swing still and it works great for naps. There have been a handful of times where I put her in her crib when she’s awake at night and she’ll fall asleep on her own after 20 minutes of just talking to herself so I feel she might be ready for extinction. She won’t fall asleep in her crib at bedtime though… She needs to be rocked by me in her swing. My question is: if she’s used to falling asleep in her swing can I use extinction to get her used to sleeping in her crib at night? And can I use the swing for naps still? Also, does it make a difference that she is still in my room? We won’t be moving her to her own room until after we move cross country in a few weeks. Thanks!
You’ve probably figured it out now, but yes, you can use extinction to move your baby from sleeping in a swing to sleeping in a crib. For maximum effectiveness, you should not use the swing for naps and use the crib for all sleeping. Once sleeping in the crib is firmly established, you can use the swing again. The only difference having the crib in your room would make would be making it harder for you not to intervene.
So, if sleeping should be established in the Crib. Should we not allow our babies to sleep in swings at all? Should automated swings be ever used and when?
I have 1 month old twins. We breast feed on demand. They sleep in cribs and the baby swing just fine. But I want to have a goal good sleep habits moving forward.
Hi I tried Ferber with my son when he was 8 months old and it worked really fast I achieved the 8 hour sleep stretch in two days!! Then he suffered from a cold in a months time and I started picking, rocking and nursing to sleep! Now he is 10 months old and wakes every 2 hours and nurse to sleep sometimes even refuses to sleep for an hour and half during the night, so I tried ferber’s method again but as soon as he see me he would just cry his head out and it melts me really down but today I started with extinction and guess what he is asleep in just 20 mins.. I k ow it’s too early to say anything but I’m just thinking if extinction was the answer all the way along!!
^^^
I did not pay Madiha to say this – this is actual impartial parent feedback.
(Extinction is the answer 😉
When you say “extinction” do you just mean that you did not go in to feed anymore? Put baby down for the night and don’t go in until the six hour stretch/morning?
Read the article.
We are attempting to sleep train our 4 month old based on his pediatrician’s recommendations. She said, “there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to sleep through the night without needing your milk if he has full access to it throughout the day”. The last two days have been insane, we’ve been using a mix between Ferber / Extinction simply because we’re too exhausted to check on him in those intervals. However every time I do check on him he gets louder, defeating the purpose, so I think extension might be the way to go. I’m still nervous that he needs to eat in the middle of the night so I’ve been feeding him at 1 a.m. , but I think this might be sending him mixed messages also. I definitely expected this but the days are even worse. It’s hard to keep on a nap schedule when he’s not sleeping throughout the night… here’s hoping the rest of the week goes a little smoother.
Good for you for keeping a nighttime feeding. Babies need it, maybe all the way up to one year. Regarding sleep training, some experts suggest 6 months in the youngest this should be done.
Weisbluth says 2 night feedings until 9 months. My 2 EBF babies needed that and the one that I switched to formula at 6 months was able to sleep through the night then.
Hi, My husband and I are expecting twins in a few months; they will be our first children. We are “older” parents, and I’ve had plenty of opportunity to watch my friends go through sleep training. In theory, I’ve always been a big supporter of CIO (I’ve seen both Ferber and extinction work well). My question though is how it all applies to twins. Are there books or articles you can recommend that apply CIO to twin babies?
Thanks in advance for the assistance.
Best,
Daniela
PS. I know none of this applies to the first few months. I just have the time and headspace now to read and learn, so I’m using it as best I can.
The short answer is that you don’t need to do anything differently. The long answer is – you may not NEED it. Independent sleep is a must. How you achieve it will depend on how you approach sleep with your kiddos, their temperaments, and what happens in the first 3-6 months. Independent sleep is something you chip away at and it may come easy or hard. If it’s not coming easy then sleep training is your fallback. And it’s 100% fine but generally a fallback people try to avoid if possible. Your focus could be on:
a) Safety
b) Soothing
c) Sleep
That’s the first 3 months. Newborns cry a lot and you’ll have TWO. When things start to calm down between 6-12 weeks see if you can get them to fall asleep alone. They may surprise you. good luck!
Weissbluth has a book on this exact topic!
Hi! I came here just reading up on CIO. I actually have 9 month old twins and have been using CIO for the past 3 days and progressing. My advice is, if they’re still newborn, to put them down as soon as they need to sleep so they can learn this at their own. I agree that sleep training is a last resource, but rest assured that it also applies to twins, at least in my experience. The first months I rocked any baby that stired so he wouldn’t wake the other and it was taxing to say the list. Now it’s been 3 days where I let them cry (one wakes the other) and console after 5 min, then 10, 15 etc but they’ve been both asleep by the 10 min check up. Twins are nooo joke but I’m sure you’ll do great! Congrats!
Did you do 5 and 10 minute check I have 10 month old twins and Extinction is the way to go for me and my twins.
I ended up using extinction, but it took me less than a week to “train” them to sleep by themselves. During the night I did use the 10, 15 min but only for a few nights. Now they’re 1.5 years old and they rarely wake up, if they do I let them vry a couple min and then check them. Most of the times its a dirty diaper etc. Naps were extinction since day 1 and worked like a charm… good luck!
We have 9 month old twins are thinking we may need to sleep train. They used to be champ sleepers but now wake several times in the night and don’t want to be put down in their cribs. We have had some environmental changes and maybe hitting the 9 month mark has triggered some developmental changes such as separation anxiety. Tried patting them back to sleep but they seem to only want to sleep near or on us. If we do the CIO method would you suggest moving them into separate rooms?
My 8 month old daughter is very attached, only sleeping with me and nursing all night. I finally decided it was time to get this changed. The first night I tried to sit in the room and let her cry but she screamed for an hour even flipping out of the crib (i caught her) so I lowered the mattress and left watching her on the monitor. She then climbed the mesh bumper so I had to go in and remove that. The screaming continued. My daughter then started trying to climb the rails and kept getting her legs caught so after two times I again lowered the mattress to its lowest level and left. 3 hours in before and after I left the room my daughter finally fell asleep on her own until a 3am feeding at which point she finished the night with me. Night two she cried for 30 minutes at a much lower pitch and volume and put herself to sleep, sleeping in till 5 a.m. I feel like we’ve made huge progress but it was only night to so crossing my fingers today is shorter
Hey Melisa,
I’m having the same problem with my daughter, I haven’t slept on my own for 8 months, my back is in agony from holding her all night long. How’s the sleeping going now? Any tips on how to start training her?
Honestly just realize you will feel like the worst mommy ever for a bit and do it sooner rather than later (this does not make you a bad mommy). My daughter still fusses for a few minutes when i lay her down but shes doing great and even after the awful crying at night she would wake up smiling. I had to ban my son and husband from rescuing her. She has music in her room that times out, but it comes on when she wakes up and cries. Im still fighting the middle of the night wake ups but I let her fuss for 10 minutes before I pick her up. Im also trying to get her to fuss through the 1A feeding which she does most nights. Now when she wakes up between 3 and 6 she comes into the bed so I havent beat the one yet. This isnt easy but both of us were sleeping so poorly the last few months she slept with me. Wherever you hold her before bed, just turn out the light, no playing and then place her in her bed. And leave quickly!! Then settle in because its going to suck at first but remember if you back down even once shell know youll come get her. My girl took a couple of weeks to stop the screaming fits but they reduced dramatically after the first few days. Stick with iit and dont back down. Yall will both sleep so much better in the end. Good luck!!!
I’m going through this right now with my 9 month old and your post is helping. Hardest thing I’ve done but I couldn’t stand being a human pacifier and like you said, my back was in so much pain. This website really helped me so much tonight. He screamed for the first hour. We did the Ferber for the first 45 minutes and then extinction for the rest of the night. He woke every 2-3 hours and cried for 30 min until 3:30am when he cried every 10 min for a short time. At 4:45am I gave him a bottle in his crib without picking him up and he’s back asleep. Fingers crossed tomorrow is a bit easier but this is definitely worth it for both him and me.
Hello!
My 3.5 month old son would only get quality naps if I’m holding or wearing him. If I put him down when he’s awake, he’ll fuss for 10 minutes, and starts crying intensely. If I put him down when he’s drowsy and he falls asleep, he’ll wake up within 5 minutes wide eyed and alert. If I put him down in deep sleep, maybe I’ll get 15 minutes to 30 minutes tops. At night, I have a bedtime routine (bath, bottle, book), and then I rock him to sleep. He’ll wake either every hour or 2 hours. Bottm line is, I’m at my wit’s end! I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I want to use extinction once he’s 4.5 months old. Should I work on naps first or bedtime first? Swaddle or no swaddle? Do I go by the clock or wake times? Please help!
Hi! I would recommend working on bedtime first. Keep the swaddle, as long as he’s not rolling over in it. Definitely go by wake times, not by the clock, at this age. But you can have a consistent bedtime. Also, it’s probably better if you change your bedtime routine a little bit- put the bottle as first part of the routine, so bottle, bath, book and no rocking, put down wide awake. Good luck!
Hello Sam,
Thanks so much for your post! He’s starting to gnaw/suck on his fingers and is this a method of self-soothing? If so, should I still swaddle or should I give it a try without the swaddle and have him gnaw/suck on his fingers? He still has middle of the night feedings approximately every 3-4 hours. Should I go ahead and set a specific time to go at night? For instance, he goes to bed at 8pm, let him cry for ‘x’ amount of time without me stepping in, and only go in to feed him at 11pm or midnight? Thanks again!
I’m in the exact same situation as you. Sound like the same kid! What did you end up doing and did it work? Mine sucks his hands too so I want to leave them uncovered.
Hi Wendy,
My little bub is 5.5 months now since I’ve posted and sleep is so much better now, for both baby and parents! I used Extinction for bedtime once he was a little over 4 months old. I didn’t work on naps because I wanted to make sure he gets the quality naps he needed during the daytime, which meant I had to put him in the carrier. It was so hard the first couple of nights, but now he goes to sleep within 5-10 minutes after laying him, no crying whatsoever. Let me tell you, it wasn’t an overnight success. My little bub took about a solid 3 weeks to solidify his bedtime sleep because he was waking up multiples times a night aside from the one middle of the night feeding so it was a long process. I started nap training about a week and half ago and it’s still a work in progress. We’ve cut down to 3 naps and early bedtime around 5:30pm-6:30pm, depending on how naps went. There were days where he even took 1-1.5 hour nap! It’s not consistent as I want it to be, but like I said, it’s still a work in progress!
Please tell me how you did it and what the nights were like. I’m in the verge of a mental breakdown.
Do you go in for nightwakings?? this is my problem!
My LO is 10 months now and just began crawling 2 weeks ago. We CIO using the Ferber method and it worked great until she reached a leap. Now she goes down at bedtime with no problem but wakes after about 3 hours, screaming. She only stops when I rock her and as soon as I put her down it starts all over again. This has gone on most nights for the last 2 weeks. We are all exhausted and I’m so worried that something is wrong (teething, not feeling well) I don’t want to leave her to cry that long, especially in the middle of the night when I have to be at work at 7 am. I guess I am just looking for reassurance that the extinction method is most effective and I won’t screw up my kid and have her think I won’t be there for her if she needed me. I know there is also a regression that happens around now. I think I need someone to tell me what to do. Any advice from those that have come out on the other side of this?
You have summed Up exactly how I feel! I’m looking to start the Ferber method but not sure if I have it in me 🙁
My sweet boy is 3 months old, and we’ve really been through the ringer with sleep. We started out with a great sleeper – by 2 weeks old, he was doing all of his sleeping in his crib, falling asleep on his own when put down drowsy, and sleeping been 4-5 hours for his first stretch at night. And then we were blind sided with silent reflux that was so bad it actually left ulcers in his throat.
So from roughly 5 to 10 weeks, we went into survival mode and just did whatever we could to help him sleep while we worked with our pediatrician to find a solution that would help with his pain.
After trying several different treatments, we finally found something that works, and his pain is now gone! But his sleep is still suffering because of the terrible habits he formed during our season of “do whatever it takes for him to sleep.”
While we feel very fortunate to have gone from only sleeping upright on mom or dad to sleeping in the rocknplay to now sleeping in his crib, we also recognize that there is a lot of work to be done. He wakes 4-6 times at night, consoled only by nursing, his naps are all only 45 minutes long, and it takes a combination of bouncing and back patting for 15-30 minutes to get him to fall sleep, followed by an extra 10 minutes of holding him to make sure he stays asleep when we put him down. He will not sleep in a swing, nor will he sleep any longer if we hold him instead of putting him down.
We tried pick up/put down, but he is REALLY resistant to going to sleep on his own, and patting him or picking him up just rile him up even more. The first night we tried, he screamed for 2 hours straight – held or not. If he’s going to do that much intense crying, I would rather we get faster results for his and our sake.
At this point, he is often only getting 12-13 hours of sleep a day, which, based on his temperament by the end of the day, just isn’t enough for him. Obviously, I don’t want to leave my young baby to cry in his crib, but I’m becoming more and more concerned for the long term effects of his lack of sleep.
So, at the risk of being crucified for even asking, I guess my basic question is whether or not 13 weeks is an appropriate time to sleep train under these circumstances?
And if this isn’t the right time to start sleep training, what can we do in the meantime to get him more sleep?
I’m planning on using the Ferber method for sleep training. Do we still do the check in if baby wakes up in the night and starts babbling or only when in distress (e.g. crying)?
With my daughter (now 3.5) extinction was absolutely the only way. She woke up & ramped up whenever we went in, but without she was sorted in 2-3 days and only ever cried for max 45 mins, usually 20. Only did it twice – aged 4 months and again at 18months. My problem is my son. He’s now 16months, has self settled since the beginning and is an ok sleeper – sometimes sleeping through 7 till 6 but is currently doing this screaming thing every time we put him is his cot, and when he wakes at night. My OH is all for leaving him but I’m wide awake, listening to him properly howl 90 mins after he began. I guess I’m looking for reassurance (even having had such an amazing experience with my daughter) that Im not damaging him, going to make him terrified of bedtime etc etc etc….
I’m sleep training my 10 month old, but she does not know how to lay down and stays sitting up crying the whole time. This is night 6 for us. I had to go in after 2 hours because she wouldnt settle and she was just there sitting up and I helped her lay down and went straight to sleep. Will she learn how to lay down? What should I do?
My baby “forgot” how to sit down the first night we were sleep training. He got stuck standing up the first night for two hours in the middle of the night. I finally went in and plucked him off the crib, laying him down. He was asleep in 2 mins. The next day we worked on sitting down on and off all day. I stuck him in the crib, put something he really liked nearby but out of reach (phone or food) and waited for him to sit. Did it over and over. He has never forgotten how to sit again.
Do you go in for nightwakings?? this is my problem! /my little guy goes down fine and we stopped nursing to sleep so i was hoping that would help but he is still up 4 or more times a night!
Hello, my son is 9mo old and wakes every 45 minutes or less all night long! Crappy daytime napper of course. According to Dr. Sears he perfectly fits what you would call a “high needs” baby.
So here we are, thinking of trying CIO. He has a bedtime routine that is great except he nurses to sleep. We have tried tanking him up for the night and having dad or my mom put him down for the night. He cries and cries and cries, he will go for 2 hours sometimes until he passes out from sheer exhaustion! His whole world seems to revolve around Mom and Boob. I am afraid it will turn into a horrible CIO story if we try, doing our current method consecutive nights doesn’t seem to reduce the length of time he cries and only makes nighttime/daytime worse.
Also, I am unsure of what to do for soothing him during peeks/checks in the Ferber method? The ONLY thing that soothes him is BREAST. Whether it is for sleep, pain, sickness or anxiety. He hates pacifiers, rocking/singing/massage/patting does nothing and trying to find/get him to take a lovey over mom seems to only ANGER him for some reason. Neither dad nor I could handle extinction, not at his going rate for cry length.
He is definitely not a motion junkie and the No Cry Sleep Solution has not been helping us these last 3 months. But the determining questions for if CIO I’d right for you doesn’t settle my worries about CIO either! Ahhh!
Kailyn, has your baby’s sleep gotten better? What did you end up trying? At that age we were in a similar situation with our daughter. We did the Sleep Lady shuffle and it worked great. Now I have a 3 month old and I’m trying to avoid it getting to that point.
I had a great sleeper from 3 months until we went on vacation when he was 7 months. For those 4 months he slept 12 hours straight a night. Then we went on vacation and he wouldn’t sleep in the hotel crib. I made the mistake of letting himself sleep with us. Fast forward and now he’s 14 months. He still nurses right before bed, we have moved him back to his crib. I have been putting him down almost asleep and he stays asleep until about 10 and wakes up. I realized I never really put him down “drowsy” so I started to. We have tried seating in the room to get him to sleep and Ferber (which just manes him more mad) and tonight we started to try the Weissbluth and tonight he cried for 3 hours..my husband went in..laid him down and he was out in 2 minutes. Trying to night wean him…sometimes he eats , sometimes he just sucks for comfort. Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Did anyone else have the issue of baby sweating profusely when doing CIO? My 5.5 month old if I let him cry even for a few minutes, he starts profusely sweating. Like his whole body is soaking wet. I get afraid I’m going to do more harm then good if I let him cry until he falls asleep. Anyone else have this issue? If so, can it harm him to sweat so bad?
My daughter is 6 months old, she sleeps through the night but until now she has been nursed to sleep and everything was great. Now she fights the bedtime feed and just screams. So my question is, do these methods work even though she’s already sleeping through the night and we just need help getting her to sleep at the beginning of the night?
Hello. I have a 13 month old and am reading up on CIO and have tried it a few times for naps and it seems to work. We tried the other night when he would not sleep and it resulted in him getting sick all over the place. Any recommendations for that if I choose the extinction method? He normally just gets up once for a bottle but I would like to stop that.
I would really love some reassurance on extinction method with my 5 month old. He will cry in the middle of the night wake ups for up to 2 or more hours before passing out. This is night two and I’m wondering if some babies truly cry for that long? It is basically screaming cries not whines. He also was checked and was a healthy baby before starting.
Hey Lauren,
This isn’t a sleep training issue, this suggests something else is going on. There is a whole chapter in the book on troubleshooting sleep training and it’s worth looking into. It’s likely related to the sleep schedule. Good luck!
Alexis
I will look into downloading the book or maybe even a consultation. He actually has what I thought was a great schedule. He naps 3-4 hours a day in his crib and goes to bed at 7:15 in his crib and gets around 27-30 ounces of food (not during the night). I know in the past we have created a bad habits of just going in when he would wake up and rock him to sleep or let him sleep on us if it was a rough night but he is a tough cookie to crack. His bedtime routine is a well oiled machine and it has been this ways for months. I am really lost. We have only had 5 days in 5 months that he has slept a 7 hour stretch or longer and that was because we had done the extinction method in the past and it took 3 days but he also cried for up to 2 hours or longer in the middle of the night at least twice.
Hi, Lauren.
What ended up happening with your situation? This is the exact same situation I’m facing.
My daughter goes down without crying at 7p, has 2 great naps during the day (1.5 hrs and 2 hrs), and is up usually no more than 3-3.5 hour stretches.
But she wakes up screaming from 2-3:30a, sometimes 4 am. Then again at 5 am, when I end up feeding her, and she goes down for another 2 hrs. We were doing Ferber, but now just do extinction because it makes it worse when we go in. And I’m hesitant to go back to feeding her at 2am.
I’d love to hear what happened in your situation and how you resolved it! TIA!
Holy moly. I have an almost 9 month old who co slept from day one (which we loved) he started out a great sleeper but then at 4 months his sleep patterns got flipped on their head. He had been sleeping 6-8 hour stretches and started waking every 3 hours. Since then it has just gone downhill. Eventually last week he was waking every half hour and fussing for 15 minutes! Needless to say, we were at our wits end. We tried a CIO thing at 7 months, the way Ferber suggests. And it was a disaster. He cried for an hour and we were traumatized (I think he was fine ha). Anyway, I read this post and did my own research and despite a lack of clinical studies, I saw everywhere that the weissbluth method is generally agreed to end in fewer tears. We are now on night 2. First night he cried for 32 minutes (it sucked). But then he slept TWELVE HOURS. Last night he cried for no joke 30 seconds. And it has now been 11 hours (he’s still asleep I’m just up pumping haha). So not only were we so desperate for sleep this whole time, but I think our baby was too! I genuinely believe he was trying to sleep but didn’t know how before and now he does. Makes me proud to think that we did this hard thing together and are now all better off for it. Thank you for this website and this post. It has changed our lives!
Hi Alexis! So in your book you said to wait until 6 months to try full extinction, but I am really at wits end with my 4.5 month old. I tried one of your gradual weaning methods for one night and it did not work out. Even when I started I knew that full extinction would be my best bet, considering her personality. Would it be terrible to start a little early? What are the risks associated with starting early? And does weight have anything to do with it? My baby is only on the 9th percentile for weight so I obviously don’t want to do anything that will be unsafe at that weight.
I’m curious about this as well. Ferber says not to start before 6 months, but Weissbluth says you can (and should) start earlier. My 4 month old won’t sleep unless he’s right next to me, and while I am eager to get my nights back, I don’t want to start extinction too early. What if all of the stuides that prove it’s not harmful were done on 6+ month old?
Hi,
We have a 5.5 month old who has been a little all over the place with naps as of the past few weeks and has just recently started really throwing fits at bedtime. We always swaddled him at night and then at his dream feed I would remove the swaddle and place him in his sleep sack. No cries at bedtime ever. Now I’ve started putting him in the sack directly and he is really upset when it comes time to go to bed. Once he is asleep he will sleep through the night most of the time. We’ve been doing extinction for this… does this type of CIO help in situations where we aren’t dealing with night wakings but just trying to get him to go to sleep at bedtime without being upset? Any idea how long before we would see any improvements?
Your blog entry cracked me up! Thank you for presenting the “horrible” sleep training CIO methods in such a fun and comical light!
Both of my kids have had some form of CIO. With my daughter, I ONLY knew the Ferber method and went in at intervals. But she ALSO started CIO at a relatively young age — 2 months old. But by that point, she had already been STTN for a few weeks and NOTHING I did seemed to soothe her anyway. Child still cried and cried. I found that going in at intervals did help her slightly and it gave ME some comfort as well, knowing that she’d only been crying for X number of minutes and as long as she stopped or calmed down before the next interval, we were good. We did not follow it exactly with the times, and if my daughter was on her way to sleep or the cries were intermittent, we didn’t bother going in. My daughter was what I dub a “hardcore CIO baby” meaning that you probably won’t find very many who cry as much as she did at night.
However, I found that with my second born, extinction was CLEARLY the way to go. For one, he was and still is always quick to fall asleep at naps and bedtime, so he didn’t even need any CIO at all until 6 months old, and even then, only briefly at leaps/regressions until toddlerhood. I find that if I pop in that room, it TICKS HIM OFF ROYALLY. The other night, I realized I had forgotten to push his crib away from the electrical outlet, so I went back in to move it (it’s not worth my kiddo electrocuting himself!). When I left it was the good ol’ bloody murder cry that lasted FAR longer than a normal bedtime protest anthem. So with him, I find it’s far more merciful to let him cry and leave him be. In fact this may sound a bit awful, but I found that when he was sick, I’d go in once or twice to try to soothe him, but after that, I’d have to do some CIO or that poor child would be all emotional and never get back to sleep — and would feel even worse, physically. So sometimes good ol’ extinction is actually the more humane thing to do. But it does depend on the child.
It’s so sad that CIO gets such a bad rap in our “pop culture parenting” world today. Someone who HATES CIO and sleep training in general once dared to tell me that she thought I was “neurologically damaging” my kids because I let them CIO. Actually, she couldn’t have meant my son at that point — because he hadn’t even done any CIO yet. She must have meant my daughter, who is in Kindergarten this year, perfectly healthy and very intelligent (reading on a 2nd grade level, math on a first grade level, very friendly, makes friends easily, and SO MUCH FUN to be around that I actually LOOK FORWARD to spending my days with her!). I took the “concern” to my kids’ pediatrician who looked at me like I was batty and said, “Don’t listen to [guilty party]!!! I’m the one with a PhD and MD here! And I KNOW you sleep trained your kids because they were sleeping through the night so soon! And yes, they are BOTH HEALTHY children!” Basically I think she would have said a few other things, too, but she was aiming to be professional. LOL!!! Anyway, that same person who criticized me for doing CIO has one kid who, at age 12, STILL can’t sleep through the night, suffer from anxiety, low grades, depression issues, and more — and nobody wants to be around this poor child because she has such a horrible personality, poor coping skills, poor people skills, and DOES NOT SLEEP WELL. In fairness, the guilty party was lucky to have another child who actually did sleep well at night from early on — without sleep training, but that’s where you really do have “good luck.”
Sleep training saved my sanity. And it’s made my two kids happy, healthy, and wonderful people. People others enjoy seeing and being around. People who are very intelligent and quick-witted because they are well-rested. I guess I’m leaning towards extinction myself, but either way, RA RA sleep training!!!!! CIO is a good thing!
We used Weissbluth with our son (now 2). I think we started around one, maybe a little sooner. It took a lot longer than I expected, but my son is a great sleeper now and I have NO regrets. To me, not peeking was a lot easier than checking on him. Whenever I hear about toddlers who go to bed late, are up at night or don’t nap much I want to cry for their parents.
How do you do extinction if the baby sleeps in your room? We live in a 1 bedroom apartment so there’s really no other choice and my 9 month old is an absolute nightmarish sleeper. Doesn’t fall asleep until 1am, has to fall asleep in my arms, he used to let me put him in the crib fine but now he freaks out as soon as I move him, wakes every 1.5h or so, and he won’t nap at all unless I hold him for the duration of the nap. He slept through the night for 3 weeks when he was 3 months old and all of a sudden started waking up again. How do we work around his night wakings if we are in the same room? As soon as he wakes he stands up and starts crying while cruising around his crib, he sees us in the bed and won’t stop crying. I tried Ferber before and nor only did he not go to sleep, he ended up vomiting from crying nonstop for 40 minutes. I’m exhausted and really abs t my wits end
You might have to sleep in the living room and let your child have the bedroom until the sleeping problem is taken care of. Or find a room divider of some sort so your child can’t see you. I tried Ferber but it extended my son’s crying, so I’ve done extinction and be goes to sleep much faster. It’s not fun. I do feel guilty while he’s crying/screaming but he usually falls asleep now in less than 5 minutes at bedtime or naptime. He either doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night or he does but only cries for a minute and falls back asleep. I know how you’re feeling. I was exhausted and back was killing me from rocking my son to sleep every night and several times in the middle of the night. Just stick with it.
What method is it if you use the 5, 10, 15 minute check ins but
1. only enter the room halfway and talk to them (we got lazy and started just talking to him through the monitor but it works just as well)
2. don’t touch them
3. don’t stay longer than 30 seconds?
We did this and it worked after 3 nights. Our only battle now is that damn pacifier that falls out. 🙁 He’s 6 mos and we are talking about taking it away altogether…ugh, he loves his binks.
Weissbluth is an idiot! CIO method is cruel and unusual punishment! when was the last time you were abandoned and really remember it fondly?