If you read many of the posts here you’ll find that the term “consistency” comes up approximately 1,203,468 times. Consistency is a really powerful component of helping your child sleep. Where does your child sleep? Who cares, just be consistent! What does your bedtime routine look like? Who cares, just be consistent! I use the phrase “consistent” as many times each day as I say, “Stop hitting your brother.”
Consistency is doubly important when it comes to cry it out. Because when it comes to sleep training, even small well-intended inconsistencies can blow up on you.
Almost immediately.
Here’s a great illustration of how that can happen, taken directly from a comment:
Consistency and Cry it Out
I am on day 6 of cry it out method. And I desperately need your help to make this a success. I have been very consistent with my schedule. 7PM feed+bath+lullaby+bedtime at 7:30 PM. One feeding at 11 PM and a second between 3:00 -3:30 AM.
Day 1: Cried for 16 minutes. Woke up 2-3 times but fell back to sleep on her own after fussing. On One waking session at 12:45 AM she cried for 1.5 hrs and fell back to sleep.
Day 2: Cried for 7 minutes. Woke up 4-5 times but fell back asleep on her own after crying/fussing for some time.
Day 3: Cried for 7-8 minutes. Woke up 3 times but fell back asleep on her own 2 times. On one waking session at around 1 AM and cried for 1 hr before falling asleep.
Day 4: Cried for around 15 minutes. Woke up 2-3 times but fell back asleep on her own after fussing for a bit. One waking session she cried for 7 minutes at around 10pm.
Day 5: Cried for 22 minutes. When I went in the 2nd time I Shshed her for 30 seconds of patting her and she fell asleep. Did not wake up till 3:15am. But after feed she was completely awake at 3:45am. Unfortunately, had to rock her to sleep for 45 minutes after 10 minutes of crying.
Day 6: Cried for 30 minutes. When I went in the 3rd time I again Shshed her for 30-45 seconds while patting her and she fell asleep.
Her crying during bedtime has NOT reduced but is increasing each passing day and we are on the verge of giving up. My husband is concerned about increasing amount of crying. We’re not sure how to proceed. Please help!
Sleep Training Gone South
Please note this is not somebody I know, nor do I have any information beyond what is presented in the comment. I don’t know how old this baby is, what they’re trying to wean out of, if baby has medical complications, if they’re co-sleeping, etc. But even without that background some things jump out from here:
Sleep training on night #1 went fantastic. At bedtime anyway. Only 16 minutes of crying at bedtime for a baby who presumably was previously (insert: patted, rocked, fed) to sleep? This definitely qualifies as amazeballs! Then there’s a big crying jag at 12:45 AM. Why? I’m not sure. However the fact that it didn’t reoccur on subsequent nights makes me inclined to write it off as “one of those things.”
Night #2 is fantastic – some grumbles at bedtime, a few other minor grumbles during the night. But overall, simply fantastic.
Night #3 is less fantastic, another hour of crying at 1 AM. Again without more history I can’t say why for sure. My gut says this may be a baby who was eating a ton at night prior to this and is seeking more food than the 2X scheduled feedings provides.
Night #4 – fantastic again. If she was starving at 1 AM (and this is debatable) she’s doing amazing now and clearly doesn’t need to eat then. Phew, the hard part is over. Tally ho!
Night #5 – Aaaand the wheels come off the bus.
CIO Analysis
With the exception of the 2 long sessions of night crying (again, a bit of a mystery but I’ll assume it was a food issue and temporary) things were going extremely well. Some people get hung up on the brief crying at bedtime or during the night but they shouldn’t because…
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10 Minutes at Bedtime
5-15 minutes of crying at bedtime is nothing. Sadly there is lots of unnecessary self-flagellation among parents out there who are feeling terrible about a few minutes of grousing at bedtime. If you are one of these, please stop and repeat after me, “This is nothing.” Some kids simply need to vent a little steam before they fall asleep. Others are complaining because they don’t want to separate from you nor do they want to sleep. Because they’re not verbal they express this through crying. When they’re three years old they’ll spend 10 minutes yelling, “Mom! I don’t want to sleep! I’M NOT TIRED!” before nodding off for a solid 11 hours of sleep.
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Brief Night Grumbles
Little bouts of fussing/crying periodically are normal, especially for a kiddo who is just learning to sleep without you. Babies cycle through sleep every 45-90 minutes so they’re literally waking up all night long. Usually they fart (I mean jellybeans, babies fart jellybeans), roll over, and go back to sleep so that you’re not aware that this is happening. This baby is “new” to falling asleep on her own so a few times at night, when she cycles through light sleep, she’s grumbling about it. But she’s fine; if she really needed Mom/Dad it wouldn’t just be a few minutes.
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So anyhoo, in general things were going well.
But then night #5 threw them a curve ball in the form of an extinction burst. I bet you $1,000 that’s what happened. I don’t even have $1,000 but it’s fine because I’m totally winning that bet. It was an extinction burst.
So Mom, who is a loving and concerned parent, got nervous and went in to do what she felt was meeting her child’s needs. And this happened,
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Shshed her for 30 seconds while patting her and she fell asleep
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30 seconds.
A child who is in pain, or has a serious “need” doesn’t fall asleep after 30 seconds of patting. Although entirely well-intended, that 30 seconds meant that after 5 days, baby didn’t fall asleep on her own. And this small 30-second bout of being INconsistent has just blown up this families sleep training journey.
Because the Goddess of Consistency is an unforgiving wench.
Because now after 4 days of solid progress we have a baby who has just been patted to sleep. She sleeps through till 3:45 AM but is upset, crying, and needs to be rocked for 45 minutes until she’s fully asleep and can be put back down in the crib. She’s crying because she fell asleep with Mom there patting her and woke up later with Mom missing. So from her perspective something disorienting and mysterious had occurred. Now she’s upset and WIDE AWAKE.
On the next night she’s crying for 30 minutes because the 30 seconds of patting on night #5 put us squarely back into “I can only fall asleep with help from Mom” territory. And clearly that’s what’s going on because again, if the child had a real need (hunger, gas, pain, etc.) it would take more than another scant 30 seconds of patting from Mom to fall asleep. We don’t know what happened after that but I’m confident there were more tears and rocking required in the middle of the night.
So Now What?
Now Dad is questioning this whole strategy. Mom’s feeling guilty. And baby is crying way more than when they first started down this path. It would be easy to give up and maybe they will. If they decide to double-down on sleep training and re-commit to being consistent it will work. But there will be more crying before things get better because that is the unfortunate and unintended result of being inconsistent.
My advice would be to decide on a plan and commit. If they’re going to pat her to sleep at bedtime then do it AT bedtime. Don’t let her cry 20-30 minutes and then rush in to pat, just do it as soon as she goes into the crib.
It’s OK to say, “This is where we are and what we feel comfortable doing right now.” Yes she will wake up during the night, possibly upset and disoriented, and need your help to fall back to sleep. Potentially (depending on history and age) they could be facing developing bedtime battles as baby recognizes that Mom disappears after she falls asleep so she fights sleep to keep Mom on the scene. Night wakings could become more frequent or difficult. Or maybe they’ll level out at 2 feedings + 1 waking to be rocked.
It’s hard to say, my predictive abilities when it comes to babies night time behavior is roughly equal to my ability to predict the outcome of World Cup games.
It’s that or back to cryitoutsville with full commitment to baby consistently falling asleep on her own. No patting. Full stop. However there will be more crying on this road, far more than the 16 minutes they started out with.
So if you’re considering sleep training, you have to commit fully to being consistent at bedtime. Because the Goddess of Consistency will not forgive you even the slightest betrayal. Seriously, she’s the worst.
Does anybody else have any experiences with being consistent (or not) that they’re willing to share?
Well this post could not have come at a perfect time, as I am sitting on my porch letting my 8.5 mo. DD cry herself to sleep at naptime and I have to remove myself because I can’t listen to it. And now I am second guessing myself. It’s been successful for a couple weeks where it takes 10-20 minutes to put herself to sleep at naps, but today is been about 35 minutes and still going strong and I’m thinking.. CRAP… maybe she wasn’t tired enough? Is this cruel because I didn’t stretch her out long enough (2 hours 20 minutes) between her AM and PM nap? And beating myself up about it. Sigh. I switched up the naptime routine so it’s a mini bedtime — nurse-diaper change with lovey – books – lullaby — in crib. It’s been working well but now I’m trying to find any excuse to go back in there. Please tell me I shouldn’t! I guess this blog post just did. Ack.
This brings me to something else I am REALLY WORRIED ABOUT. We have been working so hard this month to do CIO at bedtime and naps and it’s really working. She still wakes up once to eat at around 4 a.m. but other than that it’s been really great — last night it took her 6 minutes to go to sleep, which is unheard of in our home.
SO, My DD and I are about to spend 3 WEEKS at grandparents house for vacation. How do I remain consistent with CIO on extended vacation (or even a weekend trip in a travel crib?). I’m worried about using CIO because it will be a new environment, what if she’s ACTUALLY afraid? I don’t want her to be afraid in a new environment, truly, I want her to know she shouldn’t be afraid. But, I sure as hell do NOT want to have to start all over again in cry-it-outsville because it has taken a lot of hard work to get to where we are today!
Please… advice on vacation! Naps AND bedtime!! Also, am I a turd of a mother who is letting her baby cry for a really long time because maybe she’s not tired enough? Arg….
LOVE THIS SITE! ADVICE WOULD BE SO APPRECIATED.
Rachel, see my comment below, I meant to reply to you!
If you’re using Ferber method, end the nap after 30 minutes of crying (real crying, not just fussing) and keep her awake until next regular nap time. If she falls asleep on the floor while playing, for example, but without any former sleep associations, let her sleep there. Then, try again at the next nap time with the routine. Its the sleep associations that you want to be concerned about–if she falls asleep on her own, its okay for that time.
For vacation, try having baby sleep in the pack and play prior to the vacation. Bring the same sheet so that it smells familiar. Do all feedings, diaper changes, and some playtime in that bedroom so she becomes familiar with it. Bring nightlights, noise machines, etc. with you. Then, be consistent like you would normally do at home (feedings and nighttime/nap routines). We went for a week from east coast to west coast and two different grandparents homes using that plan it it was fine. Bring room darkening shades with you too, you never know how bright the room your daughter will be staying in will be. My daughter’s overall sleep time shortened a bit, but that was okay in my book. Good luck!
Hey Rachel,
I’ve got 2 thoughts for you and one small nitpick. I’ll start with the nitpick.
I would love it if we could change the way we talk about sleep training (and I literally mean WE – it’s not just you). People often use phrases like “how do I remain consistent with CIO on vacation” or “We’ve been doing CIO for months now…” and to somebody who is just here thinking about CIO it sounds like when you start down this path you’re headed for MONTHS OF CRYING.
CIO is a relatively short-term thing to teach your child to fall asleep without unsustainable sleep associations. It’s not something that goes on for months because after a few days, your child HAS learned to fall asleep without whatever it is because they’re DOING IT. Sure they might grumble for a few minutes at bedtime but who cares right!
Whatever it is you’re trying to get out of is DONE for you. Sure when you travel or kids get sick you might need to be a bit more generous with them at bedtime. But that doesn’t mean you go 100% back to whatever it is that you’re trying to get out of.
As for naptime at almost 9 months:
– He probably DOES need to be awake a bit longer between naps. A classic 9-month-old nap pattern might be 2-3-4. Meaning nap #1 is 2 hours after he wakes up in the AM, nap #2 is 3 hours after that nap and bedtime is 4 hours after nap #2.
– You want to work on locking him on a schedule so he’s napping at X and Y hour every day. Generally this is a helpful technique for older babies (being fluid when they’re younger works better) because when you sleep at the same time every day it primes your body TO sleep at that time.
Hope that helps – good luck!
Hey Alexis,
Thank you so much for the reply! I completely get where you’re coming from by talking about HOW we discuss CIO and the messages it sends to parents. I think I was using it as a term because after two weeks, she is still crying, pretty HARD crying for ~20 minutes before she falls asleep at naptime. Bedtimes are better, usually just around 10 minutes of crying. Maybe this is just the “grousing” and simple complaining which is not a big deal that you stressed in this post but it sounds like hard crying to me. So even after two weeks, when I hear her crying hard before she falls asleep, even if it IS only for 15-20 minutes… I am still biting my nails and so that’s why I’ve been using the term “CIO.” Hopefully it will get better and will move away from the HARD crying to the fussing/grousing which isn’t as big of a deal? And I’m so glad you said the 2-3-4 thing. Maybe that could ACTUALLY be the source of the hard crying problem. Because she was colicky as a young baby, for a long time I had to watch her like a hawk so she wouldn’t get overtired in between naps. It has been hard for me to stick to a strict nap schedule because I am so used to planning her naps depending on when she wakes. Today she woke up at 6:10 AM, so I put her down for her nap at 8:30. Yesterday she woke at 7, so it was 9:30 by the time she went to sleep. Sometimes she wakes from her AM nap at 10, and sometimes at 11:15… so then her afternoon nap changes based on her wake up time. That’s how I’ve been doing it anyway… Which takes preference? making sure she has enough awake time in between naps so she’s not frustrated (what you said, 3 hours in between AM nap and PM nap) OR sticking to a hard and fast nap schedule (9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. bed no matter when she wakes up)?
And then for vacation! because I am a detail-oriented person, what makes ME nitpick is when you say “Sure when you travel or kids get sick you might need to be a bit more generous with them at bedtime. But that doesn’t mean you go 100% back to whatever it is that you’re trying to get out of.” So my question is, if I am a little more generous on vacation, does this mean the first couple nights I help her by rocking her to sleep if she’s screaming for an hour? That makes me nervous because last week we made my in-laws PROMISE they would let her put herself to sleep when we went out for our anniversary, but they did NOT listen (they rocked her) and you’re right, consistency IS wench… because the next 4 nights were awful trying to get her back to self-soothing. I just don’t want to be back there for our 3-week vacation at grandmas.
Would love any subsequent thoughts — sorry I am a nitpicker, I have noticed though that sleep stuff does require details, details, details and when I miss a biggie it can make a big difference. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I cannot tell you how it helps!
1) If choices must be made I would probably go with the 2:3:4 window between naps over the strict nap schedule.
2) So your own experience shows that going back to what you used to do is NOT worth it, even when traveling! When I say “be generous” I don’t mean “rock her fully to sleep.” If that’s what you’ve gotten out of then you’re done with that forever (or until #2 comes on the scene 😉
Generous means – maybe a bit of rocking AT bedtime. IF she’s really struggling maybe you do a few brief checks to rub her back or use soothing words. If you’re in a hotel, maybe you lie in the bed nearby while she’s working out how to fall asleep. But going 100% back to “the old ways” is madness.
The good news is that your vacation is 3 weeks long so hopefully it’s enough time to settle into the new environment (vs. a weekend getaway). So be kind but firm. Give a few more back rubs than normal. But don’t rock!
Hey Alexis,
I’m sorry I keep coming back to you, but I can’t seem to get a consistent nap time at X & Y down! Every couple days, my daughter will have a very difficult time falling asleep for naps. Yesterday she was crying very hard for 45 minutes before she fell asleep for her afternoon nap! And we began teaching her to fall asleep on her own about a month ago, so I am agitated that sometimes it still takes a long time and I’m wondering if it’s something I’m mucking up schedule-wise. I feel like I’M the reason she still cries a lot before naps, and it’s keeping me up at night (literally).
She is almost 9 months old, and the 2-3-4 window hasn’t seemed to work very well, because if I try to put her to sleep for her AM nap after only 2 hours, she seems very frustrated and will cry for about 35 minutes before falling asleep at 10.
Here’s just a few days of our schedule which varies by 30 minutes or so. I should note that our naptime routine is a mini-bedtime version but there’s NOT always 20 minutes between nursing and put in crib. Sometimes just 10-15 minutes depending on how tired she seems
TUESDAY:
– 6:45 wake
– 9:40 in crib, asleep at 10 a.m. with some tears, not a ton
– 11:45 wake
– 2:40 in crib for PM nap, asleep at 3:05 with lots of crying
– I woke her up at 4:30
– Put her in bed after nurse-diaper-books-lullaby at 7:20, no tears for bed.
WEDNESDAY
– 7:10 wake
– 10 a.m. in crib, asleep at 10:20 after lots of crying
– I woke her up at 12:20
– 3:10 in crib for PM nap, no fussing, asleep at 3:20
– I woke her up at 4:30 to protect bedtime
– In crib at 7:30 with little fuss
THURSDAY
– 6:20 wake
– 9:25 in crib, asleep at 9:35 with hard crying
– I woke her up at 12:15 to protect next nap… then we went to a friends house, came home and went straight to nap without much playtime buffer
– Put in crib at 3:15… SCREAMING until 4 p.m.
– I let her nap from 4-5
– Put her in crib at 7:45 (went to sleep a little after 8 p.m.)
Friday (today)
– Wake at 5:45 a.m. and won’t go back to sleep
– 9:13 in crib, 9:23 asleep no tears.
And here I am… At a glance this schedule seems to be OKAY I guess? But, last week (when I didn’t journal sleep stuff) the schedule was more or less the same as above, but there would be bouts of really hard crying before NAPS (not bed) for sometimes 30-35 minutes and I’m wondering if that’s unusual after a month of teaching her to put herself to sleep? What I’m wondering if I’m doing wrong:
– Letting her nap too long
– wake times are 3-3-3 (2-3-4 is hard, b/c 2 doesn’t seem tired enough, and I can’t stretch her for 4 hrs before bed)
– not enough time in between nursing and crib FOR NAPS (sometimes 10-15 mins, not min. 20 mins you recommend)
– inconsistent nap times. But I really don’t know how to get around the inconsistent nap times when her wake times are inconsistent
– The past couple of weeks her schedule has been roughly nap from 10-12, and nap from 3-4/4:30 and bedtime at 7:30, falling asleep around 7:45. I would love bedtime to be at 7, but I don’t see a way around this schedule for the time being. Do the actual times matter so much as long as she’s getting enough sleep?
Thanks for your help Alexis. I am sure you have noticed that I do have a perfectionist bent, and maybe I just need to relax and just let her have hard days every once in a while. I think in my head I thought that after a few weeks of teaching her to sleep on her own, we wouldn’t see these big crying bouts before sleep… my mama nerves are getting the best of me and I am feeling guilty that sometimes she still struggles a lot before naps.
I really can’t wait for your book. Cheers 🙂
Rachel
“maybe I just need to relax and just let her have hard days every once in a while”
This.
And yes you need to be consistent for more than a few days to see what develops. What about sticking to a firm plan for 7 days and THEN seeing what develops?
Hard crying for 5-15 minutes is just because she isn’t keen to fall asleep. 30-35 minutes is more of a bummer but again her sleep is floating all over the place so we’re not really giving her body to regulate around set wake/sleep patterns.
If you think 10 AM is the best time to lock in then go with that. Your gut is better than mine. But DO commit for 7 days – naps at the same time every day. THEN we can talk about tweaking, but resist the urge to start tweaking on day #2.
(Not to be confused with twerking, twerking will not help matters and may hurt…your back 😉
Perhaps a really consistent bedtime will help you out? If you can choose 7.30pm for instance as your bed time, and be consistent, she may then have a more consistent wake time, which will help you to schedule daily naps at the same time. this will help her body clock. Keeping a baby up longer does not equal longer overnight sleep.
If my son wakes before his 6am wake time for the day, I leave him to CIO until he goes back to sleep, or up until 5.50am- I’ll always give him 10mins grace. He’s in bed by 7.30pm every night. If he wakes in the night, I give him at least 10mins to resettle, but can generally tell by the cry if something is wrong enough to warrent me going in.
Hope that might help…
Two things:
1. My daughter went through a phase around 9 months where she was extra difficult to get down to sleep and would wake up SCREAMING in the middle of the night for no reason. There were a few times where I took HOURS to get her back to sleep. I read that this is actually something that happens to a fair number of kids that age. And then the phase passed as suddenly as it arrived. Just keep trying to stick to the general rules, because perhaps this is a phase.
2. My daughter hates sleep and usually mounts some kind of protest. She’s 20 months old and STILL cries for 10-15 minutes before naps. I have learned that this is just her thing.
I agree: people, don’t be scared about this CIO thing! It really only lasts a few days! And it gets better and better, until the baby only fusses for a few minutes, and after a few weeks, they don’t even fuss anymore (mine just chat and play sometimes until they fall asleep).
Now, when it comes to actually go through these first few days, it’s quite hard to hear the baby cry and to not go back to old habits and stay consistent: but I promise, this is so helpful, for your baby and for your whole family!
So so so so worth it! And YES, THANK YOU Alex and Claire!! If you’re a Mum doing CIO, it doesn’t mean your bub cries hard forever, it means you have 2-3 weeks of training at the start, (HARD WORK YES!) and then generally 2-3 days to get back on the wagon if you fall off after holidays or Grandma staying and messing up your schedule.
Do you have any tips on how long to wait between naps for a 6 month old… I keep sabotaging myself and popping her in a sling “to see if she’s tired”…. Bedtimes have come a long way, but nap times are a disaster… And I keep. Questioning. Is she overtired? Did I put her in too early….should I give more run up to the nap… Why does she roll over for the morning nap.,.. Sometimes the afternoon, sometimes not… Why does it work some days and then not at all another. I’m currently walking the streets for no reason other than to get my baby to sleep. Also I have a 3 year old…. If I CIO do I have to do it for all naps whilst undertaking the training… ? Please help! 🙂
Hi…I have been doing the cio method for four days now…the day I went in every so often and made each trip longer but she would scream like crazy just seeing me. She took two and a half hours the first night and two hours the second. The third night it took an hour without visiting and she fussed (not screamed) for one hour and tonight is night four…so far it has been an hour! I dont know how long is too long for her to fuss? I am consistent with bedtime. I just dont know what to do :-/
I have found that consistency is key and even more so, if our twins are having issues (a cold or teething) that when all of that subsides, we have to go back to being consistent or the wheels come off completely. Honestly, right now one of my girls is trying to walk so our bed time is all messed up – one twin sleeps the other one stands and cries and sits and falls asleep sitting or needs help – but I’m just trying to get through it because I think once she walks we’ll be better. It stinks listening to them wail, but if we continue to help it won’t make it any better. The one night I held my daughter who wants to stand until she fell asleep (BY ACCIDENT) she woke up all night!! It was horrible.
Ayup. And it IS hard when they’re learning to walk (learning to crawl also brings some challenges). But you’re right – sometimes trying to help doesn’t make anything better, it just makes it far far worse.
Fingers crossed she figures out that walking thing ASAP!
Tips for twins who wake each other up or distract each other from falling asleep?
I am really struggling with this. I know I have created a monster with not being consistent in the beginning but my son was barely 17 months when my daughter was born and I felt really overwhelmed and she went down with a bottle A LOT. So we have been crying it out at bed time and sticking with a schedule etc and that has gone fine. Crying for 10-15 minutes at most and she is asleep. My issue is the night wakings where she cries for over an hour. I know she isn’t hungry but she is used to getting a bottle. My husband thinks we should let her CIO during these wakings and Im not sure. Should we be wearning her with less and less oz in the bottle? BTW I tried that one night and she complained and cried for 45 minutes after I only gave her 4 oz in a bottle. Im at a loss….the intensity of her crying at night is shocking and goes for soooo long. We are exhausted
Hi there,
I have a friend who used an interesting method to wean her little one off the bottle feedings at night. Maybe it will work for you?
She started with the regular amount of milk on night #1 and each night thereafter, she replaced a little of the milk with water (maybe 1/2 ounce?) Then by the end of the week (or whatever time frame you set), the bottle literally was just water, which the baby was not interested in, and therefore no longer wanted the bottle.
Good luck…
Quick question – how can you say she’s not hungry if she is used to getting a bottle? IF she’s used to drinking 8 oz at night? If she is she probably IS hungry in which case a gentle weaning plan should help you all get through this relatively quickly 🙂
You can read more about that here:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
The watered down bottle Lisa suggests IS a good suggestion but you want to be mindful to not give your baby too much water. For example you never want to water down bottles for babies under 6 months, and if they’re older babies you still want to monitor they’re water intake – it’s not good for a baby to suck down 8 oz of water because it can dilute important minerals in their body.
But yes you can and should definitely try it – 3 scoops in 8 oz of water, then 2 scoops in 8 oz, then 1 scoop.
In that particular case I didn’t think she would be hungry when she ate at 12:30 6 oz and it had only been 3 hours. Plus her cry doesn’t sound like a hunger cry its a pissed off cry. So I was just referring to that one instance. We are working on the slowly weaning plan of reducing the amount not watering down. I had read your blog a year ago and used that method for my son and it worked in just a few nights. But my daughter is much more strong willed so Im going to spread it out a little more. last night I worked hard to bump up her last bottle and laid her down tired but awake and she only woke once at 2am and ate 5oz so I think we may have a good routine/pattern starting. Thanks so much for your help!!
Hi Karen,
My lactation consultant had a very helpful suggestion for helping my 8 month old learn to sleep through the night and beginning night weaning. She goes down pretty smoothly at about 7:30 but was used to waking up and eating at least once, often twice, starting around 1am. The recommendation was to go in and do a dreamfeed with her at 10:00 and 4:00 so that she breaks the association of waking up at night and getting to eat but still has a full belly. We’ve dropped the 4:00 feed and now I’m gradually pushing back the 10:00 earlier and earlier. So far so good. 🙂
I have to say, your blog has been my go to when I am at a loss. The information here has been so helpful.! I am guilty of being inconsistent with sleep training my almost 11 month old. Typical bedtime routine – nurse, bath, pjs, book, bed. Bedtime is generally between 7-7:30 depending on pm nap. Almost always, little one falls asleep with no crying at all. She does equally well for naps. She will sleep great until 3-4 am and that’s when things get inconsistent. I work early mornings, so I know I am the reason I go back and forth. I have a rule that I don’t go to her until 4am. When we have let her cry it out, she cries on and off for at least an hour. When I don’t have to wake up early, it is easier for me to let her cry it out. When I do have to get up at 4:45, it is easier for me to nurse her for a quick 5 minutes so that everyone can go back to sleep. This is the only time she eats throughout the night and I know it is not about the food, it’s about the comfort. I always put her back in the crib awake afterwards. I know my inconsistency is the problem, but I have been stumped by one thing. Why is she a champ at putting herself to sleep at naps and bedtime, but she struggles in the middle if the night? And is she crying that long because I have been inconsistent…sometimes I go to her, other times I don’t? I know it’s not about food or a wet diaper. People suggest teething, but she had 3 teeth come in at the same time and I didn’t even know it. Separation anxiety? Even after trying for 3 nights of cry it out in a row, ithe crying was not getting shorter. How long until things get better if I stick to cry it out?
Hey Stephanie,
It’s probably a few things:
– This is definitely in there, “And is she crying that long because I have been inconsistent…sometimes I go to her, other times I don’t? ”
– Also it’s likely close enough to her wake up time (she’s gotten ~9 hours of sleep by then) so that it’s not that easy to fall back to sleep.
Also when you say you have a rule where you don’t go to her till 4 am does that ever mean she wakes up at 3:30 AM and cries till 4 and then you go to her? Because that, while a common thing to try, can also unfortunately “cry train” a baby. Essentially you want to fully ignore (nursing is entirely off the table) or go relatively quickly (~5 minutes) after she wakes up. Does that make sense?
If she’s always waking up and you sometimes go to her and then stop yes she’ll cry a long time. There’s research on this sort of intermittent reinforcement and it takes way longer to break out of that pattern. If it’s already been 3 nights I might be inclined to just stick it out.
ANother option would be to try to disrupt this pattern by proactively going in to offer her a dream feed when she’s asleep – say at 2:30. This makes sure she’s not hungry AND disrupts the sleep pattern that results in a lot of crying at ~3. But as mentioned you’re already 3-4 days down this path, maybe it’s best just to stick with it?
Let me know what happens over the next few days, OK?
Alexis-
Thank you for your reply. Yes, there are times she has woken at 3:30 and if she hasn’t fallen back to sleep by 4, I have gone to her. I know I was making a complete mess of the situation. However, I can now say that after 7 nights, we are on track and baby is sleeping through the night. The first 3 nights, she cried off and on but because I had fully committed this time, I was able to allow her to put herself back to sleep in the middle of the night. I have been trying to completely night wean, so your second suggestion was off the table. I committed to full extinction and after 3 nights, she has slept through the night for the last 4. Thank you for the nudge in the right direction.
I have a question related to one of the things in your last response. My 8 month old has responded well to sleep training overall but a few times has woken up around 4:30 or 5:00 and has a very hard time putting herself back to sleep. It’s so close to her wake up time (usually about 6 or 6:30) that she’s in the crib wide awake and no longer tired enough to wear herself out from crying. Also, she sleeps for anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours for naps and we typically go in when we can see on the monitor that she is really awake and looking around the room in her crib. Could picking her up at those varying times from naps be messing with her mornings? I would love any suggestions about what to do in these situations.
Sometimes kids wake up unreasonably early and can’t fall back to sleep. It sucks but it is what it is.
I wouldn’t go to her till 5 AM min but if she’s wide awake and crying at 5 AM she’s unlikely to fall back to sleep and letting her hang till 6 AM isn’t really productive.
Naptime isn’t messing things up, I think it’s just a “crappy morning” which happens sometimes 🙁
You are not a bad mother! You aren’t, but I know how you feel…
Re: vacation. My advice would be to bring *all the things* involving the bedtime routine that you can bring, and to buy there those you can’t bring. Keep all of that as consistent as possible. I just went for a short vacation and one of the things that weren’t the same was the bathtub, or rather lack thereof (there was no toddler bathtub, just the big scary one) and that did freak my toddler (16 months) out. Now, while you can’t bring that with you, you might be able to buy one. I should have done that, even though probably there were other factors that screw her sleep up (like a loud grandmother who does not believe that baby wakes up for noises).
Was it a loud drunken grandmother? Because in my head that’s really funny 😉
I hope then when I’m a grandma I’m not all like “Even though it’s been 40 years since I did this I’m still totally the expert on babies!” It must be hard to admit that, tons of grandparents seem to struggle with it. But I really hope I can make peace with that and not drive my kids nutz with outdated advice.
Couldn’t help but notice and wanted to clarify. You quoted/typed:
“Shshed her for 30 seconds WITHOUT patting her and she fell asleep”
30 seconds.
A child who is in pain, or has a serious “need” doesn’t fall asleep after 30 seconds of patting. Although entirely well-intended, that 30 seconds of patting meant that after 5 days, baby didn’t fall asleep on her own. She was patted to sleep.
However, the quote states that she did not pat the baby to sleep. Did you mean shushed instead?
You GUYS, you’re supposed to point out mistakes like that to me in private not in COMMENTS. Was that not entirely clear? Gheesh.
OK fixed. And the truth is that yes it’s her presence in the room that is blowing up on her but “shush/pat” is a far more common thing for parents to do so I’m going to go with that. Still holds up though…
I’m not sure that this changes anything, but I just wanted to point out that the mom in this case study said she did NOT pat – she went in and shhhed. I’m guessing mom’s presence shhing has the same effect that the patting would have? But I just wanted to point out that mom explicitly said she shhed WITHOUT patting.
Fixed and thanks 🙂
Oy! We have done CIO and thankfully never had much crying. However, recently while at the doctor, we found out that our baby had recovered from an ear infection but is cutting 3 teeth at once. I mentioned that I was glad the ear issue was gone and now we can CIO again. The doctor strongly discouraged CIO while baby is in this teething pain but before we left said “well, I shouldn’t tell you not to CIO” Ugh!!! So now I’m so torn! There is always going to be something. How can I be consistent if we don’t CIO while teething?
She’s 11.5 months old and wakes ~3x a night.
Also, we are bad and give a bottle before bed and if not CIO, we give a bottle when she wakes. So my hubby’s version of CIO is not giving a bottle or diaper change at night. If she fussed we don’t go in. If she’s standing and hysterical, we go in and rock her. Is this doing anything at all to step in the right direction?
I need some guidance. I cant believe I’m typing this and she’s almost a year and not sleeping all night.
Thank you
This is similar to our situation but I personally feel if we keep feeding her at night she is going to continue to wake to have the bottle to soothe herself back to sleep. Im also flabergasted that I am still in this situation as my son was STTN by 8-9 months. I agree….its VERY difficult to be consistent when they are always teething/sick/milestone or wonder week which causes waking….I am totally stumped
I agree. I’m definitely cutting out the feedings even if we don’t CIO during teething……it can only help.
Hey Lindsay,
I don’t know if it’s helpful to throw even MORE advice into the mix but here goes anyway 🙂
So you HAVE done CIO which means you’ve successfully gotten your child to fall asleep with whatever it was you needed to get out of (I’m assuming bottles at bedtime). Now that she’s successfully falling asleep WITHOUT a bottle, why would her teething make it a good idea to go back to bottles at bedtime? I don’t often say this but I totally disagree with your pediatrician on this one:P
Everything starts AT bedtime. If she’s getting bottles AT or NEAR bedtime, she’s going to demand bottles during the night. Not giving her a bottle at night (if she had one at bedtime) is not productive. Consider bedtime like a fork in the road – which path do you want to be on? The one that persists a bottle=sleep association or the one that doesn’t? You choose AT bedtime, not at 2 AM (even though you’re exhausted and don’t want to go get her a bottle then). Does that make sense?
So separate the bottle from bedtime. If you decide to take me up on that front you do it 100% of the time. No more bottles at bedtime. Fini. Then you work on a gentle weaning plan to gradually get out of the 3X feedings a night.
Medicate the teething. Give her a bit of extra love! But don’t go rock her to sleep if you can help it because that can lead to creating a different unsustainable sleep association.
But this goes for everybody – when you do CIO you’re really teaching baby to sleep in a new way and removing unhealthy sleep associations (bottles, nursing, pacifiers, rocking, etc.). Once you’ve done that you don’t go BACK to the old sleep association because it totally confuses baby and leads to lots of crying and bedtime battles for all involved 🙁
Anyway there’s another piece of advice to add to your pile of conflicting advice 😉 Hope it helps!
Thank you! This does help. I totally agree with you. This is very helpful for my confidence. I don’t want to second guess myself while she’s CIO.
I really wish I did not have a baby monitor. My mom always tells me how good of sleepers we were. I honestly don’t think most parents really knew because they didn’t have monitors back then.
Anyway, thank you very much for your help.
I’m brand new to this website and am starting to navigate the CIO/sleep training waters. As I read this comment thread I have a question about bottles at or near bedtime. Our just turned 6 month old is waking up 1-3 times a night to eat but we’ve gotten to the point where we are really doubting if he’s really hungry each time or if he just wakes up and wants a bottle to fall back asleep. His night wake up times are all over the place. One night it might be midnight, 3am, 5:30am, another night it might be 2:00 then 5:00am and occasionally he’ll only wake up once. He can really struggle at times to fall back asleep after the 5-5:30am wake up and we’ve resorted at times to just bringing him into bed with us and he’ll fall asleep for another 1-1.5 hours. He is actually usually pretty easy to put down for naps and bedtime with very minimal to no crying. Once he has a bottle in the night we put him right back in his crib but he is pretty much already asleep because of the bottle. Our bedtime routine is typically bath, bottle, change into jammies, hug/kiss and into his crib. Have we created a bottle association because it is right before bedtime? He is still awake after his bottle but is sleepy. We can put him into his crib awake and he will fall asleep on his own most of the time. We do “rescue” occasionally because he’s learned to roll onto his tummy but hasn’t figured out how to roll back onto his back and he gets pretty upset when he finds himself on his tummy.
When is the optimal time to give the bottle in the bedtime routine? We typically try to have him in his crib between 6:30 and 7pm. What do we do about the bottle association during the night? We figure that if he can make it some nights with only 1 feeding that if he wakes up the next night 2 additional times that he is probably not really needing to eat but just wants the bottle to fall asleep?
Also, are we creating sleep association by “rescuing” him when he rolls onto his tummy and becomes upset? We often find him on his belly when he wakes up during the night so it seems he’s also doing it in his sleep and that might be waking him up.
I’m one confused momma who is looking forward to sleep!
Try a bigger time gap at bedtime and see what happens. Also with bottle babies it’s a lot easier to see what’s happening – does he suck down 6-8 oz or is it just a scant 2 oz? 2 oz is a snack and thus a big clue that the demand for a bottle is about soothing/association vs. hunger.
Experiment a little – see what develops!
I’m in the same boat with my 6.5 month old. He’s doing pretty well with CIO as long as we’re consistent, and I’ve realized (like someone mentioned above) that if I stray from the usual routine/putting down awake, he’s up all night. In the case above scheduled feedings are mentioned – at 11 PM and 3:30 AM. Does this mean you wake the baby up to feed at this times? My son still wakes twice nightly to eat, but his times vary from night to night. I wonder whether he would sleep more if I had scheduled times that I would wake to feed whether he’s awake or not, and wake him slightly to feed then back to bed. Thoughts? Thanks!
Maybe? Sometimes babies do well with dream feeds (often this is helpful if for example YOU go to bed at 10 PM – you feed him then instead of napping for 1 hour only to get up then, follow me?). But a bit of variability is pretty normal and I’m not sure that trying to proactively lock him into a schedule will really make much of a difference. But feel free to muck with his schedule if it makes it more comfortable for you 🙂
This article came literally at the moment I needed it! My son woke up in the middle of his nap (which rarely happens) and seemed awake, yet kept rubbing his eyes and fussing, which I know means “tired.” Before I saw these tired signs, I picked him up out of habit (usually when he wakes up from a nap, he’s ready to be awake, and he’d been sleeping for an hour, but he missed a nap today so I thought it a little odd he wasn’t sleeping longer). Anyway, after clearing his stuffy nose (which might have been why he woke up) and then feeding him, I realized he was still very very tired. So I laid him down again and he began to wail. Then I was really confused. Usually for naps, he whimpers a little bit but goes down easily. I considered picking him back up, except every time I went to, he rubbed his eyes. So I left the room and checked my email and saw “Just How Consistent do you Have to Be?” Uuuhhhh, is someone watching me?
Ok, he was really wailing, so I went back in there and kissed his head, replaced his pacifier, tucked him in, and then stared at him. Long and hard…..I desperately wanted to pick him up because he was not acting like his usual nap-time self! I went back to the email and stared at that heading. And slowly, the wailing turned to crying, turned to whimpering, turned to silence. And now he is fast asleep. YAY! The only reason is because I saw that email and decided I couldn’t allow myself to be tricked by this little fella. He was tired darn it!!!!
Anyway, thanks for the timely reminder about consistency.
I AM watching you. I have nanny cameras hidden all over the place. Nobody knows but it’s my secret baby sleep research lab.
(*insert evil laugh*)
Congratulations on listening to your instincts and letting baby get some more sleep. YAY!
Funny consistency story (funny what we find funny these days #newbieparents):
Our 14 month old had been sleeping through the night (7-6) for some time, but surprised us one night around 10:30pm with a crying wake-up. After a “WHAT-THE-#$%@??” (okay, he had a cold) I went in to soothe him and check his vitals. He was completely congested, snotty faced and a total sad story. No fever, but super snots. We had all the cold-interventions going (humidifier, snot sucker, etc), but I sat with him in the rocker for a few minutes thinking he needed to be a little vertical. His seemingly fell asleep immediately in my arms, but the minute I tried to lay him in his crib he Freaked out. Okay, back to the rocker we go.
My husband and I tried for an hour and a half. No repeat. No go. He just wailed, and more snot just ran.
Finally, in a sleepy (snotty) state, I had a new idea. I turned UP the light (to bedtime/story levels), gave him a little sip of milk, chatted like we do before bed (awake!), and put him down FULLY AMAKE like we do (and had been doing FOREVER – much thanks to you and other sleep gurus), and BAM, he went to sleep without a peep.
My husband and I laughed at our foolishness. The cold wasn’t the issue, us rocking him to sleep was. Foolish, foolish first timers.
Not foolish at all! Foolish would have kept at it. Smart Parents that you are, figured out a better plan 🙂
Honestly the fact that my children are old enough to manage their own snot without my intervention is GLORIOUS!
PS. My plugin should have put a link here back to your most recent post but it didn’t (don’t ask me why, these things are a mystery!) so I will:
http://healthymumma.com/
Thanks for sharing your story!
Great post, Alexis. One idea/question I have is this: Do you think that if they take a break from trying CIO, maybe wait a couple of weeks, and then try it again, do you think baby might respond as well as the first time? Maybe if they postpone a bit there might *not* be more crying/a harder time than before? I think it might work that way… Curious to see what you think. I think it might be worth a try, if they feel really discouraged and worried at the thought of even more crying at this point, to wait a bit and try again after a week or two.
Maybe yes maybe no.
Because here’s the challenge. Every time you have bedtime one way, you’re teaching your child that THAT’S how we sleep. Also as kids get older (remember we don’t know how old this child is) they actually start to fight your efforts to leave or stop doing what you’re doing more than when they’re younger. I call this hypervigillance for lack of a better term.
Anyhoo…bedtime can become a battle because she’s wised up to your efforts to sneak out on her and it may not always be just “30 seconds.”
And truthfully there is no good way to predict what will happen. I’ve dealt with babies I was sure would PROTEST FOR HOURS who popped off to sleep after a scant 15 minutes. And other babies who went the other way.
So I think my advice for these people would be to try to be honest with themselves – if THEY (the grown ups) aren’t ready, then don’t do it. But I wouldn’t suggest waiting because you’re hoping for a better outcome for baby.
Then again who knows – I think we would need to experiment with twins to really know the truth 🙂
Thanks for this post! We did CIO with our 6.5 month old a few weeks ago, and bedtime has been drama-free ever since. Nights have also vastly improved, with our little guy waking 1-2 times in a ten-hour stretch (as opposed to 3-5 times).
When he wakes up at night I let him fuss in his crib for 5-10 minutes to see if he’ll go back to sleep on his own, but I typically wind up nursing him back to sleep. When we started sleep training, he was sleeping for a 7-8 hour stretch, typically waking for the first time around 3am. Over the past week, it seems like his first waking is getting earlier and earlier – last night it was around 1am. By nursing him at 1am, am I encouraging him to continue getting up earlier? There have been nights that he’s woken at midnight and gone back to sleep after 15-30 min of fussing and some crying.
I’m wondering how long I should give him to see if he will settle on his own. Last night he woke at 1am and fussed for about 20 min, with some short hard crying jags. I wound up nursing him and he slept until 4:30am. I nursed again at 4:30 and he slept until 6:30am, for a total of 10.25 hours of sleep. Any advice would be much appreciated!
Hey Bethany,
The problem is that your baby doesn’t know what time it is. I would buy a nice toddler clock and immediately start coaching him on the concept of telling time.
JK
Some babies regulate into a nice predictable pattern of waking up at X and Y hours. This is not your baby. You can go with it or you can try to monkey with the system. Monkeying may or may not work for you.
One idea would be to offer a dream feed when YOU go to bed. This will I hope be earlier than 1:00 AM 🙂 Ideally you then have this feeding plus a later feed (possibly around 3) so you get a nice stretch of sleep with your 2X feedings.
Just wanted to throw my support behind the need to bow down to the gods of consistency. We’ve been pretty lucky with our CIO journey-once we figured our routine out, our little girl figured out the lay of the land pretty quickly & now at 17months goes to bed (most nights) without a fuss. That being said, she’s a tricky creature, and if we switch things up for some reason, for example if I do cave on a night when she is having a fuss, and go in and settle her, she then decides she wants more of the same. I always kick myself, because I know better, but at least I know how to get back on track-largely thanks to this website 🙂
Every few months my FIVE year old will start some bedtime schnenagins just to see if I still mean what I say at bedtime. Kids are tricky like that 😉
First of all I want to say THANK YOU! We used your swing method to help our little guy to learn how to soothe himself and he has been falling asleep on his own for naps and bedtime in his crib since about 6 months of age (he just turned one). However, we continue to struggle with nighttime wakings. He is breastfed and continues to wake for one feeding around 6 am, which I am fine with for now since it means he will then sleep until 8:30/9:00. I suspect if I tried to cut it out he might just wake for the day as you’ve said. This is most nights, but sometimes he wakes at other times. After this post I would say my lack of consistency is probably the cause.
And this brings me to the question I am surprised no one else has asked (that I can find)… What do I do when we are visiting family or have guests staying with us, in the guest room, immediately adjacent to the nursery… I can’t let him cry and cry and keep them awake all night. For instance, we are about to visit my sister and her new baby, if I let him cry he might wake the baby. I’m sure I wouldn’t be too popular in that case. We have been traveling frequently and I feel we can’t get into a good groove with night wakings because when we travel I feel I need to be considerate of our hosts.
What would you suggest? Do I buy everyone earplugs? 😉
Your baby crying won’t bother other people NEARLY as much as it bothers you. The minute your kid cries (or even grunts loudly) you’re wide awake, your heart pounding in your chest. This is not true for people who aren’t his parents.
True story – friends were visiting us a year ago and they had a ~1 year old who had some issues in the travel crib and woke up crying for 30 minutes at midnight. I BARELY REGISTERED THAT IT HAPPENED. Meanwhile when my son whispers, “Mom I’m thirsty.” I’m up and out of bed before I even processed what happened.
Don’t worry about the baby. Use white noise. See what happens. I doubt it’ll be anywhere near as rough for them as it is for you!
Thank you for the reply! I will bring our white noise machine and hope for the best! I have been working on my consistency and only responding to his crying for the one feeding around 6 a.m. So far so good, just a couple bouts of crying for 15 min or less and most nights waking only for the one morning feeding. All of this while transitioning to one nap too, so not bad!
Ugh I feel like I am consistent as h*** and after 35 nights (I’ve been keeping a journal), I can still get anywhere from 5-45 minutes of crying! We’ve stopped doing checks after the first few nights, always strive for the same nap schedule and wake time recommendations, but he still looses his mind at putdown every few nights! He is sleeping through the night regardless, but gosh I thought there would be less crying by now.
We’re in the same boat, except the best night we’ve had so far has been 20 minutes of crying. Everything I’ve read says it should have improved by now, I don’t understand why it isn’t working. Last night after an hour of screaming I went in to reposition him because I could hear his head bumping against the crib. The second I picked him up he calmed down, and he was asleep a couple minutes after I left the room. So now I’m worried I’ve ruined everything, not that it was that good anyway.
No more self-flagellating! You didn’t ruin anything and you aren’t bad people. But let’s see if we can’t figure out why you’re getting 20+ minutes of crying…
Generally it’s a few things:
1) Inconsistency (I’m glad you’ve stopped making checks but it’s been long enough now that THAT’s not the issue).
2) Too tired/Not tired enough. Look at the nap schedule – maybe a tweak is needed? What about experimenting with pushing bedtime back by 30 minutes for 5+ days to see what develops?
Or UP? Sometimes super crap nappers actually need to sleep EARLIER and have a hard time falling asleep because they’re TOO tired?
3) Something in the bedtime routine isn’t helpful. Anything that is a high level of activity or bright light (no outside play) could work against you.
Make a change for 5 days before you determine it isn’t helping. Good luck!
Yup, bedtime too early was the problem! We had been doing bedtime about 2.5-2.75 hours after his last nap. Now we put him down just before 3 hours and he’s been asleep within a couple minutes up to 15 minutes since we’ve started that (knock on wood… whenever I say something is working, that’s usually when it goes to sh*t 🙂 Thanks for your help and response!
Hi Alexis!
I’m at a total loss… Ok, so I have combed through every single one of your posts probably 10-15 times each, and have used all of your suggestions since my baby was a month or so old… totally paid off, leading to an awesome sleeper, who is able to put herself to sleep alone after being put in crib completely awake, with some grumbling on certain nights, but never longer than 1 minute or so. We did CIO at 8 months and had total success with it and it’s been great. At 11 months, we did CIO for naps, that took much longer, but fast-toward to 15 months (now) and she’s golden for both…most of the time. 5 days ago, our sleep nightmare began. She got roseola (which we didn’t know until yesterday when the rash came and the high fever finally broke). The high fever (103 -104ish) caused multiple night wakings, and horrible crappy naps BUT she was still able to put herself to sleep at night DURING the fever when being placed in her crib completely awake–HOWEVER when she woke at night, she wouldn’t put herself back to sleep like she usually did, she actually woke UP and cried and cried until we went in. Yesterday, the fever completely broke and she has rash all over her body, thus the roseola diagnosis. My mom had been rocking her to sleep for naps and sometimes holding her thru the whole nap so she got sleep while she was sick, but her night sleep wasn’t affected. UNTIL last night. Last night, we did the same routine and I put her in the crib like I always do, with a “good night” and “see you tomorrow” and she started the crying. Which didn’t bother me, as she does it still sometimes, however, after 6 minutes of HYSTERICAL screaming (WORSE than the type she did the FIRST night (and the first night only) of CIO) I went in to get her because it was so uncharacteristic of her. When I went to get her she was thrashing around in the crib, and seemed to be writhing in pain. She continued crying and writhing like this for THREE HOURS (while I held her) so I called my parents and we went to the ER. Turns out she was fecally impacted and needed an enema…so I guess it was a good thing that I used my spidey mama sense and grabbed her. . . OK, so then there is TONIGHT…I know she is now feeling “better.” She doesn’t have a fever BUT she is NOT completely herself yet, she is still fussy and irritable. But she definitely did not have the discomfort like she did last night. So, I tried to put her down (and I know she’s super tired because she fought her second nap for an hour in her crib – crying, jumping up and down, etc so she didn’t get to sleep at all since 12 noon)…and she did that exact same cry as last night, for 10 minutes. I was worried that it sounded strange so I went in to get her (yes I know here is where I digress lol) and I know that was a HUGE mistake, but I was worried since we had just gone through that whole thing last night =X We played for 10 minutes and Daddy put her down after that. She screamed hysterically, but I told Daddy, “NOPE, we are letting her cry… can’t go back in again” … so we waited about 20 minutes of hysterical screaming, with peaks and lulls, and finally now – quiet. I’m scared to go check (we do not own a monitor… argh) and I’m beating myself up wondering if I did the right thing….She is also cutting 4 molars, but teething has never affected her before other than a low grade fever.
I guess my question is – when after a sickness do you need to go back to regular routine? Do you still CIO throughout the sickness? If we did help her sleep during her sickness (for naps and night wakings) is it to be expected that she will need to CIO again now? Are we back at the beginning like where we were when we first decided to CIO at 8 months?
THANK YOU, even if you cannot answer me, I know you are busy, but you have SERIOUSLY changed our life. I think that sleep (not just baby sleep) is essential in having a happy, content life, and I think that you have given us so much happy, fulfilling time with our daughter because of our families ability to sleep well at night – you have truly helped to make this first year of her life an amazing, memorable, and well-rested event. Myself and my husband are so appreciative for that!
Aw shucks. Thanks 🙂
But about your sleep situation…
No your momma instincts were TOTALLY on the mark, of COURSE with all that going on you needed to hold and console her. And probably with the illness, the ER trip, everything she accrued a bit of a sleep debt.
When kiddos built up a sleep debt they have a hard time sleeping (sleep is illogical like that). So you’ve tweaked the Goddess of Consistency (you HAD to) and this is compounded by an accrued sleep debt.
Personally I would be a bit flexible and see if you can’t gradually back out of the back rubbing and whatnot you’re currently doing at bedtime. This shouldn’t drag on for ages but give it a week and see if you can make that happen. Things may not be as “broken” as you fear and you may find you can get gently out of things. She’s older now, use your words at bedtime. Remind her that it’s time to sleep, your nearby, you LOVE her and you’ll see her in the morning.
If 7-10 days go by and nothing is working, CIO is a totally fair backup plan. Good luck!
Hi Alexis,
HUGE fan of your blog and your post ironically came the third night into sleep training…and the first night of inconsistency.
Our 5 mo old is a champ at putting herself to sleep. We’ve been doing “drowsy but awake” for a long time and it works well. She’s usually to sleep 10-20 min after putting her down. Same for naps. Goes down fully awake. We follow wake times to a T on the weekends, but during the week things get thrown off b/c she’s in daycare and finds it difficult to sleep.
For the longest time, she would go to sleep between 7-7:30, wake once to feed and be back down until we woke her again for the day. We initially tried the pacifier to hold her out for that feed, but that didn’t work. (The pedi told us at the 4 mo appt that she no longer “needed” this feed and was likely waking out of habit at this point, but unfortunately did not help us with the weaning plan!) However then she started waking up earlier and earlier for that feed. When we would give in and feed her, she’d wake naturally at 5-5:30 for the day. Not good.
So we tried the Sleepeasy Solution, which recommends finding their earliest wake time, set your alarm and feed an hour before that. Her earliest wake time being 1 AM, we set the alarm for 12 AM, she could barely get down the 4oz she normally sucks down when she wake on her own. Too tired. (We’ve also gradually been reducing oz in the MOTN bottle) Easily went back down and didn’t wake up until 3:30. But at 3:30 she was up for 20 min the first night. 40 min the second night.
On the third night, we also decided that setting an alarm for midnight sucked when my hubby could stay up until 11 PM. So he fed her the dream feed at 11 PM instead of 12 (inconsistency #1). She again woke at 3:30, but was up for nearly 2 hours and was hysterical at the end.
The first two nights did not require “checks”. She’d always settle on her own. Last night I thought she had settled, but she threw me for a loop when she started hysterical crying. I kept to the checks, but lost it on the third one and picked her up, fed her a 4oz bottle (which she really didn’t even seem to want) and she was back to sleep instantly.
So where do we go from here? Do I let her “reset” and try to just do what we were doing? (Feeding when she woke up and hoping it was 2 AM or later) Do I go back to the 12 AM feeding and stick it out with the 3:30 wake ups? I’m seriously at a loss and I am terrified of “training” her to cry for an hour to get my attention. 🙁
Hmmm….I’m not sure if this is a “she’s not ready to go that long without food” issue, if there’s a lingering “bottle=sleep” association sneaking in somewhere, or if it’s just a habitual waking thing.
She was waking at 1 AM, drinking 4 oz, then sleeping through right? Now she’s crying for hours hysterically. So that’s no good.
My first thought is what if you just reset the clock and go back to letting her wake up and feeding her then. THEN you try to decrease the food at 1 AM. The sleapeasy isn’t bad per say – the goal is to shuffle the sleep/wake/eat pattern just enough to gently break out of it. But for whatever reason (probably 1 of the ones I listed above) it got messy real quick.
Alternate plan – what if you ignore the wakings until 3:30 and THEN go in? What happens then – does she suck down 4 oz and happily go back to sleep till morning?
You’re wise to be worried about consistency but I’m wondering if there’s some small niggling detail that is tripping you up. I feel like a bit of experimentation is in order even if you risk flouting the Consistency Goddess a little bit.
Thoughts?
Well, when she’d wake up at 2 AM or later, it would be quick bottle and back to bed. If it was before 2? She’d be up at the crack of dawn (aka 5-5:30). There’s no way to “tide her over” or wait for the bottle b/c then I’m back to doing the all night paci dance. 🙁 And that’s no fun.
But, for better or for worse, I continued to honor the Goddess of Consistency. We decided to go all in with the Sleepeasy Solution and follow their weaning plan which called for reducing the bottle an ounce each night. We figured if, at the end of those 3 nights, things were marginally better, we’d continue on.
Since I originally posted the comment above, we are a full 7 days further into this ‘sleep training’ thing. Two of the seven were 12 hour sleep nights (one was a 2oz bottle, the other was no bottle)- YAY. The other four had all included a roughly 1 hr wakeful period somewhere around 3-4 AM – BOO. In those 5 days, we had roughly 10 min total of crying and maybe one check in required. And they all resolved in her (eventually) putting herself back to sleep.
As I lay awake studying the monitor on these nights, I noticed that 3-4 times during that hour, she’ll flip onto her belly (her normal sleeping position) and seemingly go back to sleep. She tosses her head back and forth, seemingly settles and the monitor goes dark.
Then, 5-10 min later, it’s back on and she’s wide awake. The pattern repeats until she eventually falls asleep.
So my intervention is not typically needed, but she’s still been up for an hour to an hour and a half 5 of the past 7 nights.
She does still seem to fall asleep quickly after her last bottle some nights. Her eyes are wide open and she’s alert/smiley etc. so I think I’m putting her down fully awake, but it’s always been pretty close to the last bottle being finished. (Within 10 min I’d say)
Would this be the habitual waking thing? Or is it just that her terribly unpredictable daycare naps equate to terribly unpredictable night sleep?
Thanks so much for your response! I really appreciate your insight!!!!
Well there you go – apparently the answer was Keep Calm and Carry On!
Habitual waking for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night? Could be due to crap naps at daycare. Could be a “too long in bed” issue (long naps and/or too early bedtime). Or it could be that it’s just the way she is.
My person rule is – if she’s happy I’m happy! So if she’s contentedly hanging out then, while you want to “fix” it, maybe no fixing is necessary?
Well, I’d be happy too I think, but she makes just enough noise to keep the video monitor on during that whole hour, which of course keeps mama awake. Lol it’s hard not to rush in and try to soothe her back down!
But I try to follow wake times for her age (~2hrs) and daycare does a decent job at it, naps are just short. Bed time between 7-7:30 which I was worried was too late beyond her last nap (usually ending around 4:30), but maybe I should try 8?
Or maybe this is just a phase she’ll grow out of? Fingers crossed because now she no longer needs me in the middle of the night but I’m still somehow awake lol
Nope 8 is too late (too long awake for a 5 month old). Stick with 7/7:30.
Personally I like the keep calm and carry on plan 🙂
I’m carrying on, but definitely not calm! The hour long wake times in motn are slowly killing me. Especially since last night was 2 hrs until I finally buckled and fed her to calm her. She really wasn’t starved for the bottle so, yay? I know I’m not starving her. I also know I became inconsistent by doing this.
I feel completely stuck between rock and hard place. I don’t need to go back bc food is clearly not needed. I’m scared to keep going bc I can’t hack the hour long wakeful period at night.
🙁
Haha.wish life could be consistent!!!…..I have been consistent with my daughters bedtime routine since she was 2months old….She is now 10 months old and was going down easy at bedtime with a little bit of protests at night after I did CIO around 7mnths..we had a few setbacks and resets because or travel/sickness/teething.but we got back on track …until one weekend when we had to go for a wedding in the evening and my mom-in-law put her to bed….1)Bedtime was later than usual 2) she rocked her to sleep 3)she sleept in the pack n play. …It’s been 2 weeks since then and bedtime isn’t as easy as it was. AND she learnt to pull herself to standing in the crib and screams bloody murder..she has bumped her chin and forehead a couple of times and has bruised herself.. so I can no longer reset like before and restart CIO..out of fear that she will physically hurt herself. Now my mom is visiting and more changes to the usual bedtime. I will have to come up with a new plan for bedtime after my mom leaves…and be consistent..sigh. Babies..
Hi,
Can you comment on CIO with older kids? our son is going through his 2 year sleep regression and wanting us to lay with him. CIO seems much harder when they can talk, try to crawl out of their cribs etc.
Thanks!
So my question is: is sleep training perpetual? Do you have to be consistent forever? For example, we did a ferber style sleep training a few wks ago wuthour five 1/2 month old who was up every sleep cycle since tge fourth month regression. It was shockingly easy -at bed time we never had to do more than three intervals, amounting to 8 min of crying. What was also surprising was that she goes to sleep with a pacifier and we were dubious as to whether this would work or she’d still need us all night to replace it. But just doing bed time decreased the wake ups to three or four within twrlve gra. Two of which are feeding. When she wakes up at a non feeding hr in the night we’d give her five min before going in to replace pacifier. Sometimes she puts herself back to sleep without it, sometimes its only a one replacement sometimes two intervals. Then after a wk of this she was only waking twice. Great! Then this wk she randomly woke up at 10:30 so instead of waiting I went right in, the next night more wake ups etc etc. So are you essentially always sleep training? And therein forevermore consistent?
Alexis,
I have read (and enjoyed) every article you’ve written. I thought I would at least be able to laugh during sleep training. Well, this. is. not. funny. I am throwing up my hands and asking for HELP! Our 8.5 mo cries (read:screams) for no less than 1 hr in her crib at bedtime. This is night 7 of Ferber method and the cry time has not reduced at all. We have a consistent bedtime routine, she nurses before we start the bedtime routine, she is very sleepy when put down, etc. This child stands up in her crib and screams until her legs physically can’t hold her up, then she sits and cries until she starts to fall asleep, but once she begins to tip over she is startled and starts to cry again–we have gone in every night to lay her down and she whimpers and almost immediately falls asleep until feeding time. I want to give up, but then what comes next?? She is so smart and busy, we knew she would be determined, but jeeeeeesh this is heartbreaking. Is it the right thing to do to continue? What can we change? I feel like everyone else’s story is either “yay CIO went well, only 10 min of crying” or “CIO is going horribly, 30-45 min of crying”, while I’m over here PRAYING for 45 min of crying! I am at a loss, please help.
Thanks for all you do
Hey Bethany,
I’m guessing 2 things:
1) Stop with the Ferber method – go full extinction. Ferber method is by definition inconsistent BECAUSE you visit. Nobody has tested ferber vs. full extinction so there is no science to back me up on this. But my experience with MANY kiddos has been that while parents prefer Ferber because visits help them feel less guilty, it rewards the crying because Mom comes back and thus leads to MORE crying for MORE days.
Bedtime – no visits. Full extinction. 3 days.
2) Is bedtime the RIGHT time? 1 hour is a lot which makes me wonder if bedtime is too early/late so she’s struggling to fall asleep?
Maybe tweak the timing and definitely tweak the method. Let us know what happens – OK?
Hi again,
Thanks for your reply! We stopped with checks and we are now on what will be night 7 of plain Jane CIO. We are still working on our schedule, but we are making progress!! Crying at bedtime ranges from 25 to 45 minutes, and I see it becoming less and less dramatic every night, and our LO is sleeping 4-5 hours straight before I go in for a feeding (huge progress compared to waking 40 min. after bedtime EVERY. NIGHT.), and then wakes 1 or 2 times the rest of the night but fusses a minute and goes back to sleep. As for the standing in her crib–turns out she does know how to lay herself down, I just wasn’t giving her the opportunity!
We are still putting her to bed pretty late at night, but we figured out that an early bedtime, even following a 2-3-4 hours awake rule, only led to almost 3 hrs of crying and I felt like a cold-hearted B! We think she is just used to going to bed later right now, and still needs a 3rd catnap in the very early evening. We are bumping up bedtime by about 20 minutes every night and hope to be able to drop that 3rd nap in favor of the earlier bedtime soonish. She is CIO for her first naptime as I type this…we wanted to conquer bedtime first, but she was resisting our previous naptime tricks and napping poorly, so we hope CIO for naps helps it “click” for her.
Thank you so much for your support!! There is a light at the end of this tunnel…although it still feels far away!
Bethany
Ok, help! We are on Night 5 of CIO with our 6 month old. She had been sleeping through the night (with all the usual sleep aids, swaddle, rocking, paci) until 5 months, at which point she started waking once at night (when I would nurse her back to sleep), which devolved into multiple night wakings, and eventually she wouldn’t go back to sleep without being nursed. Hence, sleep training.
CIO has been working well at bedtime so far… very little active crying after the first couple nights and now only some mild fussin on and off for about half an hour. The problem is the night wakings. From reading your post, it sounded like night weaning would be too difficult at this juncture, so I figured I’d get up a once at a reasonable time (3 or later) to nurse. This happened the first night: she slept until 4:00, at which point I nursed her and put her back down. No drama
The second night, she woke up at 1:00; I didn’t respond; she put herself back to sleep within 10 minutes. When she woke up at 3:00, I nursed her, and she went back to sleep. No drama.
In subsequent nights, she has not only increased her night wakings (last night she woke at 10:40, 11:40, 1:40, and 5, with my nursing her at 5), but she has had increasing difficulty putting herself back to sleep when she wakes. No more 10 minutes and then done. Tonight is the worst. She slept until 12:40 then woke up and has been fussing on and off for an hour.
What am I doing wrong? I thought I was being smart by not trying to tackle night weaning, but I wonder if I just haven’t created a monster by nursing once at night. Like, she can’t distinguish between “nursing time” and other waking times at night. Do I need to just quit cold turkey?
It’s a bit of a tricky wicket – babies do not have fixed internal clocks that go “hey it’s 4 AM time to eat!” They wake up constantly – this is a natural thing. So sometimes they wake up and you go nurse, other times no nursing. It can create a bit of an intermittent reward system.
Generally speaking once an older kiddo demonstrates the ability to go X hours without food I would advocate not going in prior to X hours. But for you guys you didn’t really have a firm pattern established and now she’s seeking comfort nursing frequently (because clearly all those feedings aren’t about food right?)
Personally I would suggest that a lot of what you’re describing could be pretty extinction bursty. If you haven’t been feeding her till 4/5 AM then that’s your hard line. If you’re consistent with that and things don’t change within 2-3 days let me know. But I suspect they will!
Keep calm and carry on. I think you’re really close to “so much better” on the sleep front!
Hi Alexis – First let me say how much I * love * your blog!! I have a 3 month old son, and your advice has been so helpful at helping me navigate the first 3 months! I have a question about nap schedules — at what age should I be concerned about my son having a regular nap schedule? Right now, it is hard to set a regular nap schedule because he sleeps for different lengths with every nap… It is also hard to set a regular bed time because his last nap of the day starts and ends at different times every day… Do you have any advice about how to begin to regularize his napping? Should I even ben concerned about that at 3 months? Thank you!!
(Channeling Alexis)–At 3 months most babies don’t have specific nap “times.” It’s more important to keep their awake times consistent than it is to have naps at specific times. At 3 months my son was awake for about 1.5 hours at a time, no matter when he woke from his last nap, which meant naps were never at the same time each day. Typically, a semi-regular bed “time” will appear before regular nap “times.” My son is now 8 months and his regular bedtime started to become more obvious around 4 months and his nap times are just now at 8 months starting to solidify. For now I’d just work on keeping consistent wake times and watching for natural patterns to emerge.
Dear Ashby (Channeling Alexis): Thank you!! Your comments are extremely helpful and very reassuring 🙂
Yep – Ashby is pretty amazing 🙂
Hi Alexis – Another nap question!! I’m addicted to your blog- it’s the most helpful resource I’ve found to-date – and just having access to you & your amazing community of moms gives me so much comfort. I know you’re super busy, but I would love any words of wisdom about the following challenge we’re having:
My son is 3 months old. He loves to sleep & began sleeping from 8/9 to 7am fairly early. Our biggest challenge had been with his naps.
His last nap starts around 5:30. Sometimes it lasts an hour but he wakes up tired… If I put him back to bed (in order to avoid over tiredness), it’s effectively like having a bedtime of 5:30, which is too early. How do I handle this situation?
Alternatively, he sometimes sleeps for hours at that 5:30 nap. How to break up the nap (so as not to have too late a bedtime) without causing him to be over tired?
Finally, if the problem is that last nap itself, how do I get to the point where it doesn’t happen?
Please help! I don’t want to inadvertently cause future sleep problems by not addressing this one the right way 🙁
I would think about locking in a bedtime (go with what you think is good for him based on your experience) and being consistent about that. Then you “Defend” this nap by managing naps (either skipping or waking him up from) so that he’s ready and willing to go to sleep then. This consistent bedtime is a good first step towards a slightly better nap pattern too.
Good luck!
Just trying to make this point to my husband (and silently to myself) when I came across your page. Great site! We’re currently sleep re-training our 9 month old. We did CIO at 4 months and it worked in 4 days; he down for bedtime and naps no problem and only took a ‘dreamfeed’ during the night until we dropped it at 7 months. Then about a month ago we went on vacation to the in-laws for 3 weeks, and they have a different philosophy, basically a ‘jump as soon as baby cries’. With the new environment and the in-laws doing a lot of the bedtimes, things got all mixed up. We also hit separation anxiety hard and learned how to crawl. Now since we’ve been back, he pops up in the crib and screams as soon as we go out of the room, and we’ve gotten into the bad habit of coming back and sitting with him (singing/patting) until he’s nearly asleep, which sometimes takes up to 45 minutes. I thought it was a short phase while he got used to moving in the crib, but its been about a month… so I knew sleep re-training was coming. We started this week with a nanny, and she leaves him to cry because she also watches a 2yo and cannot sit at the crib the whole time. So we decided that if he’s falling asleep on his own for naps, we should be consistent and do it at bedtime too.
The first nap he cried 20 minutes for the nanny, but then on Night 1 he was fantastic (but also super-tired) and only cried about 6 minutes. Next morning nap was 12 minutes, afternoon only about 2 minutes. Night 2 was rough, he screamed 15 minutes and I went in to check on him (patted him enough to calm him down but went out again) and then he took another 3-4 minutes. This morning was great again, about 4 minutes, and afternoon was apparently good (said nanny), but now Night 3 was a disaster. He screamed 15 min (then I checked on him), then another 15 (and dad checked) and then about 5 before he was asleep.
Sorry for the long post. My question is… is it readily obvious to you what we’re doing wrong? Is the checking on him sabotaging things? Or do you think its just a bad idea to sleep train during the first week with a nanny (cus of separation anxiety)? Are we actually making progress, just two steps forward, one step back? I think I’m just overly guilt-ridden because of leaving him with a nanny for the first time, but some reassurance would be great!! He was an excellent sleeper for months, so I know he can do it. And I don’t want to be patting him to sleep when he’s in kindergarten!!
I should say, he sleeps through the night himself. And he does use a pacifier, but never complains when it falls out. While we’re at it, should we kick the paci too? Thanks!!
58 minutes.
I just let my nine-month-old cry herself to sleep for the first time. After months of agonising about it, months of broken sleep and a bedtime routine that was getting more rather than less difficult. And it was bad, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
I stayed in the room, which I know probably takes longer overall, but I couldn’t have hacked knowing she was crying in there alone. I didn’t think I’d last 5 minutes, to be honest, but after a while I knew I’d have to see it out to the bitter end, as allowing her to cry for so long and then not letting her actually fall asleep on her own would be just too cruel. So once I’d come to that realisation, it was easier to just ride it out.
Anyway, just needed to share! Roll on Night 2…
Excellent work there 🙂 Roll on Night #2 – things should be WAY WAY better. And if they aren’t? Well you might consider not hanging round (I know I know – it feels super mean). But regardless I hope things are on a far better path for all of you!
Thanks Alexis! The support really helps. Tonight went well – twenty minutes of crying followed by five minutes of lying there calmly before drifting off to sleep. So a vast improvement on last night.
When I was a nanny parents used to ask me for advice, I know right?! The one thing I would always tell them is “consistency.” That piece of advice has stuck with me for years and I constantly remind myself to heed my own advice. It is difficult sometimes to take a step back as a parent and see some of the habits you are creating. So ask lots of people for advice! It is my experience that mothers and sisters love to give advice and I love to listen. It has been so helpful in my parenting journey.
More specifically, a few weeks back I posted about my adventure into CIO round 2 (due to hospitalization, etc.). I am happy to say that BOTH times have been successful. Round 2 was harder and longer BUT it is better this time. Consistency has been a major factor in getting this to work again. We stuck to our plan and never deviated. It was tough because the crying was long and hard for a few weeks. Some days it would be 40 minutes and others 10 minutes. At night, it was easier. He went from 15 minutes to less than 5 in only a few days.
Currently: My son who is 15 months old takes two naps a day for 1-2 hours each and sleeps through the night (11 hours). During naps he now cries for 1-2 minutes and at night he doesn’t cry at all, in fact, he plays a little before drifting off to sleep. He still takes a bottle before his nap (no more boob to sleep) and is put in the crib awake.
*When we started the CIO #2, my son became sooo anxious about his bedtime routine. He would go into hysterics, refusing to sit down in the bath or to let me out of his sight. This was unusual as he always loved the bath and reading books. He never had attachment issues. This was probably the most difficult part for us and consistency was most important here. We had to make sure he knew we were in charge and that hysterical crying doesn’t get him out of bath and bedtime. We worked through it together in a loving and nurturing way which means singing and other calming methods, showing him we love him.
*We tried to find a lovey that our son would connect with but he just didn’t dig anything. Out of some random thought this time, I stuck a blanket in his crib and discovered he is a blanket guy. Who knew? So if an animal lovey isn’t working for you, try a blanket.
*We have done many things according to our son’s natural rhythm. For our family this has been the best scenario (breastfeeding on demand, sleep schedule set by his clock, start solids when he expressed interest, weaning, etc.). We have tried to change his sleep schedule (reduce a nap, time change) twice now and both times it has been terrible! We are happy to stick with what makes him the best person he can be and work around that. He has naturally dropped naps, weaned himself, etc. and it has been wonderful!
I know this is a lot but I’m just hoping to help other parents out there.
Thanks Alexis for your wonderful insights! I couldn’t be more grateful. Looking forward to the book.
Is 4 months too young for this method?
Eh…I don’t like to say “yes” or “no” to questions like that because it’s really subjective. I would say that 4 months is often a time for a HUGE sleep regression which is often pretty awful. Sadly however CIO during a sleep regression is often unpleasant for all involved. Also at 4 months you have a lot of other tools at your disposal. So in general I would say, “try something else first” but maybe you have so really it’s up to you. Good luck!
Hey there!
Ok so-my 13month old boy is great at going to bed on his own. I still nurse him but he’s awake when I lay him in his crib and he usually goes right down. However- I haven’t had a FULL nights sleep since he was born. On a good night he wakes up around 3am then 6am then he’s up for the day around 7:30. During those times I nurse him and within 10 minutes he’s back to sleep.
I’ve tried letting him CIO a number of times and he will go back down for a while but an hour (or less) later he’s back up crying again. So in the name of getting back to sleep quickly I’ve just kept letting him nurse and then laying him back down. I just sort of assumed he was actually hungry since he’s a bottomless pit during the day anyway so I rationalized getting up ~3 times a night to feed him)(also my resolve to let him wail is considerably reduced at 3am when my higher brain function is depleted)
My question really is- how would you suggest I correct this?? Gradually??How would that work? When he sees momma he wants boobs. (He’s definitely a boob man ;D)
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).
Hey Bryan,
I can’t tell what is going on with you except that you’re pretty unhappy about it (contrary to your happy dancing guy there).
Reflux definitely makes everything harder. So my first thought is – is the reflux under control? Methinks not but I’m not there and you are. This is a tricky thing as kids are always outgrowing their meds and what not.
Also if you’re doing CIO is that with you in the bed? How exactly does she fall asleep? Do you cuddle her, nurse her, what’s happening AT bedtime? Also how much soothing can you offer her – she may not be too old to be swaddled and strapped into a swing (even if it seems like “baby steps” for your older kid).
Remember, when your kiddo has reflux you can’t compare yourself to the neighbor’s non-reflux kid. Everything is going to take LONGER because reflux sucks….
Alexis
Hi Alexis, thanks for the reply, and sorry if I didn’t provide enough info right off the bat. Her reflux is a thing of the past now; since about 5 months. We just feel behind b/c we couldn’t even think about sleep training until she was 6 mos old. Now, we bathe her, she nurses, and falls asleep shortly after around 8:00. Then we place her in her crib. She wakes 2-3 times at night around 1030 & 230. When she wakes, she wont fall asleep without nursing first. When shes up at 230 we have to put her in our bed b/c if we place her in her crib, she’ll wake up, sit up & start screaming. So she’s in our bed until she’s up for the day by 6. During the night instead of bringing her to our bed, we’ve tried CIO, but it doesn’t seem to work. I am able to tolerate the crying of CIO better than Mom, however the longest we’ve tried that for was for 2 hours, then we finally caved and brought her to our bed again.
Bryan, your post sounds exactly like my situation. Just wondering if you’v had any success?
Nothing yet. Our daughter seems to be developing mentally a lot lately so maybe that has something to do with her regressing sleep pattern. (Some people believe that, though not proven, during a period of development or learning something new, they dont sleep as well). Still gets up 2-3 times every night though, at 11 mo. old. I hope that when my wife stops breastfeeding in 1 mo. (at 1 yr old) that will improve things a little.
I’m so happy I discovered this site 2 weeks ago, we were really struggling with our nearly one year old son at naptime and bedtime. Although he’s never been a great sleeper, things seemed to be getting even worse and I felt like CIO was our last resort.
I’ve been laying him down awake at night for about 10 days, and he never cries more than 15 minutes. I couldn’t believe how easy that part was for us, and bedtime is definitely not dreaded anymore. He still wakes 2 times to nurse at night, but I don’t go in when he cries and it’s not nursing time. Next comes night weaning, I think he’s definitely old enough to make it through the night!
Naptime is what I am struggling with this week as I am trying CIO for the second day. I got in the habit of nursing him to sleep and holding him during nap when my 2 year old is also napping. This began when he was small because I was so exhausted and craved the quiet time and rest for myself while they both slept. When I would lay him in the crib at nap, he’d awake quickly and I’d go back to holding him again. So this continued for 11 months until I’ve finally realized I’m not getting anything done around the house (or showering for that matter!) and teaching him to only nap with me.
Since bedtime sleep is getting better, I decided now was the time to try nap as well. Yesterday he cried for 25 minutes, slept 25 minutes, then cried again so hard he threw up. After cleaning him up I ended up holding him (no!) and he slept an hour and a half with me. My biggest problem is once his big sister is up, he absolutely will not nap (even being held) because he’s so interested in playing with her. So in the past when I’ve tried laying him down I always cave and hold him if he cries because I watch the clock over her 2+ hour nap and panic when I realize he’ll now only get a 1 hour nap, now half hour nap, now no nap because she’s scheduled to wake soon! And then he will go with no nap and be so crabby the rest of the day…
Today I put him down and he cried about 20 minutes, then slept about a half hour, and now has been crying again for 25 minutes. I’m trying not to cave again, and hoping he didn’t throw up in there, but it is so hard! Again, I know my daughter will be up in about an hour or so, so I’m desperate for him to get that much-needed sleep. Consistency, right!?
Hey Alexis.
I just wanted to say thank you for saving my sanity. Seriously. I thew a temper tantrum that would rival that of any 2 year old two weeks ago after getting back from a 5 week vacation with our 5 month old that involved an 8 hr time change and three countries and lots of fun (some people told us we were brave, but we may have just been stupid). Anyhow, needless to say, sleeping turned into a disaster and I was broken by the end of it. My daughter who is normally ridiculously happy and easy would wake up with bags under her eyes and stopped smiling all the time. Yup. It was a low point.
So, it’s been two weeks since we started CIO (and by that, I mean consistent bed time routine, being put down to sleep awake, not letting our now 6 month old run the nighttime show, and tracking sleep on an excel spreadsheet, something I never imagined doing). Within 3 days she was most often not crying at all at bedtime. Major victory from spending my entire evening trying to get her to sleep, or going in to soothe her every 45 minutes.
She went from feeding and or waking every 45 minutes to 2 hours at night to only eating once at about 4-5 pm (which I was happy about, but my PTSD from the sleepless nights left me anxious that the cycle would start all over again. I may need therapy). Then the goddess of inconsistency happened in the middle of the night, I went in after she cried for an hour on day 7 as SOMETHING HAD to be wrong because she hadn’t been up at 2 am in a week. No, nothing was wrong. So, we suffered through 2 more nights of lengthy crying (more than an hour) in the middle of the night. Last night? Presto. Woke up to feed between 4-5 am and went back to bed. I don’t have my little munchkin back who would wake up happily yammering to herself every morning, but she does that on some mornings now, so I know we’re on the right track.
It’s amazing how the downward spiral started, trying to blame things like jet lag, possible teething, constipation etc. on her not sleeping well, when it was just our fault for reinforcing negative sleep patterns. Thanks again for setting us straight even though it involved some tears from both me and my daughter. And alcohol, but she didn’t get any as it was the expensive kind.:)
I am having a real hard time with the consistency. She’s slept through the night no crying plenty of times but I feel like she’s going through a developmental phase or spurt now. I’ve let her CIO and she’s gone for 15mins. Last night she went for an hour which was very uncharacteristic of her. Then went in brought her into bed with me. A total no no I know. I just don’t get how she’s fine and doesn’t even get up some nights. CIO for short periods of time and then some nights she will just go on and on till I go get her. I’m worried I’m undoing what we’ve already established. She’s 6 months so what about the dreaded 6 month sleep regression. How do you know when to just let her go on and on. And when to comfort. And I’ve gone in after an hour. Comforted. She fell back asleep then 5 mins later back up to crying. Just feeling frustrated and don’t know how to handle when I know she can self soothe and STTN.
So our sweet 9 month old hates to sleep. Has fought it since day one. We haven’t had a solid nights sleep yet. 😖 we have done CIO for many months. We have a solid bedtime routine and she goes to sleep without much fuss(less than 10 minutes) every night. She almost always wakes at 12-1am and will not go back to sleep without help. She will cry(think an hour+) until one of us goes in to pat her. She will wake again and nurse for 5-10minutes around 4:30-5. Haven’t broken out of they last feeding unless I want to start my day at 5am. If you have any suggestions to help us with the night waking please share, mommy is desperate for 8 hours of sleep! Thanks!
Hi Alexis, I would like to say ‘thank you’ for having your blog that helped me a lot when I was still sleep training my child. My child is now a very happy and active girl who sleeps so much better than before. Your resources strengthen me during the whole process. Thanks and hope that you can help more people in the future.
Aw cheers Ellen! Congratulations on your great work and thanks for letting me know that I played a small role in helping you get there.
*grin*
Alexis
Hello Alexis,
I’m new to your site, but have to say…I love it!
I have two 11-month old fraternal twins a girl (Coco) and a boy (Bear). Coco is a fantastic sleeper. No issues at all. Bear, however….
Let me preface this by saying we currently live full-time on the road in a vintage travel trailer. We custom built a bedroom for both of them in the back and they each have a crib on either side. dark shades, and a noise machine they’ve used since birth.
Bear doesn’t really allow a bedtime routine, he’s pretty much ‘rough and tumble’ all…day…long.
We started letting him CIO about a month ago and it went well. Crying time diminished until virtually nothing for naps and bed. They are both on the same schedule. It’s the 2:3:4 concept and it works well.
This past week, however, Bear seems to have developed separation anxiety from me.(sometimes dad but mostly me)This has become particularly difficult at nap and bedtime. Nap time he screams bloody murder for 20 minutes and then sleeps for twenty. Both naps. Bedtime he screams even worse for 10-15 minutes, sleeps for 7 hours-ish and then wakes up screaming. Screaming, Screaming. Forever.
I could peobably deal with it if I were alone or had huge house with lots of space between everyone. But poor Coco, 4 feet away, is paying the price. And I’m afraid of waking the other campers at 3:00 in the morning because he is THAT LOUD.
So I’ve done the biggest no-no. At 3:30 he gets to come into,you guessed it, my bed. He immediately falls asleep.
And after putting this in writing, the answer is clear. Find primitive campsite with no one around for miles.
*tiny voice* help…
Hi Alexis,
We are on Day 4 of CIO with my 7 month old son and the crying at bedtime has been improving each night. He is still waking 1 – 2 times a night (11pm and 3am) for a feed so I will be trying your suggestions on night weaning. I’ve been struggling with the “extinction” method after the 3am feeds because sometimes my son will cry himself to sleep for an hour and I will then discover in the morning that it was because he’d had a dirty nappy! I feel like such a sh*t mom (no pun intended!) because I should have gone in and checked on him. Should I check on him at all when he’s crying or will this mess things up??
You can totally peek in to see what the poop situation is 🙂 Although I doubt that he’s crying so much over poop. I know it’s hard for adults to imagine this but poop isn’t that big a deal for babies unless they have a bad rash. But if it’s been 5-10 minutes and you want to take a quick poop peek, have at it!
Thanks for the reply Alexis! You’re totally right about the poop not being a big deal as my boy went straight to sleep after his dream feed and when he woke @ 6:30 he’d alreeay had a dirty nappy. Any tips on how to stop him pooping so early in the morning?!
My latest concern now is that my son’s voice/cry sounds hoarse and my husband seems to think it’s because he’s cried so much over the last week. Is this normal? Is CIO damaging his vocal chords?
Great post… at what age do you suggest starting this? My daughter is almost 5 weeks and the dr advised me yesterday to start this method as early as possible.
Comments on this?
At our sons 9month birthday we tried sleep training at bedtime (nurse, bath, pjs, book, bed) with checking and consule in intervals and he played in his crib for about twenty minutes then cried so hard after an hour we couldn’t take it any longer and stopped the entire process. Tonight our son is 11months and after nursing him and rocking him to sleep and keeping him in our arms for naps and bedtime we are beyond tired and tried the sleep training again. This time he instantly started crying and after only seven minutes he vomited from crying so hard and we stopped the process again. Am I going from one extreme of never putting him down and always nursing him back to sleep to cry it out in the crib or could this be from being inconsistent from the first time around sleep training? I’m worried if we try again tomorrow it could be even worse but I’m commited to establishing a healthy bedtime for him and all of us involved and doing the sleep training. If he vomits and cries that hard after less than ten minutes is there a different approach I should be taking that could be more gradual and take less time than the no cry sleep solution? I want to be sensitive to him and do what is gentle as possible but I also want this to take no more than a week.
On another note if I nurse him at 6:00pm for last feeding and he’s contributing to cry at 9:00pm or 11:00pm when it’s time to nurse him again would picking him up to nurse him ruin the process again?
Desperate for help!
Dear Alexis,
Well after night 1 of CIO, I am happy to report that we probably got more sleep last night than we have in a few weeks. Although it was rough at first. Our son William is 15 months old. We put off the CIO method because he is our foster son, and we only got him at 10 months. We were very concerned about him feeling abandoned once again. So we made sure we developed a strong bond with him before going down this road. So last night was the first night. When we first put William down, he cried for 1 hr 10 min. Not too bad, considering how incredibly stubborn he is. We breathed a huge sigh of relief. My husband opened a bottle of wine, and I opened a pint of Haagen Daz. And then one hour later, he started crying again! Taking your advice to heart, we knew that consistency was the key, and if we gave in now, it would only be setting him and us back. So we waited it out for another hour. Whew! Success. We went to bed and half an hour later, he started again. This time for 45 minutes. Now, do not get me wrong. Although it was incredibly difficult at the time, the eight hours of uninterrupted sleep made those collective 2 hr 55 min worth it. And I am proud that we stuck to our guns, and I’m sure we will reap the benefits very soon.
My question is this: What do we do in the morning? Do we wake him up? I kind of believe in the adage “never wake a sleeping baby.” But if he wakes up on his own, and starts crying, isn’t that playing into what we spent 2:55 trying to prevent?
I don’t know what we should have done, but here is what we did: At 7:30am (he usually wakes up at 6:00am) we gently got him out of his crib, changed his diaper and brought him into bed with us where we fed him a bottle of milk. He continued sleeping until 8:30am, and then sat up, happy as a clam, ready to start his day.
Was this right? Wrong? Any advice on morning wake up would be great.
Thanks again for all your help. I stumbled upon this blog in the midst of him crying last night. I needed assurance that I was doing the right thing, and I got that and more. Thanks.
Yummmy Haagen Daz (was it Rum Raisin? of course it was, why would you choose any other flavor for CIO night!)
You did the right thing. Running in after 1.5 hours when he woke up would have thrown things off. It’s not that common to see 45 minutes of crying that close to bedtime BUT you totally handled it great!
As for sleeping in the morning thats a toughie. You don’t generally want kiddos sleeping vastly in because you want them ready so sleep at bedtime and often a late morning throws the whole day off. He’s usually up at 6 AM and today slept till 8:30. Will that make tonight a problem? Unsure. I guess it depends on napping.
If he does sleep in again I’m not sure if I would let him sleep much past 7:00 AM (or ~1 hour past normal). It could be that his early wakeup was a sleep association and he really just needs extra sleep. But you dont’ want naps and whatnot shifted so that he isnt’ ready to fall asleep at bedtime (see latest post on this).
And regardless – best of luck to you. Tally ho!
No rum raisin, but maybe tonight, as we’ll be celebrating even more this evening. Because holy cow, does this work. As I discussed above, we started the training on Friday night. Each time we left him to sleep on his own, the time has gotten shorter and shorter! This afternoon, it only took twenty minutes before he was fast asleep. He has slept straight through for the entirety of the last two nights.
It’s been a rough weekend, but so worth it.
Thanks for all your brilliant advice.
Help! Firstly, the sleep method is a total lifesaver. Since we’ve started the CIO method a week ago, William has slept through the entire night! Just as promised, every night it takes less and less time for him to put himself to sleep. It’s great!
Here’s the problem: Since we’ve started the CIO method, his morning nap has been thrown out of wack. He usually goes down 2.5 hours after he first wakes up in the morning. You used to be able to set your clock by it. Up at 6:00am, starts rubbing his eyes at 8:30am, fast asleep by 9:00am. But ever since CIO he puts himself to sleep, which usually takes 10-15 minutes. And then he wakes up 30 minutes later, and won’t go back to sleep. After an hour and a half, we let him up because we feel he can’t spend his entire morning lying in bed crying. We thought about moving his nap back a bit and trying to transition to one nap, but he’s so tired in the morning.
What are we doing wrong? We’ve got his night time sleeping down to an art form, but his naps are a mess. Should we just give up the CIO method for his naps for now? Should we let him cry it out after he wakes up?
Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.
The only question I have is my 8month old premature daughter when I do CIO method I give in after 30 mins of crying cause she starts to gag and throw up so now I don’t know how to keep going! Please help!
Alexis! Please please please help me! I have a 14 month old daughter who has gone back to not sleeping on her own for the last 3 weeks and I am losing my mind. We sleep trained her at 7 months and it worked within a week (she would still wake up once or twice but would put herself to sleep at bedtime without a PEEP)
Last month she got sick and has her molars coming in and since then…I have been putting her to sleep and its back to waking up hourly. And I work full time!! I am losing my mind.
We tried letting her CIO last week and she vomits or poops after an hour of crying. Then I just totally feel guilty – twice she cried for an hour before going to sleep and then woke up 5 hours later – cried for another hour and had pooped. And she screams bloody murder…she has more stamina now compared to when we trained her at 7 months…seriously how long can a kid cry for?
I am really lost – please someone help me. The lack of sleep for my daughter, husband and me is really getting to all of us. Along with having a sick dad, I feel like I am truly losing my mind.
My daughter sometimes takes one nap but mostly takes 2 naps a day. The days she only takes one nap – the time gets to bed is sometimes longer than 5 hours. but usually I try to put her to bed within 4 hours of waking up.
I need some help!!..i feel like I am all over the place..i have ZERO sleep last night.
I’ve tried CIO 3 times now. it is very difficult for me to be consistent and continue. Every time I’ve tried CIO he will cry for hours. Seriously 2+ hours. He doesn’t go to sleep, just gets more and more upset. I do not have what it takes to let him cry like that. He has never fallen asleep doing cio. Obviously after that length of time I go get him which I know I’m not supposed to, but seriously who can allow their baby cry that long? He’s currently 10.5 months. I need to work on our bedtime routine and naps as well. He also wakes up at 4 or 4:30 99% of the time and doesn’t sttn. His bedtime is 7.
He also projectile vomits sometimes and is on medication for reflux.
This is a great post….I am a serial yo-yoer when it comes to CIO. Mainly because for naps…..she just cries the entire nap…and doesn’t sleep at all. Well maybe by the final nap because she is so damn tired….and then the following day the same thing happens….or she falls asleep for 3 mins or less, and then wakes again. When I scour the net this doesn’t seem to happen to other parents.
Then we hit on some luck, I put her in her cot half an hour earlier than I normally would have in the morning, and she rolled around happily for half an hour, and then went to sleep, this happened again at noon, and again the following day. She then fell asleep some more, but in the car. That night….all of a sudden where she slept quiet well (via CIO) she was waking up, and I didn’t know what was going on…teething, ill? Didn’t seem to be. But i brought her into the bed with me as she just kept waking up.
The next day, it all went to shit excuse my french..and tonight, she was so tired I put her down at 6 as all the naps had gone wrong, and she was belting the house down.
So what did I do? Shush her…..well, she’s asleep now. But I’m dreading the night.
Also, having reduced the night feeds, she was still not budging on a 4.30 feed despite having given her water a couple of nights. So we thought, the dream feed would get her through….Nope. she woke at 4.30am….my husband was on duty as i was on a well deserved girls night, so obviously he fed her again…..this has thrown out all her day time feeds….and her bedtime feed she’s taking a measly 100mls (don’t know in oz)….so I’m assuming this is why she’s waking.
As I write, I think….what a mess.
Consistancy! I am going to write myself a reminder of what I have agreed with myself, and put it on the fridge!!
I love this blog!!!!!! So down to earth and real…..thank you!
I feel like I’ve mucked things up with my ten month old. I tried CIO at six months, eight months and nine months to night wean, per weissbluth full extinction method. Well, at nine months I decided this is it. No more early morning feeding. After three weeks of getting baby at six am with him in full on tears, crying hard, sometimes up since 430 or five or 530, I thought that this wasn’t working. So then I became inconsistent. I reinstated his early morning feed. Well, I know he doesn’t need it as he only feeds on one side. So now what do I do? CIO again?? Do the reduce feed by a few minutes each night as Alexis suggests? I feel like a failure…
Hi Alexis –
I have just discovered your website & read a few of your posts & desperately want some help! My husband & I are ready to try CIO with our 7.5 month old. I will try not to write a novella – but he had been co-sleeping with us. This was never the plan, but I started bringing him in bed when he was around 3 months in the morning & letting him nurse because it got me a few extra hours sleep. Of course it started getting earlier & earlier until he was basically just sleeping the whole night with us. Problem is it stopped working a while back. He nurses on & off all night & then fusses & squirms the rest of the night. None of us are sleeping well. He resumed starting the night in his crib where he does not toss & turn but wakes every 45 min – 2 hours & I’ve created a monster who has to nurse & be rocked back to sleep.
We began trying cry it out about 6 weeks ago but let ourselves be derailed by an ear infection & traveling for Thanksgiving. We want to try again when we are home from our Xmas travels in a few days. I guess I have 2 questions – when I tried it before I was still putting him down asleep (after nursing) but letting him cry for increasing periods of time when he woke up. Do I need to start putting him down awake? Also, should I go let him cry for increasing intervals (& go in & reassure him) or just let him cry to extinction?
I am ok nursing him once a night but I can’t continue with what we’ve been doing & function. *he’s also not a great napper. Sometimes he takes a 1 – 2 hour nap in his crib in the morning but all bets are usually off in the afternoon.
Lol, answered my own question in regards to putting him down awake by reading the Sleeping Through the Night articles & about night weaning. I realize I can’t quit feeding him cold turkey at night but not sure when to feed him if he cries himself to sleep& wakes up crying again within just a couple of hours.
Oops I did end up writing a novel! Sorry!
Hi,
I responded on another post and now I have a question I’m a bit sleep deprived (we r in Germany) so bare with me if I’m not coherent, regarding consistency tonight will be round three and I will be changing the whole routine before I would bath our 9 mth old get her in pj’s sleep sac and feed her to sleep she would fall asleep right away and I would put her in the crib. She started to wake up 45 min after and that is why I am now on the sleep training route. Now I will start a bedtime routine of putting her in bed awake ie boob bath book fingers crossed! I will keep in mind that consistency is Key but my main concern is that when or if she wakes up In between her 3 am feed or even when I attempt to put her down using this new routine she will fuss for a bit and then sit down and just wait night 1 she waited from 9-2 with me going in and helping her lie down slept from 2-3 woke up to fed I put her in the crib and she slept til 6 last night was a disaster she went to bed by 8 woke up at 8:45 didn’t fall asleep til 12 after I lay her down and patted her back then she woke up at three to feed and I ignored her (she was not crying just sitting there) then I found your website and realized I should still feed her and also in between all this she pooped her diaper twice so I changed her she fell back asleep at 5 woke up at six to feed slept for 45min. To get to the point finally what should I do when she is just sitting there and nodding off and refuses to lie down 🙁
Hey Shirley,
I’m a bit fuzzy on what is going on but what I gather is that bedtime is 8:00 PM but that if you don’t nurse her to sleep she is sitting up and hanging out between 8:00 PM – 12:00 AM. That is an impressively long time.
There is a whole host of things that could answer the “why so long?” question but my best guess is that it’s you going in to help her lie down. She’s fully capable of lying down on her own right? She doesn’t need your assistance to do this during the day? If so then she doesn’t need your help at night and your visits might be propelling her to stay awake. Bedtime is bedtime. If she chooses to sit in her bed that’s her business.
You normally feed her at 3 AM – so great, stick with that plan. And yeah sometimes babies poop and while nobody likes to have babies sitting in poop, a little poop here and there never hurt anybody.
She got very little sleep last night (boo!) but don’t let her nap more than normal today. Tonight she goes into her bed at 8 PM. What she does in there is her business. I’m hopeful that without those visits she’ll fall asleep more quickly. If she DOES fall asleep sitting up you can try helping her gently lie down while she’s still asleep (this may backfire on you but it’s worth a try). Hopefully removing the visits will vastly reduce the amount of time it takes her to nod off. Good luck!
Thank you so much for your response I will work toward the finish line with a resolute heart!!!
Hello!
My husband & I are trying out your advice tomorrow. We just have a couple questions. Our daughter is 11 months old & has never slept in her crib. She fights us for naps & bedtime. Naps aren’t as bad as nighttime but it takes about 45 minutes of patting her back to get her to sleep. Nighttime is anywhere between 1-4 hours of crying, kicking, squirming. Our routine at night consists of, dinner between 6:30, bath immediately following which is 7 or 7:30. Give her a bottle at 8:30 & start the agonizing fight to get her to sleep. When she finally does fall asleep, most the time when we put her down in our bed she wakes right up & has to be patted again. She then wakes up 6-10 times a night. (6 is on a good night) we were wondering if we should follow your advice & start putting her in her crib for naps & let her cry it out, or do we strictly put her in their at night time at first? How long do we allow her to cry before going in & saying it’s ok without picking her up? She has, in the past, worked herself up so much crying that she was not consolable. Also, when she wakes at night do i feed her then put her right back in the crib & walk away? When she does sleep for naps, she only will sleep about 20 minutes, do I leave her in her crib to try & fall back asleep? & if I do put her in her crib for naps how long do I leave her? For instance, if I put her down for a nap at 11 am & she cries & fusses till 2 – pm is that okay? I feel like she will spend most of the day in her crib! Any help is very much appreciated! We have so many questions!!
-tabbatha
Hi tabbatha hill,
I have the same exact problem with my 11 year old. Can u help me by explaining what happened with sleep training ur child? Any help would be appreciated…
Sorry meant 11 month old!
I have the same question as Tabbatha about the naps. If he cries for hours, then what do we do? Yesterday he cried so long I just got him up to eat bananas and take a bath because it was time to do those things if we wanted to get to BED at a normal time. He then did sleep really well at night, but how long should I expect him to just cry and basically not nap at all during the day? Thanks.
Hi Summer! Does your little one sleep in his crib by himself at night? Or are you going through the cry it out? We are on day 3 of CIO & she has gotten about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days. It’s awful! I finally caved in today & put her down for a nap myself bc I felt so bad!
Oops I didn’t see I could reply directly to you here. I did below 🙂
Tabbatha — We have done 2 days/nights of CIO so far and the 2 nights have worked great, but the daytime has been a disaster the last 2 days with basically no sleep. Before this, he slept at night in the bed with me, and during the day would only fall asleep nursing & I could never put him down anywhere without him waking within 20 minutes.
BUT– I have been reading lots and so today I decided to change my strategy with the naps and at least right NOW (he is taking a nap in his crib as I type) it is working. I made it much more ritualized and also am offering a lot more comfort & then I stayed in the room until he fell asleep (our bed is also in the room so I just lied down). I also had to put up curtains in the bedroom because it wasn’t dark enough with just blinds during the day. Fingers crossed this strategy is a winner for his naps and this isn’t just a fluke!
I wish you all the best with your daughter. I have almost lost it and wanted to throw CIO out several times already. Last night I cried so hard when we put him down, but in the end he cried for 30 minutes and then slept for 10 hours straight. Even so, it’s been hard to keep reminding myself this is definitely for the best. He cannot continue to insist on physical touch from me for his 14-16 hours of sleep he needs in every day!
<3
Just an update– I am still looking for some answers about naps. He will go down initially with the new routine I started–but only for 30 to 50 minutes. If I try to let him cry it out after he wakes up from that very tiny nap, he never stops crying. Right now he has been crying for 1 hour nonstop. I do not know what to do. Should I expect his days to just be filled with crying and nothing else??!
He is perfect at night. So I don’t get it.
Hi there! As far as I know you are just suppose to keep them in the crib for 1 hour. So if they cry for the whole hour you are suppose to pick them up. And if they wake after 30 minutes they stay in the crib crying for 30 minutes until you get them! Hope your journey is going well!!!
LONG story short we are consistent w bedtime routine and have been consistent with CIO technique and it is getting worse. She cries for an absolute minimum of 1 hr and has increased to almost 2 over the past 4 nights. Prior to trying CIO we would basically do the method but didn’t time ourselves and she would fall asleep pretty well but wake up 2 hrs in and want to be up for three hours playing which is why we started this. Now she won’t fall asleep at all at night and she used to have no trouble w naps but now has started crying hysterically.
She’s just about 8 mo old, when she wakes up she has no desire to eat, all other variables seem fine/ ruled out —
Is she just not ready for this? Is this just not going to work for her? Are we supposed to stick with it and let her keep crying–?? At what point (how many hours) do you say ok, time to pick her up and switch gears?
Please help—
My daughter is 7.5 months old. She’s an amazing nighttime sleeper. I put her in her crib at 6:45pm awake and she falls asleep on her own by 7pm then she sleeps through the night until 7am. Naps are a completely different story. She fights them and will not take them in her crib. She will only nap in my arms in the rocking chair. Yes I have created this problem. Decided to get her napping in her crib and she screams 30+ minutes until I finally give up and go in and get her. How long do you let them cry for before giving up?
My daughter didn’t want to transition naps to the crib. I had to get her used to going in the crib during the day. The first few days I moved her rocker next to the crib and let her sleep there. Then I put her in the crib during the day for short periods and gave her some toys to hang out in there. She eventually got used to napping in the crib but only after I put up blackout curtains to block all light.
At 8 months she is still a high needs baby and occasionally needs to CIO for up to 90 mins. At that point she does pass out but any time I go in to check on her before she does, she gets upset all over again and the whole thing takes double the time. You can stick it out and get her a bit more sleep or you can assuage your guilt and draw out the process. Either way it’s not fun but it’s gotta get done.
Basically the more you coddled your baby to sleep, the more she’ll be upset about being left. I try to relax her with the tone of my voice and reduce stimulation before naps and bedtime. I keep her room very dimly lit always. We read books during the day because it excites her too much. I lay her down and smile and tell her it’s naptime and make the sign for sleep in sign language. Then I kiss her head and quickly turn off the light and close the door quietly. This usually works in reassuring her that I’m not just leaving her in the dark and that it’s sleepy time.
Hope something helps!
Good luck ladies!
I have the same question. First couple of nights went so well but then has gotten worse. I go in every ten minutes (ferber method) and rub her back for no more than 1 minute. It seems to make her even more mad b/c she knows i am there and wants me to pick her up. I leave, she gets mad again. Last night she cried for over 30 mins and i almost lost it. I will admit i wasnt consistent then and picked her up to nurse her to sleep. She slept until 4am.
She is a twin but her twin is still catching up weight wise after heart surgery, so I am not sleep training her yet. She needs to eat during the night. I want to sleep train but I also want that time with her, because the girls will be my only babies (by choice).
My question is, is 6 months too young to start with sleep training? our Dr says its not. Also, how long do you let her cry (hard) before you go in to try something different? If I start over, should i wait a few more days and start right away tonight?
Emily,
This isn’t about her being too young or having heart surgery, although I totally get why you must be super freaked out after this. But the answer that you need to change how you’re handling things. The Goddess of Consistency is merciless and you’re not being consistent.
No nursing to sleep. When you start down this path you are forever removing that from your arsenal of tools. For real.
Also no more checks a la Ferber. I adore Ferber, I really do. His book is fantastic. But checks almost ALWAYS lead to more crying over more days. No checks, no back rubs – 5 days. Do that consistently for 5 days and then come back to tell me if I’m wrong (you won’t though because I’m totally right about this).
Good luck!
Hello!
We are considering sleep training our 9 month old. He only takes one nap a day in the afternoon anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. He always seems to get a little tired in the evening. We bathe him, put on pajamas and he is WIDE awake. We can’t even hold him on our laps to wind down or read because he is arching his back and writhing to go play. Squealing with delight at his toys. We will bring him into his room with low lights, sleep music and a bottle and he will fight sleep for a good hour. We tried CIO but it ended up with him having panic attacks until he vomited. This wasn’t just a baby crying this was a baby who was angry and frustrated and petrified to his core. Hearing our voice if we said anything to him made him cry harder and louder. So we started rocking him to sleep which can take a very very long time.
Also, if he hears the floor creak outside our room he often wakes up. We can’t avoid walking there because that’s where our bathroom is. The only fix is to rip up the brand new carpet we installed less than a year ago. Every time this happens, we are looking at 15+ minutes spent trying to get him to settle down again, or he screams and we are so exhausted we bring him into our bed which I HATE.
Some nights he is fine and falls asleep and sleeps through the night for the most part. Other nights like tonight are frustrating and they’re increasing in frequency. He napped and slept well until about 6 months so we never implemented a schedule. I don’t remember when he dropped the morning nap. He always sleeps in the car regardless of time of day. It could be 20 minutes or 45 and I hope this changes when we switch to a convertible car seat. I know you mentioned consistency but how does that help when the baby won’t sit still and is fighting the routine?
Thank you!
PS I love your hair
Hi Alexis,
Thank you for your website. I have followed all of your advice and it really has helped us. My son is 9 months old and we did CIO at bedtime about 2 months ago. It worked like a charm. We have a sound bedtime routine that I follow religiously every night. He is in his crib asleep by 7 every night. About 2 weeks ago, we did CIO during the night and he dropped his 1 am and 3 am wakings. However, he has always gotten up for the day at 4. This has never changed. I tried an earlier bedtime, a slightly later one, CIO and nothing has worked. I must be doing something wrong and was hoping I could get some troubleshooting tips on how I can get him even to sleep an hour later. He is ready for a nap by 6 am when ideally he should be getting up then. We are all extremely tired. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Ellen
Hi,
We tested the water with our 5.5 months old last night. we have to carry her in a baby carrier for nap, and at night, i used to nurse her to sleep, and she Sometimes do great and will sleep through 5 hours. Last night, i fed her at 9pm, bath, said goodnight to everything, and then put her to bed and left the room. Our goal last nigjt was just to see if she will simply fall asleep on her own so we let her cry for 15 mins. We went in and her eyes were close but still crying, so i just pat her and said mami is here, and she then fall asleep. She woke up once and i had to shs her back to sleep, and i fed her at 2am, woke up crying at 5:30am and i changed her diaper and she fell back asleep till 6:50am and i nursed her again and she slept till 8:15am, woke up happy.
My question is, what should i do tonight? let her cry but not go in to pat her? Or is it okay to pat her or shss her and gently wean that off later?
Thank you
Hi Alexis
Thanks for your site it’s really wonderful.
Ok so I sleep trained my first child successfully. Trying again with my 6.5mo son. Main issue is the pacifier.
The first night – 45 mins crying. Woke at 12.15am – I nursed he fell straight back to sleep. Woke at 5.20am – nursed and back to sleep until 7. All good after being up every 1-2 hrs previously.
Night 2 – put him down after usual bedtime routine. Happy and quiet as a mouse, not a sound for 30 mins. I congratulate myself, this is amazing, pour wine.
Then he starts grizzling. Then it ramps up, and up and up and stays there for an hour. It’s now way past time for my daughter to go to bed (they share a room) so I cave and give him a cuddle and his dummy. Straight to sleep.
NOW WHAT? I am so mad at myself for caving in like that but I’m just not sure what was going on – why was he quiet/asleep for 30 mins then a screaming wreck for 1 hr? Is this par for the course? And now should I leave the training for a bit or just continue with the plan like this never happened?
We are on night four of letting our nearly 8 month year old cry it out and it is brutal and seems to be getting worse. Keeping in mind that she has fallen asleep at night either nursing or in my or my husband’s arms for her entire little life (save the past 4 nights of hell), I mean, I can get where she’s coming from, but I don’t know if I can take much more of the heartbreak of hearing her cry.
The first night it was 40 minutes of angry screaming, followed by beer (for us); the second night was 50 minutes of the same, followed by beer and then wine; the third night was only 16 minutes, so we got by with just wine; and tonight was 45 minutes of angry screaming accompanied by the most violent rolling around yet. Frankly I feel like knocking over a liquor store, but I’m nursing so I only get a sip anyway.
So it’s getting worse. The first night she fell asleep nursing and woke up after 20 minutes crying, and we just left her there. The next two nights I nursed and then put her down awake. Today she was basically asleep on my boob and then the ups man came just as I was putting her down and she woke up and started crying before I could even get my arms away. Also, our 6 month strong bedtime routine ends at 7pm on the dot. then I sit down to nurse her. The past 10 days or so she has pooped after about 20 minutes of uncomfortable pushing (new solids constipation) – an act that takes place like clockwork right in the middle of my bedtime nursing. Diaper change, more nursing and then down in the crib, but the whole thing can sometimes take over an hour. She has slept great more or less all night after crying herself to sleep, but is incredibly tired and cranky during the day and nursing way less than normal, not to mention the fact that I spend all day analyzing her behavior to see if she is mad at me.
So tomorrow we’re looking at day 5 and I’m dreading it like airport security. Please tell me what we’re doing wrong or if we can have any reasonable expectation of success before we officially decide our daughter hates us and we are the meanest, cruelest parents in the world for letting her cry it out. I often think that she is a precious awesome little thing and if I have to rock her to sleep in my arms until she’s 18 just to not hear her cry, I will.
If she is sleeping through the night, what is the CIO for?
After re reading your post, it seems she’s sleeping through the night only because she’s exhausted in the last couple of days, and you are CIOing to to teach her how to fall asleep by herself? If so, no nursing near bedtime. Nurse first, then do your bedtime routine, and lastly (about 20 mins after nursing), put down awake. If you are nursing almost to sleep or even as last part of the night routine, you won’t break the boob-sleep association. Hope this helps.
LOL!
She’s not mad at you. I mean she will be in a few months – trust me toddlers get MAAAD. But she’s not mad now.
So that is a bit of an unusual pattern but not totally off the mark. And I think part of the issue there is that you’re nursing RIGHT AT bedtime. She’s used to nursing TO sleep, now you’re nursing right AT bedtime but not to sleep and this is probably pretty frustrating for her (she’s like MOM WHAT THE HELL?!?!). Also the nights where you inadvertently nurse her to sleep are messing things up. So I would start by separating nursing out so that it’s earlier in the routine and not the last thing you do just prior to putting her in the crib. She should be a) wide awake and b) not “just nursed seconds prior” going into the crib – OK?
The 16-minute night is super encouraging and a sign you’re on the right track. And if I’m right (I am!) then the 45-minutes of angry screaming was an extinction burst.
Sorry about the poop – poop happens.
So make that change at bedtime, have faith, you’ll be drinking tea at bedtime sooner than you think!
Thanks for both of your comments. After going through the past few nights of horror I’m a little worried that changing the routine on her will make tonight even worse (we’ve been doing that same routine since she was less than 2 months). Then again, obviously it doesn’t seem to be working very well. I’m ridiculously nervous. We are in Spain, so now’s the time! Will let you know. thanks again
Ok, I didn’t listen. I didn’t see your replies until we were well into the bedtime time frame and i couldn’t see how to make the change logistically, not to mention the fact that in the last let’s say, 30 times I’ve nursed her before bed, she hasn’t fallen asleep except once this week. Her dad always ends up rocking her to sleep after nursing. So what are the odds right? I was sure she would be awake and we could change our routine tomorrow. No. She fell asleep immediately, no poop, no nothing. So so asleep. So I left her in the crib… she woke up 10 minutes later and has been screaming ever since. 42 minutes. I just can’t seem to get my head around how to change her routine and nurse first, but you can be sure I’m going to try tomorrow. This is torture.
Adri,
The whole point of sleep training is that she needs to fall asleep independently. If Dad goes in to rock her to sleep then you’re defeating the point of going down this path in the first place (which gets to the subject of this post – consistency). No nursing to sleep. No rocking to sleep. No nursing NEAR sleep.
So this is how you change your routine, nursing becomes the first step in whatever your routine is. Lots of people do boob, bath, books, bed, but whatever you do is fine as long as:
a) Boob is #1
b) Bed is awake (no rocking to sleep)
IT seems like there’s a lot of crying and the reason things aren’t getting better is because you’re loving attempts to intervene are tripping you and her up. Trust me on this – make this change, fully commit to consistently making this change, and report back in 3-4 nights.
Hi again,
I have been meaning to leave an update just to show my appreciation and also to help anyone else who might have faced the same doubts. It ended up taking about 8-9 days in total, but my little one is now sleeping like a champ and waking up only once (feeding for 10 minutes and then going right back to sleep) or not at all. My husband and I were really torn on everyone´s advice to stop nursing her right before bed. We debated changing this habit time and time again (over an 8 night period, imagine!) but I confess that I was reluctant to change her 7 month-strong routine and I do love that moment we share right before bed. In the end we didn’t. I did however keep her awake by any means (talking, singing, lights on) for the duration while nursing her, so that I would put her down awake. It wasn’t easy, and I’m sure that the CIO process may have taken longer because of it (it went something like 40 min, an hour, 30 min, 15 minutes, and hour, 8 minutes, 40 minutes, 20 minutes, 4 minutes…). Very frustrating and all over the place and the third-fifth nights were the absolute worst.
Now she falls most of the way asleep nursing every night and then stretches out in my arms and basically begs for her crib. Once in a while she doesn’t fall asleep and I put her down awake and she flips over and goes right to sleep more often than not. I also nurse her down to sleep for naps but it takes 5 minutes (so much better), and at night if she wakes up she goes right back to sleep on her own.
Anyway, just in case anyone is struggling with giving up the before sleep nursing – it just feels so natural and right to me to do it – it can be done. but ack! that was so hard!!!
thanks again for your help, encouragement and great advice!
Hello! Ok…so my 5 mo old sleeps through the night for the most part, but I have to hold him till he’s really asleep. My main issue is with naps. He will not sleep unless I’m holding him! The second I even think about putting him down his eyes pop open & he’s like, lady don’t even think about it! I love the little guy but he’s got to start napping without me! (Especially since I have a 2 yr old) we’ve been doing cio for 3 nights/days now & I don’t know what to do…..for naps he cries the entire nap & at night he cries for 2 hours and then I get him & put him down. 2 hours seems a little long, doesn’t it?? Or is it just me? Most things I’ve read people talk about their little one crying for 45 minutes to maybe 1 1/2 hours. Should I let him keep going? Is there a ‘too long’ for them to cry? I hate it, but I know he’s got to learn to sleep on his own. & I’d rather nip this in the bud now rather than giving up & having to start from scratch!
Hello, very good blog, Ive tried reading the Weissbluth book Happy Child Happy Sleep Habits but it was incredibly long and verbose, he writes about all these studies and gives all this data when all I wanted was a list of things I can try to get my 11month old to finally sleep. This blog is pretty much what I was looking for.
Now a question, we have a 11 m old girl, she was never a good sleeper, always slept light and cried a lot, first 6 months she had reflux so we didnt try cry it out then, but now its become a complete nightmare.
We usually have a good consistent routine, dinner for her around 7.30, bath at 8 and try to get to sleep around 830, usually by letting her fall asleep next to us on our bed, then I’ll move her to her crib. The wife was never happy with cry it out (we tried once or twice for a day or 2, but never went through w it). The baby will sleep for about 2-3 hrs but almost every day now shes waking up at around 11p and it takes her at least 2 hrs to fall asleep. The wife or I will go in, stand next to her crib so she doesnt have separation anxiet and shoosh her. As soon as shes sleeping we try to leave the bedroom but the baby wakes up, starts walking around the crib and crying. Its a complete nightmare and we are both exhausted and angry.
It looks like the baby has major separation anxiety where she will try to sleep, then wake up after few min to check if we are there. To add to the problem we have a 1 bedroom apartment so we have to sleep in same room as the crib. She also cant fall asleep by herself. We thought it was teething, then it was her mechanical skills stage (she practiced crawling during middle of night!) Every night its like a war zone, in her 11 months we had 2 weeks of peaceful sleep when she was around 3 or 4 months.
Can anyone suggest a few steps to try? (we will try thhe cry it out again, and I’ll make sure we are consistent with it and let her cry even though my wife starts crying and complaining that it hurts her to hear the baby cry).
This is my identical problem, help us someone!
The root issue to BOTH issues is that the baby isn’t falling asleep independently. If you’re sneaking your fully asleep baby into the crib they WILL wake up later and struggle to fall BACK to sleep. The key here is to change how they’re falling asleep at bedtime.
Everything flows from bedtime.
Alexis, I love your blog, it has been so helpful to me as a first time parent to twins.
We are doing CIO…. one of my munchkins is a genius… after one night of crying he knows what’s up and has been sleeping independently now for 3 days (naps and night). However…. my other little nugget is a different story. What could be different is that I broke down a couple times and went to reassure him because he just seemed like he was going to die or have a heart attack, also the crying went on for almost 1 hour. It was very different from his brother’s crying. What are your thoughts on this? Are there different types of cries that warrant a check, or not? Is there a time limit on how long I should let this little wee one cry for?
Thank you!
We have committed to crying it out, but here is our typical scene (our baby is 5 months old): feed about two tablespoons of cereal, bath, soothing (massage), nursing, then bed. The baby typically goes down without a fuss, but then wakes up an hour into it. He cries/whines for close to three hours, at which point it is basically time for a feed. I have two others where cry it out worked perfectly. Is the three hours of crying normal? What should I do?
Hi, we just started cry it out a week ago because our son was still crying for a while whilst being patted, shushed etc and increasingly is biting and pinching because he’s so tired and upset. Not good. He is still crying for between 15 and 30 minutes but having read some of the posts I wonder if this isn’t getting better because…. He is still waking in the night around 2am and is either falling back asleep whilst feeding or I’m patting him back to sleep. I take it this is a no go which ruins all the bedtime sleep training? The main reason I am doing this is that we are in a terraced house and the neighbour is a little nuts so we are trying to avoid waking her…
Thanks
Please help. Day 3 of CIO.
Our 6.5 month baby Jou goes to sleep with minimal fussiness with a consistent bedtime routine, awake, at 7pm. Dream feed at 10pm. Then wakes up at 2 or 3am to play by himself in his crib, no crying for an hour. Then he starts to cry, building up for the next hour.
On night 1, 30 mins
On night 2, and hour
We’re on night 3 and it’s been over an hour and I’m going to cave. I did have to go in and flip him because he got stuck on one side of his crib. Did that mess it up? Why does he get up to play every night?
It’s getting longer. Are we doing something wrong or is this part of the process?
He was weaned off the night feelings about a week before when we were still waking up and giving him a binkie to self soothe middle of the night.
Please help!
If he’s crying at 2 AM there is likely something else going on (this is not a traditional CIO issue). Best bets are:
– he’s not falling asleep indepdentently
– he’s legit hungry (I doubt it)
– It’s a scheduling issue*
*Most likely. I would try pushing bedtime back by 30 minutes and see what happens. Try giving him more time prior to bedtime. Good luck!
Thank you! We’ve followed your instructions. Bedtime was easy as always. Let’s see what happens at 2am.
Please help. Day 3 of CIO.
Our 6.5 month baby Jou goes to sleep with minimal fussiness with a consistent bedtime routine, awake, at 7pm. Dream feed at 10pm. Then wakes up at 2 or 3am to play by himself in his crib, no crying for an hour. Then he starts to cry, building up for the next hour.
On night 1, 30 mins
On night 2, and hour
We’re on night 3 and it’s been over an hour and I’m going to cave. I did have to go in and flip him because he got stuck on one side of his crib. Did that mess it up? Why does he get up to play every night?
It’s getting longer. Are we doing something wrong or is this part of the process?
He was weaned off the night feelings about a week before when we were still waking up and giving him a binkie to self soothe middle of the night.
Please help!
Help!
I’ve been doing CIO with my 4 month old for about 3 weeks. The first 2 weeks seemed to be working. She only cries about 15 mins max before she falls asleep.
Heres the problem:
She has always slept on her belly because of reflux. We have an angel care monitor that monitors her breathing (to prevent SIDS). Well… in the past week she has learned how to turn over to her back.
She gets frustrated during CIO and turns herself on to her back and we have to go back in the room to turn her back on her belly. Sometimes we are doing this 2 or 3 times before she finally goes to sleep on her belly.
Are we messing up by going in the room to turn her back over?
Should we just let her cry until she falls asleep on her back (even though the crying is horrible)?
Also, is crying after 3 weeks normal? I was under the impression when I started the CIO method that after a week or so she would just whimper a little but fall right asleep knowing that crying will not get her anything.
Am I starting the CIO method too early?
Should I wait until 6 months?
I just need someone to tell me what to do. My goal is to help my baby sleep better and nip bad habits early. If I’m being an over achiever and it’s not fair to my 4 month old please tell me.
I also wanted to add that I don’t let her CIO at night. She usually wakes up 2 times to breastfeed. I feed her and put her back in the crib and she doesn’t cry at all.
Do you think I should do dream feeds? Like set an alarm so she’s not crying to be fed?
This my situation almost EXACTLY!!! I have no idea what to do 🙁 my son will be 5 months next week. The 4 month regression hit us bad and he was waking every 1-2 hours after midnight. So we decided to ST. We have had a consistent bedtime routine since birth basically of books bath pjs lotion nurse to sleep…when we started ST we moved the nursing to the first step so now we nurse, books, bath, pjs lotion sing song/sway and in bed awake. The first night he cried 18 mins slept till 2am and the second night didn’t even cry! The rest of the first week he fussed 5-10 mins and I would feed him around 2am and 5am and up at 7am.
So one week into this he learned how to flip from his tummy (he has always slept on his tummy) to his back. Well this lead to an hour long scream fest of me going in and flipping him and him almost being asleep the flipping over and waking up hysterical. Now it’s been terrible ever since 🙁 he cries/screams on and off for around 30+ mins every night now with me letting him stay on his back then eventually flipping him…he has learned now to roll back to his tummy from his back and it it still hasn’t helped! Also he now wakes up SEVERAL times again. No pattern…sometimes 11 then every 1-2 hours after. Last night he was up at 12, 3& then at 4 I sent my husband in and we couldn’t get him to settle back down until 6:30am!!!
I’m just so confused. Do I keep letting him cry? Do I keep flipping him?? How come this was working for a week and now it’s not…is all just because of the rolling? He also appears to be trying to crawl which is crazy because he’s so young. I don’t want to go back to nursing him to sleep but if he’s sleeping just as terrible as when I was then I might as well do it so I don’t listen to him scream every night right?
Also for naps I have still been wearing in a wrap with him having a paci or holding him so that way he isn’t too overtired. He still only managed cat naps but they literally only last 20 mins if I put him down but when hold/wear him they are 40mins-1hr
sorry I went on a ramble. I hope someone has advice for us!
Thank you for your website. It has been very helpful as we try to help out baby learn to sleep on his own. I have some questions if you have time to help!
Our little one just turned 6 months. We worked with a sleep specialist recommended by our pediatrician when he was 4.5 months old to get him on a nice nap and bedtime schedule and help break his sleep associations of being rocked and nursed to sleep. He is going to bed for all sleep on his own, awake, in his crib, which is a huge success!
Our issues now are two things:
1. Habitual wakings in the middle of the night
2. Earlier and earlier wake up in the morning. (Which, in turn, throws off our nap schedule)
He goes to bed around 6:30 pm and wakes up consistently between 8:30 and 10 pm. He also wakes up at 1/2 am and then is up around 5:30 am. We cut out a 4 am feeding/ waking in the last two weeks.
Baby is breastfed and will not take a bottle. He is pretty distracted during the day while nursing.
My goals are to get him on 0-1 waking during the night where I will nurse him, and to try to get him to sleep until 6 or 7 am. Your advice would be so appreciated!!!
Thank you! Elisa
Is 3 months old too young to try this or sleep train in your opinion! I would like to get her used to putting herself asleep BEFORE the 4 month sleep regression but wondering if she is too young?
They typically say don’t start until 6 months
This is THE BEST BLOG OF LIFE and has taught me so much more than the 14 sleep training books I read. I also veen reading all the comments which are also very helpful. To make a long story short we are doing controlled CIO on our 10 mo old. We are trying some form of this for the 15th time. The last time we tried we had amazing results after 3 days (down to 1 wake up) and on the 4th day he got super sick with a virus that stayed around for most of January and left us both addicted to cosleeping.
Now we are on night 7. It’s so much harder this time around since the bb has learned how to stand in the crib and does this as soon as he wakes up. On the second night he was screaming and sleep standing from 11:30pm-4:30 am. Every time we went in to try to gently put him down it would start all over again. Baby daddy and I turned on eahother and had a completely unrelated massive fight at 5 am.
The progress is that he now goes to sleep in about 30 seconds with very little crying. I took your advice and moved the nursing away from the bedtime. Am working on gradually moving this further and further away. However he still wakes up 4times per night and is awake for a minimum of an hr every time, until I finally give up at 5 am and nurse him in bed after which I wake up with my boob out and the bb happily snuggled up to me at 7:30 am. The nights are not getting better and baby daddy sleeps exclusively on the couch. This kid sure wants to stay an only child….
Additionally, naps are nonexistent unless I boob him to sleep and cosleep or stroller nap. This still only gets me 1 nap a day. And I have no idea what schedule he should be on since he has NO interest to nap anywhere between 9 am and 11 am. Advice anyone? I’m losing my mind a little. I haven’t had more than 3 hrs in a row since he’s been born and I’m starting to have cookies and beer for every dinner.
BEST BLOG OF LIFE eh? Can you make me a ribbon that says that so I can post it in my sidebar?
“However he still wakes up 4times per night and is awake for a minimum of an hr every time, until I finally give up at 5 am”
So something is wrong here. This is likely not a CIO issue but something else. I can’t say what for sure. It could be a schedule bedtime too early thing. It could be because you’re doing checks. It could be because she’s getting stuck standing up (CAN she sit down?).
My best guess is that the intermittent reinforcement of checks isn’t helping and possibly bedtime is too early. Definitely something is off. I would practice sitting a TON during the day. And definitely skip trying to fix naps until the large gaps in his night sleep are reduced.
Sorry – this is hard stuff. Nobody will judge you for having beer and cookies for dinner!
Thank you x 100000000000 for replying. I am making you a BEST BLOG OF LIFE ribbon and sending over asap. Probably tonight at 3 am.
Sooooo, our amazing 30 second bedtimes lasted a week. And now we are CIO ing at bedtime again. Day 3 was 20 Min which was a huge improvement over 1.5 hrs…… The reason we are checking in is because our insane child will sleep standing up like a horse. So we go in to gently lay him down. He CAN lie down. He does it as soon as we come into the room. He just chooses not to. Our bedtime is between 6 and 7 depending on naps, and he typically shows extreme tired signs by 6. Should we try movng bedtime to 7? I have been trying to boob for shorter times at night but he just loses it or wakes up again 1.5 hrs later. Last night I just sat by his crib sbooshing until he finally fell asleep from 1am till 2 am. And then he woke up at 3:30./ 4:00/6:30. Whyyyyyyyyy
So we fixed bedtime. And had an amazing week. Baby was going to sleep in 30 seconds with no tears, waking up for a quick boobing 2x a night after which he went right back into the crib. Then I wanted to nap train so we did extinction for naps. And BAM !!!!! Good bye any night sleep. Suddenly he was screaming at bedtime for an hour and a half (CIO with check ins and check ins only because he keeps standing up and falling asleep standing like a horse) and even when he does finally go down at bedtime he is up 4 hrs later and the ‘training’ continues for another 3 hours – TO GET US ONLY ONE HOUR OF SLEEP HEFORE HE’S UP AGAIN. everyone says be consistent. But really how can one be consistent when the night is made up of 70% crying and barely 30% sleeping? I can’t function anymore, things are NOT getting better and I feel like a complete failure. Can anyone offer any advice?
Need advice about re-sleept training a 2 year old who is now in a toddler bed. We switched him about two weeks ago after climbing out of his crib. We sleep trained him as an infant and he was a champion sleeper until about 5 weeks ago. Now I feel like I have a newborn again. He suddenly wants us in his room until he falls asleep- wake and repeat. His bedtime is now so late too because of constant shenanigans- more books, more songs, and just general talking (which I don’t mind, I just don’t want to be held hostage in his room). Pediatrician says that he’s getting 3 teeth but we still need to re-sleep train. Any advice? When he was an infant we did CIO extinction- but now I don’t know if I could handle it. He runs to the door and cries “mommy open door, please.” It’s heartbreaking and I’ve only last 20 minutes so far. What method of sleep training works best for toddlers in toddler beds. Thank you!!!!!! We plan on starting tomorrow- but want a solid plan before this all goes down. We are also thinking about completely taking out the rocking chair (since it’s his crutch right now) and just reading books in his bed.
Hi,
We have tried sleep training before but I guess I wasn’t consistent. We saw a sleep medicine/neurologist and he said its all normal and he is fine. Recommended coo again and being consistent. I think I’ve already messed up by staying in there and just standing sometimes. I feel like going into to comfort after awhile just makes it worse maybe. At night I will feed it ifs after 12, it then right back down when he starts to close his eyes. We are on day 6. Got so much better then worse on the 3rd day which I was expecting but since then nighttime is ok and naps are so hard. He fights for anywhere between 30 minutes and today 2 hours and I finally gave up. Any advice? Have I been to inconsistent?
I am facing some issues with my just-turned-4-month old and while I know I have a sleep-prop problem, I am not sure how to be consistent about dealing with it. Just after DS turned 3 months, he cut his first 2 teeth (early – I know, so early that it took me a few days to realize what the problem was), then he got sick with a chest cold and cough, then we hit 4 month sleep regression, then he got his 4 month shots. Whew! Well, now he seems back to himself during the day, but nighttime sleep took a real hit. He went from sleeping ~ 5 – 5.5. hours at the start of the night, followed by waking every 2-3 hours after that, to now waking 7-10 times per night. And I see what the problem is – he is treating my boob like a soother that needs to be re-inserted at almost every sleep transition (he has never taken an actual soother though). I know this because most of the time, he suckles for ~1-3 minutes, then goes back to sleep. He does occasionally take a full feed though. He has also become such light sleeper, that when I try to move him back to the crib (a whole 5 feet away) he rouses and roots for boob again. An if I don’t give it to him, he escalates quickly. Through this rough patch, I have resorted to leaning over the crib to nurse hime to sleep in-situ, and keeping him sleeping on my lap for while I doze leaning up against the headboard. But this is not sustainable. SO, I know I need to tackle the nurse-to-sleep issue. However, since I do not believe he is ready to go all night without a feeding, how do I be consistent about it? ie. not giving him the boob most of the time, but doing so sometimes so he can feed? Sounds like an inconsistent recipe for disaster, but I don’t see another way around it. Any suggestions? Additional info – DS does not usually nurse to sleep for naps (so he can do it) but so far these have been mostly in the swing, car or stroller. Need to transition these to the crib shortly, but want to tackle this other issue first. DS is still swaddled – Receiving blanket around the arms miracle-blanket style then inside a woombie. (he was breaking out of the miracle blanket multiple time per night at 2 months ). We have white noise and black-out curtains. Will NOT take a bottle (even of BM) or a soother. Succeeded a few times at put down drowsy-but-awake at bedtime (with minimal fussing) before the crap started a few weeks back. Attempts since have resulted in quickly-escalating fussing. I am not keen on full-on CIO unless there are no other options, and even so, he seems a bit young. I also a have another child asleep in the next room to think about. Any suggestions / insight would be welcome.
I know its been a while but I have a nearly identical situation and was wondering what ended up working for you?
I just posted on another post, but this brings up a point I dind’t mention before. So my 6 month old is on day 6 of sleep training, but it’s true there have been a few inconsistencies, like being put to bed 30 mins late because someone showed up at my house and wouldn’t leave even though my baby was so tired, and another day i asked my husband to put him to sleep so i could go to the gym and instead he drove to the store and back and baby fell asleep in the car! I really want to sleep train him now, but I know there are several inconsistencies ahead of us. In 2 weeks we are going on vacation and in 1.5 months we are moving states, and then a month after that moving into our permnent home in the new location. Should I just give up on sleep traiing and not do it till we are in our new home and solidly going to be in a steady place for a long time? Its just that if i wait until then he will be 9 months old and that seems so late for sleep training and so much longer to develop bad habits. Please help! He is really good about bedtime, he does cry about 30 mins almost everytime, but then sleeps 12 hrs with only one feeding in the middle. It’s naps that are terrible. He cries through usually 2 of the 3 naps a day and only sleeps the third because he’s so incredibly exhausted. I just done know what to do.
In the same boat! Moving in a month so didn’t know if we should start but decided to go for it since there’s always gonna be something! Bedtime going okay – an hour crying but sleeping a lot during night- but naps are awful! She cries the whole hour! Did anything work for you?
LOVE your blog .. Need some advice please!!
I tried the crib many times and my 11 month old always screamed at me..I resorted to cosleeping to get sleep myself. She falls asleep at the boob and then I have to gently slide her over or she wakes up screaming at me. She still wakes 3-5 times a night… No amount of rocking, shushing, or a paci would get her back to sleep until I put her on my boob again.. Naps I would hold her, sit in the car, or sneak her into her crib but she would wake 20 minutes later. That was how we did 11 months until my husband came home from deployment.
There is no room in the bed for all of us and I cannot continue living this way! We let my daughter get used to my husband for 3 weeks before another big change for her.
We are on day 6 of CIO. We started with Ferber the first 2 nights. She cried for 1 1/2 hours both nights and only went to sleep when mu hubby was still in the room. After doing some research we decided to no longer go in for checks. The next three nights she cried for an hour – 1 1/2 and only woke up 3/4 times for 30 seconds to 20 minutes so not bad. Dad has been doing the bedtime routine mostly because I cannot stand hearing her cry and need to go for a drive.
My problem is with naps!
She wakes up around 6 6:30 and we have been putting her down for naps around 8:30 9. She screams and after an hour we take her out and wait for her next nap.. But then 1 comes she’s exhausted and again won’t nap! A few times she has fallen asleep right before the hour mark but only for 20/30 minutes.
She’s getting sick from the lack of sleep and today I resorted to a nap in the car. Bad I know but I’m desperate! I know this could work but with her not napping it is heartbreaking to me to see her so exhausted all day. I miss my little girl and her big personality! She’s just been super clingy. Any advice??!! Thanks!
THis is the greatest blog ever, I am on day 4. We adopted her as a 8 week old and I would have sleep trained her much earlier, but I’m late to the party having just realized I HAVE to get her the life skill of going to sleep on her own. I co slept with her from the first day because I wanted her to bond, and she’s really well connected to both me and daddy. The hard part of sleep training is how mad she is at me! We became parents basically overnight which means we did no research on baby sleep etc before hand LOL. Otherwise would have been on top of this at 6 months rather than nearly 11 months old. Nothing like waiting until the last minute! I just wanted to encourage everyone, and say that reading these blogs and comments, along with a nice glass of champagne, is getting me thru the crying for the last couple days and no I’m not patting or checking, after the first night I realized how much it makes things worse. 🙂 My hubby works remote and will be back in 2 weeks, and little monkey MUST be past the worst by then, or daddy will cave. Oh, she just got quiet! xxo
Getting out of co-sleeping is the hardest so I’m not surprised you’re having a rough time. But you’re totally right, this IS the greatest blog ever.
KIDDING!
You’re right that the patting and visits just make things worse. And she’s super pissed. But you know what? She’s going to be fine. And she’ll be fine far before Daddy comes home in 2 weeks!
update: tonight is night 5 and it took 10 less minutes to fall asleep. So glad I found the greatest blog ever….. 😉 you rock Alexis!!
*HAPPY DANCE*
update – day 7 – she literally just cried for 45 seconds. 45 FLIPPIN’ SECONDS. and fell fast asleep. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I agree! Patting and any attention/checking on whatsoever made my little lady so much more upset! It was so much better to just leave her be to figure it out on her own, as hard as it was.
Hi Alexis, I have a toddler and a 5 month old, and while I successfully sleep trained my older son, it’s proving to be way more difficult with the baby. I would provide an easy routine but we don’t have a routine, not for lack of trying. Every single day is worse than the day before. Ever since about 3mos, we have been having more nighttime wakings. He currently eats twice a night. He will not nap during the day.. I’ve tried more waketime. Less waketime. He is swaddled, dark room, white noise. No pacifier. No rocking. He did awesome at learning how to fall asleep on his own until recently. I put him down drowsy, or sometimes I look at waketime. Interestingly, when we have things to do in the morning, he may be up four hours and instead of waking at the 45m mark, he’ll sleep an hour or so. This makes me wonder, is he just a rare 5m old who can stay up an insane amount of time? If i try to put him down at the normal waketime for a 5m old, he screams and screams and screams. I did 2h15m waketime this am and he screamed for over an hr until I got him out and fed him, then tried again. He has taken a 30 nap all day and when he woke screaming from this nap (over tired ), I left him to go back to sleep and he screamed 2hours. No exaggeration. So I’m currently nursing him bc it’s time to eat and he’s obviously falling asleep while eating. My biggest question is regarding waketime. Is he already over tired by the 2h15m mark which is why he screams? Or can he do more? He was yawning and rubbing eyes so i thought u hit his waketime right. Obviously not. And I’ve tried cry it out to no avail. He literally screams nonstop. If i get him (hold him), no screams. I know it’s not a medical issue. I need help bc I’m at the literal end of my rope.
Hi Alexis,
Love the blog. First sleep training advice that I’ve read that feels realistically actionable for me, and alleviates the horrific internet guilt trips associated with CIO. Question-My children’s pediatrician said that CIO (extinction w/ no night weaning or other funny business) “takes as long as it takes, otherwise it isn’t CIO” (referring to the duration of an incident of crying), but that if it hasn’t worked after 4-5 days, it won’t work. She is also of the opinion that the older the child gets, the less chance of success a person will have with CIO. I’d be interested to hear your take on this, as well as at what point you feel things might warrant abandoning CIO efforts? I’ve seen references in the blog to a 70% success rate with CIO (so, my mind goes to the other 30%…), as well as some commentary about certain situations in which CIO is not recommended (I assumed it was referring to factors not specified, and other than the obvious reasons of the child being too young, etc.). I’m sure you’ve seen/heard it all, and I’d really love to hear your thoughts.
Hi, this advice is simply priceless. I started cry it out on my 5 month old boy(with a dummy/paci…was that a mistake?). He’s now 6 months old. I realised I was doing the whole thing a bit wrong but we did make some progress – he went from co-sleeping and breastfeeding every 2 hours to being in his own cot and room. Bedtime routine began at 6.30 where he would have his last feed downstairs, bath, story, prayer, bed. He slept from 7.15 (with no fuss going to sleep)stirred a little between 10/10.30 so Id put his dummy back in and he would sleep until around 1-2. I would then feed him and he would sleep until around 5/5.30 and then I would feed again and he would go back to sleep for another hour/hour and a half. He did this for around 2 weeks. All sounds great right? Until he started waking up every couple of hours for his dummy to go back in … Although I did make the mistake of dream feeding at the 10/10.30 stir. That’s when the trouble started I think. So now he wakes up every 2/2 and a half hours and is in our bed at around 4.30am for co sleeping
My question is (and I am going to start cry it out method again even though I’m completely shattered) is do I stick with the dummy/pack or go cold turkey? I have a feeling he will make it harder this time around for us though… Shriek!
Desperately need advice!
My 6 1/2 month old has always been a poor sleeper. She wakes every 3 hours to nurse and will only go back to sleep if she’s eaten. I am exhausted and have had enough. We tried the CIO method a month ago and after 3 days we gave up. We are trying again and tonight is night one. She has been up crying for 2 hours and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. She’s clearly exhausted but isn’t settling. Help!!!!
I have an almost 8 month old he was getting up every 2-3 hrs not really hungry but would eat if I offered. Anyways I have started CIO 5 nights ago. 1st night cried a lot! 2nd night bed 730 woke at 1250am – fed him then back to sleep till 5am ate then slept with him till 8 or so. 3rd night kinda the same thing. Then 4th and 5th night up again every 2-3 hrs. I used to nurse him to sleep but stopped that when I started CIO. We have always had a routine since day one. Right now it’s feed at 645pm bath at 7pm read a book snuggle and off to bed. He actually falls asleep quite nicely on his own dosent fuss to much. I decided if he wakes up before midnight I won’t go to him but still feel like he needs a feed at night which I do if he wakes up after midnight. My question is when he goes back to sleep after eating after midnight then wakes up agin 2-3 hrs later should i feed him again or let him CIO? Last night I did feed him again after he woke up 3 hrs later but feel maybe I shouldnt feed him and let him CIO until it’s time to wake up for the day. Thoughts?
Hey Alexis,
I happened to simple upon this blog when it had been 6 weeks since me and my partner had got any sleep. It’s an amazing blog that has saved my life. I think! 🙂
Anyway. We have a 9 month baby who has been fussy since he was born. We haven’t been great with the whole creating routines and being consistent either, and lessons learnt for next child – teach to sleep on your own at an earlier age !!! But anyway here we are. From when he was about 7.5 months h started waking up every 1.5-2 hrs throughout the night. He has been night fed up until now really, but he’s a big boy so doesn’t really need it. He’s always been difficult putting to sleep, we’ve been letting him fall asleep in our bed for ages and then either left him cosleeping or moved him to his cot. Then wakes up at night and we’ve had to rock him or put calm music on or given boob or whatever has worked… It’s been insane.
We started with CIO last week (now on day 6) and I want to say it has worked! First night he cried 20 min then went to sleep, then woke up maybe twice for short times during night but went back to sleep himself. Second night cried 10 minutes before went to sleep, then woke up once at night and went back to sleep within 3 min. Third night cried 5 minutes, woke up briefly for a few seconds during night but nothing more. 4th night went almost straight to sleep (a minute or so of whining but really smoothly) and slept through (!!).
Now the problem was last night; we had a babysitter. She doesn’t speak English (we live in China) and probably didn’t do our night routine (feed, pyjamas, book, kiss good night) and had put him to sleep in our bed… So when we came home we had to move him to his cot. The night then followed and was horrendous! He woke up several times and at 1 am he would not stop crying… After 45 minutes of Non stop crying despite us having gone in every 10 min (Ferber method) we surrendered as we thought the neighbours would call the police and put him in our bed… He then slept until 05 and had a quick feed then slept until 07.
My question is; are we now back at square one? Do we start over with Ferber and begin with 3 min gaps etc? Or now move to the other method and hope for the best?
I also wonder about going away for holidays (as we will be doing in 1 week) – where he won’t have a cot to sleep in… If the CIO method has worked is it then fine to let the baby sleep anywhere after that? Even In your bed again?
Thanks again for this awesome blog!!
You ARE so funny! I am grateful for this article, I needed the reassurance that the 15 minutes of crying is not going to mess up my baby and gee, I didn’t realize I was being so inconsistent. If even something that small is a crutch, I have been doing this wrong.
We were just questioning our consistency, too! So we started CIO 8 nights ago. Actually, the 1st night we were going to do it, she fell asleep perfectly and only woke once for her 3am feeding! So, we were consistent for 5 nights in a row. The first 2 nights, it was 3 hours of crying. The next 2 nights, 2 hours. Then 1.5 hrs the next night. The 6th night, lots of crying again. What changed? Her caretakers told us she might be sick. Just a little vomit in the day, but no fever or major fussiness. Because of this new knowledge (her first time EVER being ill. She is 5 months.), we proceeded to pick her up and rock her to sleep once, then nursed her way too early in the night. Naps the next day were horrific again, but up until that point hadn’t been terrible. The last two nights there has been an hour or so of crying. I already was surprised CIO was taking so long for my baby, but now I think we’ve caused it to go even longer with this inconsistency!
Hi! I stumbled on this site after yet another sleepless night with my 10.5 month old. She was doing great with sleeping, only waking once to have about a 4 oz bottle, then going right back to sleep. She’s also teething, top two teeth, clearn snotty nose, the works. We threw a wrench in her game by traveling to Asia for three weeks about a month ago, but she seemed to get on schedule for at least a few nights before this. She will have a final bottle (sometimes 6 oz) while we are reading and saying goodnight. I usually rock her for about 5 minutes, put her in her crib – somewhat awake – and she falls asleep. Then it’s around midnight / 1AM that she wakes up again – we usually will just feed her 4 oz because that was our routine before, put her back in her crib and she SCREAMS for hours. REALLY screams, like purple crying. I’ve been giving in, holding her, rocking her – maybe only about 10-20 minutes, but then she’ll fall asleep…. until about 3 or 4 or 5 AM – same thing. Just this morning at about 5:30, I was able to catch her before she got really mad, I fed her another 4 oz, held her for maybe 5 minutes, and she went back to sleep fairly easily. I don’t know how to get out of this cycle. I’ve read lots of your articles, including Parts I, II and III, and I have a few things to tweak about the routine. I’m thinking I will separate the feeding from bedtime and feed her that final bottle before bed in our family room rather than her bedroom, maybe a half hour before bed. I realize I’m dealing with sleep AND night feeding issues. I just can’t decide which to start with since they seem to be related. Any insight?
you’re not really dealing with night feeding issues, your issue is night SCREAMING issues and the reason she’s SCREAMING is that you’re rocking her till she’s MOSTLY asleep and thus she’s waking later and needs to be rocked to sleep again. The screaming is the clue here. If it were about food the bottle would fix it but it doesn’t. Her issue is the rocking. Stop rocking for 5 minutes and have her go into the crib 100% awake. She may protest this change but it’s essential AND will fix the middle of the night purple screaming.
Let me know how things go!
Alexis
Thank you! That’s what I needed to hear. I will report back!
Thank you! That’s what I needed to hear. I will report back!
I have a 4 month old who currently feeds to sleep and then sleeps from 30 min to 1 hour every night the whole night and needs to be breastfed to fall back asleep. I tried feeding him 30 min before bedtime but I’m he then needs to be rocked for sometimes up to an hour I. order to fall asleep and then through the night he starts stirring and if I don’t breastfeeding him he starts full blowname out crying until he’s wide awake and no longer wants to sleep for hours but if I breast feed him he goes to sleep within 5 min. his bed time is currently 8 only becouse I have tried 7 but then he wakes up even more frequently. I know I need to wean him off feeding him to sleep but how do I do that whithe CIO as well. how do I know if he needs to be fed actually vs just let him cry at night to sleel?
I just wanted to pop in and let you know how much my husband and I appreciate your non-judgy approach. The internet/mom forums can sometimes be brutal! Just when I think I have something figured out, I decided to Google it (why I do this I am unsure) only to find that I am a terrible parent, who knew?
Your site feels safe and your humor is appreciated. Thank you for the information you provide. We just started sleep training and it seems to be going well. We have been consistent so that must be the key!
Thanks again!
-M.
I’m presently kicking myself, mentally, for listening to a friend.
Our system was working, and we were def headed on the road to sleeping through the night.
By six weeks, we had a bedtime routine, LO slept in her bed next to mine, and when she fussed in the night, I did NOT intervene until she had her eyes fully opened, staring at me and then cried. Then I’d get up, check her nappy, feed her, kiss her and back to bed she went.
From six weeks till three months, we had dropped a feed, and our other two were inching in opposite directions, one closer to bed-time, one closer to breakfast. GREAT!
The down-side, was sometimes she’d fuss for an hour plus before actually waking up needing something. It was annoying.
So I spoke to a friend, who said “Why? I couldn’t stand it. Just do it while she’s asleep.” Oh! I didn’t know I could do that. I shouldn’t have.
Now we’re at three feedings a night, at the exact same time every night. UGH! They’re four hours apart, and I am not happy about this.
So I think we’re back to mommy stays awake for an hour plus each night waiting for her to wake-up-up before I do anything.
So tonight is going to be… interesting.
She’s three and a half months old. She WAS doing seven hour stretches, and now we’re not doing more than four. Unless she went through her regression the week before she turned three months (she had a pair of days where she was up every hour, then the next pair was every other hour and so on. We’ve been stuck at four hours ever since.) I’m not happy.
Hi Alexis! Thank you for giving me the confidence to try CIO. My once rockstar sleeper three month old had now turned into a crappy napper who woke every two hours at night. When baby did nap, I was obsessed with reading about baby sleep online and was going a little nutty! Luckily I found your site. We’re on day three and things are going well, baby hasn’t cried more than ten minutes at any given time, and the guilt level is pretty low. The husband and I discuss the game plan a head of time to help us stick to it. Baby now has a cold and vacation starts next week but we’re going to try to stay consistent. Keep being awesome!
Hi Alexis! Thank you for giving me the confidence to try CIO. At three months I had a rock star sleeper, now I have a five month old who turned into a crappy napper that wakes every two hours at night. When baby did nap, I was obsessed with reading about baby sleep online and was going a little nutty! Luckily I found your site. We’re on day three and things are going well, baby hasn’t cried more than ten minutes at any given time, and the guilt level is pretty low. The husband and I discuss the game plan a head of time to help us stick to it. Baby now has a cold and vacation starts next week but we’re going to try to stay consistent. Keep being awesome!
Hi Alexis,
As others have mentioned, your blog is really amazing! I have a 6 month old, and we are starting Night 9 of CIO. We put him down between 7:15pm-7:45pm (awake). I try to start nursing by no later than 6:30pm, but last night a friend came over so I didn’t start his last nursing session til 7pm. Last night (Night 8), he fell asleep after only 5 min of crying (amazing!), but he woke up a lot more than usual (good nights it’s been 3-4 times, only feeding 2x in the night (12-2am range) and (4am-6am) range. My husband and I take turns, he gives a bottle during the 12-2am shift, I do the 4am-6am shift. So he hasn’t been really consistent about when he’s waking up in the night, and last night was pretty terrible. Woke up at 11pm SCREAMING, I nursed him, then 1:30am – screamed for 30 min, my husband fed him but he wasn’t really hungry, only ate an ounce. Then he woke up at 4am, cried for 15 min, then at 5:00am – I nursed him for 10 min, he fell asleep, I set him down, he woke up again – thinking he was still hungry I nursed him a bit more put him down at 5:30am, woke up at 6:30am, cried for 10 min, then slept til 8am.
I have two quick questions:
1) I’m trying to follow your advice about feeding twice a night, is his inconsistency about waking because we’re not being as consistent as we could about the exact time we’re putting him down?
2) We haven’t tackled naps or night weaning yet. Should we do nap training next then night weaning, or vice versa, or can we work on them simultaneously?
Thanks so much!
So that’s a lot of waking which could have been a blip, an extinction burst, or some other issue. Super not helpful I know.
It could definitely have been the nursing too close to bedtime. But the only way to test that is to fix it tonight and see if it continues. I’m assuming you aren’t using a pacifier yes?
The fact that after 9 days he’s waking 3-4X a night is…unusual. It makes me wonder if something else is off. Not sure WHAT exactly but something. Might be a good question to ask the FB group.
Good luck!
Hi Alexis!
I am quite sure I’ve read through these blog posts several times- sometimes as reassurance that I’m doing the right thing!- and I have a question I need help with. Tonight will be night 5 of ST and it has gone better than expected. LO cried 1 hour the first night, then 40, then 8, and then 10 last night. The first 3 nights I have him twice laid him down and he fussed no more than 5 minutes and fell asleep. Then there was last night. He had his longest stretch- sleeping until 2 am. I went in and fed him. I checked his diaper first because he has a rash. He was clean so I proceeded to feed. Lo and behold the child decides to poop during the feed. Ugh. Changed him, laid him down. He then cried for more than an hour. Sent husband in. No help. Gave him 10 minutes. I went in. Tried shushing, nothing. Finally took him to my bed (close to 4 am) so everyone in the house would sleep and he still would not settle. Is this extinction or something else?? I’m worried he will do this again tonight and I’m not sure how to proceed. Thanks for your help- your blog is invaluable!
We just completed night 4 of sleep training my 6 month old, and in some respects, it’s going well, but in others, I am getting super frustrated. Nights 1, 2, and 3, he took 1 hr, 30 min, and 15 min, respectively, to fall asleep..good! Night 4 it was back at 30 min–could be worse. On a positive note, he went from 4 wakes to only 1 or 2 quickly (5-8 hr stretch at most so far). The real problems are related to falling back asleep post-feed and early wakings.
After the middle of the night feed (no consistent time) which he tends to mostly fall asleep during, he wakes back up when put down, and I let him alone to try to fall asleep. He is having a VERY hard time with this! On night 3, this feed took place when he woke at 4, and after 1.5 hrs, he still wasn’t showing any signs of falling asleep, at which point I went and got him because it was so close to morning. We spent an hour lying in bed, where he did sleep. On night 4, the feed was at 2:30 when he woke, and it took an hour to fall back asleep, and then he woke for the day at 6. This wake time seems excessive since he is falling asleep much quicker at bedtime and not waking at any other point during the night.
So, by the time we go to him, feed him, and wait over an hour, everyone is up for close to 2 hours in the middle of the night and total sleep hours are nowhere near enough for his age (I get him to sleep around 8, so we were shooting for 8-7).
And it seems that his mornings are getting earlier (used to be 7ish), but he won’t go back to sleep during these early morning wakes. The only thing I have been able to do to get him at least a little extra NECESSARY sleep is take him to bed for a bit in the morning. But of course my concern here is that I am negating all of the work I did on getting him to sleep independently. However, I can’t have him up for the day at 4 or 5am, so I have no idea what to do!
What are your thoughts on the post-feed waketime and the early mornings? I am wondering if it would be better not to feed at all because he seems to go back to sleep more readily without it!
How many of us write these posts while listening to baby cry?? We are on night three of extinction sleep training (I know, it’s early). We are basically doing it full on with occasional checks to make sure he hasn’t smushed his face against the side of the crib, but not pats, not pick ups. We were doing the whole Ferber thing which worked for like, 2 nights but then he got sick and also started to think he was hungry and because he has been extremely slow to gain weight (hasn’t even hit 14 lbs at 6 months), so when he had what was likely an extinction burst, I went in and rescued him. I would offer him a bottle a couple of nights but he never drank more than an ounce so he clearly wasn’t hungry. Then we started working with a very expensive sleep consultant who was suggesting we go in to “reassure” as often as every two minutes. She said it was fine to pick him up too, but after a few times of doing this, I felt like I was torturing the poor kid more than I was reassuring him. He was so beside himself, he cried right through and kind of “reassurance” and it escalated when I put him down of course. I felt like going in this often was way too stimilating. When I say “going in” I mean that I would pop up from the floor where I was lying down every other minute because leaving the room only to come back every minute just seemed ridiculous. He would cry for as long as two hours with no pause when I went in. Which brings us to extinction. Disclaimer- I am a psychologist and although I do not do behavioral therapy, I am (in theory) entirely on board with how this approach works for sleep training. After failed Ferber method, it just seems to me that going in to “reassure” is intermittent reinforcement with is just about the strongest type of reinforcement. So, as I said, I am in there on board with the extinction method, however, here have been our first two nights following three days of great naps (some on my chest but we are tackling one thing at a time) :
Night 1: Put down for bed at 7:45: cried 2 hours, woke up at 12:45; cried 2 hours
Night 2: Put down for bed at 7:45 cried for 5 minutes; woke up at 11:45, cried for 2.5 hours
Night 3 (right now): Put down at 8:30 (he took a very late afternoon nap): Still crying after one hour
Im sure that some parents will feel that I am a horrible mother for letting my baby cry for 2.5 hours but my gut says that this will work, despite the fact that it is really hard right now, but is this too long? Is my gut wrong? Is this a sign that he is “not ready”? How long is too long?? How many nights and how many hours?
Our LO is now 6 months old and we now on night 4 which is a total disaster of CIO or whatever one wants to call it. This has been a long journey, our daughter has severe reflux and the first few months were hell. This is our first baby and we spent the first few months leaping out of bed to choking and gasping afraid our baby was dying. I don’t have enough in me to write this novel but between all of her medication zantac, Prevacid & mylanta, holding her up 40 minutes after each feeding where she inevitably fell asleep and I never had a chance to try to sleep train her. I spent up until now terrified and things have finally become manageable for our precious girl and she isn’t screaming every night in pain which had now led us to sleep training under our pediatricians advice of CIO, as she is an awful sleeper and hates her crib. We have gone from rock & play which she was outgrowing at 5 mo to cosleeper and I would love for her to be happily sleeping in her crib.
With that said the first 2 nights were 40 minutes of crying and then she would fall asleep only to wake every 15-30 minutes for hours crying again for 10-20 minutes until I give in because I am mentally breaking and put her in her cosleeper. She loves a pacifier but she can’t put it back in herself yet so I am not going in to put in her mouth in the crib. Checking on her only makes the crying worse. We tried the Ferber way and I felt like we were torturing her.
My question is after the intial fall asleep she just keep waking up and has yet to stay asleep longer than 30 minutes.
In the cosleeper she was sleeping all night from 8/830 until 7am, only waking for a pacifier once or twice and would fall right back asleep. She night weaned on her own and stopped wanting the bottle at 4.5 months.
I am so distressed and deep into this I don’t know where to begin
Wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I’ve been struggling with sleep problems for years, tried everything under the sun. Just came across this, doesn’t seem to be sleep rememedy specific product, which may actually be good, but seems like it has a lot of sleep beneficial functions without being intrusive or bad for your health. Anyone use anything like this an have any other ideas? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/starsailor-live-brings-the-skies-into-your-bedroom-technology#/
We just had night #3 of crying it out with our 3.5 month old. I know this is earlier than the 4 month recommended age to start CIO, but we felt that it was close enough and that she was ready. We wanted to do CIO because she has needed a pacifier to fall asleep and to fall back asleep, and when she has gas in the night it wakes her up and she needs her pacifier put back in again. This happens sometimes every hour or more, and no one is getting any sleep! On the first night, she fussed a little but fell asleep. She woke a few more times in the night, and we didn’t go in to soothe (it only makes her more mad), and she only cried for less than 15-20 minutes each time. On nights 2 and 3, she went down with minor fussing again, but has woken up multiple times in the night to cry for 20-60 minutes! She has long since been weaned off night feedings but has kept a dream feed at 11:30, which she cries afterwards. It seems clear to me that she’s still just angry to not have a pacifier. Any idea why it’s getting worse though? We plan to keep it up for a week and see how it goes, but we have guests staying with us after that so we can’t have a baby screaming all night… any advice is appreciated Thank you!
Hello Alexis and Alexis fans! Your book saved our sanity! But now I am in a predicament.
I thought our three and a half month old was ready for cio.
He used to fall asleep drowsy but awake at bedtime in his swing after we rock him a bit and sleep 6/8 hour stretches (waking only to feed at 2-3am) we have have solid bedtime routine and he recently consolidated his naps!
Three weeks ago we moved him to his crib. He slept great the first night and then started waking up more and more often every night after that, sometimes completely inconsolable . After a couple weeks of this I was going crazy from sleep deprivation. we put him back in his swing and settled at three wakings at night (11-12, 2-3 and 5-6). After two more weeks of this with no sign of improving (we tried not feeding at midnight but he would take an hour and a half to settle with my husband doing everything he can to get him to sleep! it felt like crying out only with us in the room) we decided to try CIO with checks, leaving in one night feed at his pre regression time 2-3 am
Day 1, he fell asleep with my husband comforting him after 45 minutes, woke up at midnight and fell asleepwhile I was doing him after an hour and a half of crying. Fail. no one slept. Regular feed at four after that.
Day 2 went better. He cried for an hour fifteen and then fell asleep on his own. Woke up an hour later cried for 20 minutes and fell back asleep until his feed at 3 am. We were ecstatic
Day 3 last night we totally messed up. He fell asleep during his bedtime routine! We tried to wake him
His eyes opened then flickered shut and we Said a short prayer and went to bed. At midnight he cried for 1.5 hours before before decided that checking on him was making things worse and to stop checking. At 3am I decided that I was a god awful parent and was going to hell. I fed him. He woke again at 4:30 and I found my husband in tears not knowing what to do. I put him back in his swing because please oh god stop crying. And now… He’s sleeping in my lap after I fed him to sleep which we haven’t done in months.
So question: what happens now? Have we ruined sleep for our child forever by being terribly inconsistent? should we give up on CIO and try again in a few months? if so how do we move forward? Or should we stick with the program and commit to doing a better job?
Honestly I’m not entirely sure what happened but what I THINK happened is we didn’t quite wean off the swing (he was rocked to sleep yes?) so when we moved him into the crib he slept terribly because he wasn’t falling asleep independently. Then you did CIO with checks but he wasn’t quite falling asleep independently because you say on night #1 he fell asleep with your husband comforting him then woke up at midnight when “I was doing him” then again on night #3 he fell asleep during the bedtime routine.
Here’s the key to everything – if he doesn’t fall asleep 100% on his own at bedtime you can’t really expect him to do so in the middle of the night. EVERYTHING starts at bedtime. So what to do now? I could argue a few different directions. Maybe you go back to the swing and use the swing to teach him to REALLY fall asleep independently? If instead you decide to stick to CIO remember – NO CHECKS! Good luck!
Thanks for the advice! We will try the swing out again. This time putting him in it a little more awake. And oopsie about “doing it” I meant “soothing” autocorrect is not kind to a sleep deprived mother typing one handed. Next time we try CIO no checks is the way to go.
Thanks for the encouragement Alexis! We gave it one more go (and hired someone to keep us accountable) and really learned just how resilient our little one is. BUT i’m happy to say that after another couple of weeks of CIO and a lot of long nights, we are down to 1-2 feeds a night.
Unfortunately, in all our attempts to get him to sleep better, we have been moving his bedtime up earlier, and earlier, and earlier. (I think) as a result, he wakes up for the day between 4-5. However, (I think) we are slowly making progress on this by moving bedtime a little later, (I think…)
ANYWHO- thanks Alexis! I call your book the bible here. We really appreciate the humor + evidence-based advice. It’s been a a great resource, and a go-to gift for expecting friends.
So my baby is 4 months old. For the last 6-8 weeks we have been able to put him down awake and he will only fuss a few minutes a fall asleep on his own. Only swaddled, no binky or anything else. Everything I have read states this is key for success with sleeping through the night, but in the middle of the night he is horrible. We have been feeding him at 11, 2-3 and 5ish for the last month now. He was sleeping from 7:30-1:30 and then 5:30 but when I went back to work it seemed like that fell apart. My question is, if you do CIO, can you eliminate 1 feeding at a time or does it have to be all or nothing? I’ve been slowly decreasing his 2am feed by a ounce, so tonight he will only get 2 ounces, but after that is done, can I let him CIO for 2am but still feed at 11 and 5 until he is use to this? Or should I eliminate the feeds all at once? He is not a baby who can be calmed when he is hungry, and only gets more upset when I try to soothe him, so we would have to do complete extinction. Please help!!
Reaching out with prayers someone can give some insight. We had our first night of sleep training with second son last night. I have No idea how to proceed.
Background on him. 4 months. Breastfed. We have started supplementing with small amount of formula (he’s a big fella and mama can’t keep up!) . Up until last night was sleeping 3-4 hour stretches in our room in rock and play. Rocked to sleep. Rocked to sleep for most naps as well. Nurses usually once overnight but wakes up usually for some reason a few times a night (needs to be repositioned, needs paci, diaper change, can’t fall back asleep etc). LAST NIGHT He was up every hour. Literally every hour. We were pleasantly surprised he didn’t cry very much each time before falling back asleep (5-10 min max). He would cry (we would go in, soothe, not pick up… although nursed him at 345 and put him to bed awake and he slept until 7:30) and fall back asleep but then wake up again. Close to every. Hour. Basically starting at 9:30 until that 3:45am feed he was up every hour at some point. Are we regressing? He got longer stretches in rock and play! What can I do? Just keep up with what we’re doing? Please anyone that could help!
Hi Alexis,
I’m writing to you from Berlin (not Antarctica, but still far enough away ;))!
I loved reading your book which I found when needing it most: our little family (mom, dad, 8-months old) seems to be crumbling apart due to the topic of sleep! Not just did our LO come once every hour since she’s 6months old – also I have “unlearned” how to fall back to sleep. Last night I couldn’t sleep at ALL! Today I’m a miserable ghost. 7 days ago we started your SLIP program with our LO and until day 5 it went rather smoothly, she’s down to 3-4 feeds a night. I think I’m making a mistake though, and want to know what you think: when she comes for her 2nd feed at about 2-3am I take her from her crib into bed and we co-sleep til the morning. That allowed me to rest for at least 3hours as I can’t fall asleep anymore before that 2nd feeding. Since night 5 though, nap – and bedtime has become a screaming inferno again, I’m guessing: extinction burst. Could it be due to the crib-bed transition at night? Should I stop that and rather night-wean and have daddy give the bottle? I very much look forward to your help..
Best wishes
Hey Tatjana,
I love hearing that my book was helpful 🙂 But truthfully it sounds like there is … a lot going on. I’m not sure where you started but the fact that you’re DOWN to 3-4 feeds a night at 8 months suggest things were pretty horrific. Like if 3-4 feeds is better, it must have been really rough previously. Also why can’t you sleep at all? You’re awake till 2 am because…why? If you’re struggling with insomnia this significantly I would talk to your doctor ASAP. But I digress…
As mentioned, a lot going on here. 3-4 feeds a night is a lot for an 8 month old (0-1 would be a good target). If you used to nurse to sleep and SLIPed out of that, feeds that happen early in the night can RESET that sleep association (unfair I know!). And yes cosleeping in the middle of the night can cause issues. But typically the most common issue there is wanting to cosleep progressively earlier. IF she’s sleeping well in her crib till 2 consistently AND you’re happy to cosleep after 2, then it’s not a major concern.
As for the screaming at bedtime, that could be a lot of things (there’s a whole chapter on troubleshooting SLIP) – I would start there for suggestions. Bedtime too early/late, lingering sleep association, nursing too close to bedtime, etc. are all candidates.
Nightweaning is a separate issue. Truthfully I would! She doesn’t need to eat 4X a night and you’ll have a fighting shot at human-levels of sleep if you aren’t nursing 4X a night. You can wean from nursing or via a bottle. Bottles have the advantage that you guys can take turns but it also means pumping. So it’s a matter of personal preference.
Hope that helps!
Alexis
Hi Alexis,
Thank you so much for your reply! Every advice of yours is being carried out as we speak! 🙂
Oh and cheers for reassuring me that co-sleeping after 2am is alright. Since our LO’s sleep association wasn’t primarily nursing but rather rocking her bed (literally almost tearing a squeaky old travel bed apart) it’s even less problematic, I guess.
In the last three days, 2 nights were exceptionally good btw! The weird reason being – we surprisedly found out – that our LO doesn’t only need 3 of her unalterable 28-minute crapnaps (love that term btw!) during the day, but 4 (!) – with that last one happening at around 6pm, only roughly two hours before bedtime. If she gets that she will suddenly sleep 6-8 hours consecutively and only come once or twice for nursing (we’ve had 2 of these OMG-nights so far).
If not, that is if her last nap is before 5pm, she’s up and running by 11pm, waking every 2hours (last night!)… weird, huh? Especially as she is a healthy 8 months old who, I know, should not nap that often.
Doing SLIP now for 11 days and stuff is definitely becoming better (as you rightly mention, it was horrific before!!!), but the night situation’s inconsistency, the crap naps (trying your bore-out method now as the 20-min “subtle wake” didn’t really make a difference – eyes fluttering but then 8min later the usual wake up), and the crying at nap time are keeping me on the edge.
Oh, but good news, my consequently acquired insomnia is receding: I found an intensely boring audio book and some all-natural german sleep remedy. Thank god.
Excuse my amount of words and thanks again for caring. Helps tremendously! I’ve been promoting your book over here amongst my fellow German moms. It’s the long-awaited hilarious breeze of fresh knowledge we’ve all been longing for! We should get it translated – I know you’d find a grateful clientele here too!
Best wishes from icy Berlin,
Tatjana
Hello,
I have been doing cry it out for 4 days now. It has been going well. Yesterday my 4 month old got her shots. Today she had a fever and just wasn’t herself I held her for most naps but you only slept for about 45 mins each/4 naps. I tried to put her down tonight fully awake in the crib after our routine. After about 30 mins of her crying I picked her up. The only reason I picked her up is because her cry was different like an I need you i don’t feel good cry. I rocked/fed her to sleep. I was wondering if I should wait to start over? If so how long should I wait? Will it be harder to start over again or about the same? Should I keep going with it tomorrow if she seems back to normal? Or still wait a couple of days?
Hi Alexis- could use some guidance on sleep training / CIO with my 12 week old. We started on Sunday by eliminating feed and CIO with the goal of getting her to sleep through the night . She is growing well and started to get into a night time routine. We did the night time routine with my toddler being somewhat around but keeping it consistent. The first night was in a rock and play and Ben since then we moved her into a pack and play to mimic more of a crib environment. Night one was awful as expected: fell asleep crying a bit and slept until 2. Then cried every 45 mins for about 10 mins until I went to get her at 7. Then night two was better (in pack and play). She cries less like 5 mins each and a few times. Next night even better and then night 4 she was out until 5:45 am with one minor cry and Ben I was in at 7. So we felt accomplished and happy! But Jen these last two nights she went back to the beginning! Woke up st 4 and cried all night on and off and I lost track of the length. We didn’t go in. Same thing with the next night: up at 3:00 and then cried every 20-40 mins until I finally got her at 7 wailing. I have been working hard to make sure she’s eating enough in the day but I know that’s a process and will take time for her stomach to adjust. We want to be consistent so have not gone in to comfort her, but this is now a week and it feels like torture. I hope we are making the right decision to keep going? Is his an extinction burst? Why did it work so well at first?
Hi Stephanie…I would highly suggest that you take a read through Alexis’ entry about night-weaning :https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/.
just to make sure- she’s not being nursed/bottle-fed/using pacifier right before she falls asleep at bedtime (should be first step in bedtime routine).
at 12 weeks, your baby is realllyyy still little, so I don’t think she’s ready for complete night weaning and that’s why you’re having trouble in the late morning hours. even older babies have trouble going back to sleep in 4am-6am time period, and that’s why that feed is usually the one that hangs around the longest and hardest to wean. but it’s worth it if it buys everyone a few extra hours of sleep. So I would definitely suggest that if she’s waking up around 4am and not going back to sleep, offer a snooze feed.
Just ordered the book yesterday and looking forward to diving a little deeper this mysterious world of baby sleep (though it’s possible I’ve already read too many books on this topic…)! Until it arrives I would love to have a little help… our daughter is a little over 6 months old. We started Ferber-ish sleep training 4 days ago. Prior to that I was bed sharing and nursing to sleep; I would have continued happily down that path except for the past week or so she was up every 1-2 hours demanding to nurse, and I just couldn’t sustain it any longer.
Anywho, bedtime and night times are going reasonably well. No boob, no pacifier, no nothing except Ferber visits if/when screaming. I’m trying to sneak in feedings at night ~3.5 hours before she wakes up crying so I don’t compromise the sleep training but also don’t ask her to go with out food too rapidly, and plan to gradually night wean to no more than one feeding using the method described on this website.
Here’s where we are horribly stuck: naps.She’s in daycare full time during weekdays, so it’s primarily a weekend issue but also the evening after we get home around 4:30 (she goes to bed at 7).She hasn’t been stellar with naps since she was 5 weeks old. We’re lucky if we ever get a 45 minute nap out of her, and most are 25 minutes. We’re also lucky if she gets 3 of these at daycare (4 is a gold star day). We can get more naps in on weekends typically, but I was also nursing to sleep and laying with her to get her to sleep for naps at home.
We tried using the same Ferberish methodology for naps as we’re using for bedtime, and it has FAILED SO BAD. She screams full blast, and we end up getting her out after about 45 minutes of this horribleness. I don’t want to revert to my previous methods for naps and risk setting us back on the progress we’re making at night, but she needs her naps, and she is sooo overtired! I recognize going to get her after about 45 min is also potentially setting us back to some extent, but I really can’t leave her screaming so hard for so long unless I can feel more confident we can win that way in the end. I read the article about achieving better naps, but where I’m stuck is how we can just start to have hope for reasonable naps (at least as good as before or better) instead of an overtired tyrant during the day. Also, as important as consistency is, we aren’t going to be able to do sleep training at daycare to help us out; are we doomed? How can we get nap time moving in the right direction now that we’ve started down this pathway?
HELP! Day 8 of CIO and still lots of crying
Hi Alexis, firstly I LOVE you! Your blog was a life saver as a first time mother, and I credit you for why my first child is such a great sleeper – after 2 short nights of CIO, my almost 3 year old has not had any sleep problems – even travel and illness don’t faze him! My second child is a different story – we started Ferber right after she turned 4 months and are into day 8 with limited success. We removed all sleep crutches (pacifier, swing, shushing, patting, rocking – yes! She needed ALL of this) except the swaddle (we leave legs and one arm out) cause she was continuing to startle herself awake without swaddle.
• On Day 4 – she stopped crying for her naps. But at bedtime she is still crying 30-45 minutes! This is sometimes followed by her waking up after ~40 minutes and crying for another 20-30 minutes before going back to sleep. The ONLY inconsistency in her routine is that at her 1am feeding, she falls asleep while nursing, and even with me trying to burp her, swaddle her, she will not wake up before I put her back in her crib. Should I poke her awake so she is completely awake when I put her back in her crib?
• Also, it’s been hard to keep her on a schedule because of all the crying and not sleeping. If she wakes up ~1 hour earlier for her day, do I take her out and shift the whole day by an hour? Or let her cry in the crib for an additional hour and stick to original schedule?
Thank you!
Taantee
Hello,
I am at my wit’s end and need some guidance please. We are sleep training our 9 month old. We attempted sleep training at 5 months, but he never cried so we thought we were in the clear. We put him in his crib in his own room when he was 2 months old and he did great. He got sick at 7 months and we brought him into our bed at night because he would wake up from being stuffed up and we needed sleep. He got used to sleeping in our bed and we decided we needed to put a stop to it. We are on night 4 of full extinction. We started with the Ferber method, but it just riled him up even more to see us. He cried for 2.5 hours the first night. The second night he cried for an hour. Last night he cried for 45 minutes. Tonight it’s going on a half hour already. We do a bottle, bath, story, lullaby, then kisses goodnight and see you in the morning. He wakes up happy, but I’m worried he is crying for too long. I’ve been reading examples where baby cries for an hour the first night, maybe 20 minutes the second night, and only a few minutes the third night. Is my baby crying for too long? We have committed to this, but it is excruciating. Thanks for any input you may have!
Hi there,
We are sleep training my 1 yr old daughter. Night #1 went amazingly well and we thought we are the luckiest parent inthe world. I didn’t nurse her into sleep for the first time and she only woke up three times and back to sleep after 5 min crying. Night #2 was awefull!!! She went to bed and woke up at 11:20 cried for 10 mins and got up again at 1:33 am and cried for 2 hours!!!! We walked her sang a song, told stories none worked! Suddenly she fell asleep in my arms. But only for 1 hour! Woke up again cried a bit and fell sleep. But again she got up at 5:30 and I had to nurse to sleep her! I was exhausted she was tired and I thought that’s the only way to help her. Could you please give me some tips and let me know if I ruined everything?!
Hey I’m in real need of help/advise! I have a 5 month old baby who only sleeps in carrier for all his naps and with me in bed all night long. And it’s getting worse I used to be able to throw him in and do jobs talk to people etc. I now have to put him in and a nursing cover over and stay in a dark room with minimal noise and shh and walk for majority of the nap to help threw light sleeps and transitioning threw sleep cycles. It’s getting ridiculous and I’m going back to work in a few weeks and nobody is going to be able to do what I do to help him sleep. I started a consistent nap routine 7 weeks ago to give him plenty of time to self sooth or learn to sleep on his own. We close curtain, turn on noise machine, read a story and nurse then burp and cuddle and into coside sleeper. We started just leaving him until he cries then into carrier to make sure he got a proper sleep. Then left him for up to half hour unless he was crying very bad and always resort to carrier. He has only fallen asleep in there less than 10 times for no longer than 15 minutes when he wakes up screaming. I have read everything about baby sleep I feel my head is going to explore. Seen then that you should start with nights bc it’s easier for them. As where I didn’t mind being a slave to him at night I thought we needed to sort out naps first simce I won’t be here for him soon. So we switched to nights with same approach have had a consistent bedtime room for months but I normally lie down with him breastfeeding to get him to sleep and I can’t leave. He normally wakes up after 25 minutes and need boob back in and then cooks for a few hours 3.5 hours tops of I’m lucky. Then up every one or 2 hours sometimes more frequently to hsve a suckle and fall back asleep. I used to get up everytime he woke and try to feed him but he would be more upset and only drink for a few minutes and fall asleep in my arms. So now we just lie side by side all night long with the boob in his mouth so I can get some sort of sleep. I wake up in agony many times a night from being sore and needing to use the loo but I’m afraid to wake him. I’d say he only needs 1 or 2 night feeds now by the amount his drinks on each awakening. So anyways 2 nights ago we did first cry it out. We checked on him every 5 minutes. Tried just kissing and leaving room again but he qas hysterical. So had to oick up and put back down. Eventually after a half hour he feel asleep for 35 minutes which is the longest he ever did in there. He was screaming so I had to pick him up and put back down. Then I thought he did a poo from all the screaming so I had to change him and he was actually fine. Put him back in more screaming so eventually hsf to nurse him but nothing else was calming him. Fell asleep after 1 minute. Put back in crib same thing. I just held hid hand and for the next 2 hours he was in and out of sleep crying. When eventually I had to bring him into bed to feed to sleep. Keep in mind now he is only 2 inches away from where he normally sleeps. So was total distaster I gave into him too much. So tried again last night. Checked on him 2 twice but was only making him worse. So left him. Seemed like he was gunna fall asleep but then he jist started screaming louder and louder. After 45 minutes I had to go in and nurse him to comfort twice. Both times he conked nearly straight away and I put back into crib. I tried holding his hand then bc I knew he was tired and didn’t need to ear bit he jist didn’t fall asleep like the night before or stop crying. He had been at it and hour and 35 minutes when I gave in and feed him to sleep. He was crying so hard both nights that he was panting for breath even when being nursed trying to regulate his breathing. I’m at my wits end we don’t hsve time for a more gentle approach I just don’t know what to do. He needs to learn to sleep on his own asap. Thank you in advance. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
We’re on night 5 of CIO with my 15 month old son. I have been nursing him 2-4 times a night since day dot but the last couple of months I’ve found he wasn’t happily going back to sleep after putting him back down, as I think I basically became a human dummy and once my boob was out of his mouth he’d start screaming. Very hysterically. It caused all sorts of tension between my husband and I, and led us to try all sorts of ways – bottles of formula, bringing in to bed, panadol – must be teething?, back on the boob again, rocked by Dad etc etc that it was so confusing for all of us. I dreaded going to bed for fear of what was to come. Anyway, so it all reached a head and CIO seemed Iike the only option.
Day 1 45 mins and 2-3 hours of crying throughout the night. I refused to get out of bed – for the first time in 15 months. It was hard but I knew my presence would only make matters worse. The kid woke up super happy and gave me the best hug ever. I saw a light at the end of what has been a very long, very dark tunnel.
Day 2 25 mins and periods of grumbles/crying throughout the night. Again I didn’t leave my bed all night. It was the simplest way for me to be consistently non interfering.
Day 3 10 mins and a few grumbles. I got up with my husband and made coffee while my child continued to sleep for another 45 mins- this had never happened!! Again he woke up happy and smiling – which definitely helped with persevering with what we’ve been doing.
Day 4 5 mins. I am gobsmacked that i have slept the night through too. THERE IS A GOD!
Day 5 26 mins. This is where I am now. I’ve been expecting a bit of a relapse. His crying tonight seemed a bit more hysterical that the last few nights Andrew I found it quite hard sitting there listening to him but knew if I went in – all that work will be lost.
I’m intrigued to see how the next couple of weeks will pan out but for my son and myself CIO, so far, has been life altering. Last week I couldn’t have even dreamed that there would come a time I wouldn’t be creeping out of his room after BFIng for the fourth time that night and have a floorboard creak that would set him off all over again and the feeling a dispair and sheer exhaustion of not knowing what to do.
Oh the joy of a good nights sleep.
Help! I am sleeping training my 15 month old using full extinction. While I hate to see him cry, I felt it was a necessary evil so we are pushing through and now on night 9. He generally cries no more than 20ish minutes once I leave the room but what kills me is that he anticipates bed time and bring left alone that he starts crying around his bedtime even when we haven’t started his bedtime routine. This started happening on the third night and ever since. No matter what I try to distract him with, he continues to cry in anticipation so it’s gotten to a point where we don’t even read a book to sleep. It’s just brush teeth, diaper change, put on pajamas and straight to bed.. so that we minimize his crying. I’ve searched eveywhere for answers to this.. why is this happening and when can I expect this to subside? It feels like he’s almost too smart for sleep training at this point.
He IS smart, in that he knows that bedtime means separating from his favorite person and he’s not excited about that. But, the fact that protesting isn’t terribly long is positive. You could try pushing bedtime back ~10-15 minutes, see if it shortens the duration of crying at all. Sometimes that protesting is exacerbated because kiddo isn’t quite ready to sleep yet. Most kids go through phases of not wanting the fun to end – my youngest protested bedtime a lot around that age, even though he’d happily been falling asleep independently since 3 mos.
Hello,
We’re in the midst of sleep training a tricky 5 month old using CIO as any soothing makes it worse. We had some good success on nights 3 and 4 but after that it’s all gone wrong!! He wakes up loads in the night and just won’t stop crying. He cries so long it gets to the time for the next feed so a couple of hours of crying ends in a feed but I can usually avoid feeding to sleep and put him down awake after a feed. At the start of the night he settles himself from fully awake with either no or minimal crying.
Also naps are a disaster. He settles himself but only sleeps for 20 to 30 mins.
How do we tackle resettling? How long should we leave him as we go leave him for hours surely? We’re not ready to drop night feeds yet until he’s weaned.
Thanks!
Laura
Hi! What is your bedtime routine exactly? When is bedtime and when is his last nap of the day?
Hello thanks for replying
Bedtime is bath at 6.15, little massage at 6.30, breastfeed, story then bed. Usually asleep around 7.
Last nap is 4pm for 30 mins (or 4.15 for 15 mins if he’s not mega tired)
Thanks
Laura
Hi Sam
Thanks for replying. Bedtime is bath at 6.15, little massage at 6.30, breastfeed then story and bed. Usually asleep by 7.
Last nap is 4pm for 30 mins or 4.15 for 15 mins if he’s not mega tired.
Thanks
Laura
He may still have a nurse to sleep association since you nurse him pretty close to bedtime. I would suggest changing the routine so nurse/bottle (I only suggest bottle at bedtime because you can be reassured that he has a full tummy), then bath, massage, story and bed. There should be a significant gap between nursing/feeding and actual bedtime/sleep. Good luck!
Ok great thanks will give that a go! Fingers crossed
Hi Alexis, great stuff. I loved all the articles. I have read so much about CIO and watched videos. But strangely my 9mo has an interesting take on it. Upon leaving him to fall asleep, he plays around in his crib. I tried so many times, but he wont sleep at all. I waited for 1-2 hrs then i usually give up thinking that he is gonna get less sleep for no reasons.
HI Alexis,
We are on night 7 of CIO (full extinction method as Ferber checks seemed to only make things worse) with our 4 month old now and I’m worried that things are not getting better – would appreciate your advice on if we should give up, persist and how best manage his night feedings.
He has never had a period of good sleep despite our best efforts. Not hard to put down but CONSTANT night wakings every 1 one or 2 hours since birth. I am losing my mind and on the verge of returning to work which will not be possible unless we can improve things. Its been 4 months of this!
Prior to sleep training, he did not need to be fed or rocked at each awakening to go back to sleep. He would settle easily with some shushing, patting and his pacifier unless it was one of his two night feedings. He had weaned himself to one dream feed and one night feed around 3am at 3 months (would get upset or eat very little if offered more often).
He sleeps in his own crib in a Merlin Sleep Suit.
We have had a consistent bedtime routine since 2months old (bath, breastfeed, book, bed at 7:30) and it has paid off as he always falls asleep independently from wide awake at bedtime and for naps within a few minutes.
We started CIO sleep training last week and got rid of his pacifier. First two nights were hard – with two night wakening periods of 45min to 1h of crying. Fourth night was the best, he still awoke like clockwork at 9:30pm, 1:30am, 2:30am, and 4:30am but settled in under 5 minutes. However, since then things seem to be worse again – he cried on/off for over an hour at 1:30 last night and seemed truly upset. We waited it out and he did fall asleep on his own eventually.
I have kept is previous night feeding schedule (moving up one night feed to 2:30 so to stay ahead of his hunger) and always make sure that he is settled and asleep before going in to feed him (a true dream feed) so that I am not creating a new crying-feeding-sleep association.
My question is: its now night 7 and things are not looking much better, he is still waking and still crying – do we stop CIO? Is he too young for this? Are we doing something wrong? or does he simply need more time to learn? Should I change up the way I am night nursing him? Should I be feeding him at the 1:30 long wake up or continue as we are doing with only feeding once he settles himself?
It is torture listening to him cry not knowing if I am doing the right thing, but it is also torture to not sleep for months and it is interfering with my ability to bond with him. I am lost…
Hello,
Thank you for your useful post. I have a question. We’ve been training dd at night time using cio. But when at nap time, do we use it also? What if we use cio at bedtime and diffwrent metjod at nap time? Will it ruin the cio at night time?
Thank you
Hello,
I don’t know if anyone has been reiewing these posts lately but can’t hurt ask my question!
My son is 11 months old. We have been really horrible with sleep training. Tried here and there at 5 and 8 months then resigned ourselves to bringing him to bed. He now has no clue how to self soother. Either needs to hold our hand to fall asleep or needs to be in bed with us. Started CIO yesterday. He fell asleep right away in his crib and slept 7:30-9:30. Cried 9:30-9:40 but then back asleep until 10:30. He then sat up and cried/slept sitting up until 12:45am. At that time he just threw up out of no where. He wasn’t screaming just whining a little every time he kind of started to tip over and that woke him up. We changed him and his sheets and put him back down, no talking or interaction beyond that. He cried and sat back up but then did the same nodding off while sitting 1-2am. Then he threw up again! Changed him and his sheets and I gave in and sat next to his crib and held his had. He slept 2-3 and woke up again where I gave up and brought him to bed. Going to try again tonight. My question is – is the throwing up a bad sign? And is it bad to let your baby sleep sitting up? Laying him down wakes him up and he sits up again anyways and cries again. Also – we are trying the same method during naps. He has been crying for 3.5 hours at this point with a few short nodding off while sitting up. How long is it too long to let him cry?
Your book is our baby sleep bible. We consult it near-daily, it has been a life saver! We have been doing extinction with our 5 month old for two weeks. He cries himself to sleep for 15 minutes every night at bedtime and periodically will cry for up to 30 minutes somewhere around 2 am. We have a super consistent bedtime routine of bath-eat-jammies-book-bed. Every night, without fail, he starts to cry as soon as he hits the crib and cries for 15 minutes. I know you say in this post that 15 minutes is success, but it feels like 15 minutes of unadulterated hell every night. We are pretty sure that the mid-night wake-ups are related to eating – we used to feed him at around that time. Do you have any advice for us?
I have never left a comment on a website, but here we go as it seems you actually answer and we are desperate! Our little one is a week from 12 months and we started the ferber method 9 days ago to stop a 4:30 wake that has been happening for two months. The first couple of nights she cried a good while but quickly caught on and now she fusses when I leave the room but is out within a minute or two. Before sleep training we had been kind-of inconsistent with how we got her to sleep ie. we would sometimes pat, stay in the room, co-sleep, etc. However, we did follow a consistent schedule with set times for naps and bedtime. We were finally getting into a good place with naps (1 hour in the morning, and about the same in the afternoon) but since sleep training her naps have become absolute rubbish, around 20-30 min in the morning and about the same in the afternoon. I leave her to cry in the afternoon so that she will sleep longer, and she will eventually fall asleep but wakes up again crying hard after 10 minutes. She is also still waking at 4:30, which was the whole reason we decided to sleep train!! At that time, I leave her to cry and still follow the ferber schedule for check-ups, but she just does not go back to sleep and is upset and crying. After 1.5 hours of her crying, getting quiet, crying, getting quiet…I finally get her up at 6, no wakes or feeds at night besides this. We still follow set nap times but sometimes move bedtime up a half hour when her naps are so poor to prevent overtiredness. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?! Should we sooth her a bit for naps to prevent overtiredness? She has been waking at 4:30 for so long no matter when we put her down, and even when she was having good naps. We have experimented with temperature, hunger, etc…quite sure its not that. What should we do?!
So honestly it could be LOADS of things and depends heavily on how and when she falls asleep. Ferber is about fostering independent sleep at bedtime more so than resolving early morning wakings so I’m not sure if you’re using the right tool for the job. Sorry would need more history/details to answer better. Honestly your best bet is to check out my book and join the free group to get troubleshooting help.