Additionally I no longer use the term “CIO” for a variety of reasons. I would strip it’s use from my website but I can’t. Most people find my site through Google and the term they are often searching for is “how to Cry it Out”. So I will leave it here, largely unchanged, for that reason. Thanks for understanding.
Well little baby, here we are. Mommy and Daddy have read every book, tried every technique, bought every sleep aid they could find. The months have slogged by and nobody is sleeping. Daddy is staring stoically out the window. Mommy is curled up on the couch wearing coffee-stained yoga pants and feeling like a giant failure. Everybody feels cranky and sad. And defeated. And the only way out of this pitt of sleep deprivation is to let you cry. They adore you beyond words, but baby, this is happening. It’s going to suck for a few days. But it really is for the best.
If you’ve come to the conclusion that cry it out is the answer this is a great overview.
1) To break out of the desperate pattern of bedtime battles and frequent night wakings and get everybody sleeping a civilized amount during the night.
2) To achieve goal #1 with the minimal amount of crying.
The best way to meet your CIO goals is to embrace the 14 point CIO plan I’ve put together here.
How to do Cry it Out?
1) Buy a night vision monitor.
They’re expensive and not particularly reliable (you may have to buy a new one for each new baby). But I think it’s a worthy investment for piece of mind and would recommend purchasing one prior to CIO. It will give you a safe window onto your baby all night long.
2) Make naps happen
You want your baby well rested going into bedtime because tired babies sleep poorly. So you’re investing in day sleep to help minimize the amount of bedtime crying. Does your baby take great naps in the car? In your lap? While co-sleeping? Great! For the next few days do what you need to to get those naps to happen. By any means necessary.
3) Avoid cat naps.
Your goal is longer naps. So don’t drive to the grocery store at naptime because that 5-minute car nap is working against step #2 (above). For the next few days you are going to be the Nap Master, to the exclusion of all else.
4) Use a solid bedtime routine.
What is a SOLID bedtime routine?
- Takes 20-30 minutes to complete.
- Involves decreasing levels of activity and light. (No TV time, no dance parties, activities should be moving towards the bedroom).
- Everybody should enjoy the activities.
- Final activities take place in the location your child will be sleeping.
- Ends BEFORE baby is asleep!
What are you trying to wean your baby off of? Rocking to sleep, co-sleeping, nursing to sleep, pacifier, etc? Whatever it is DO NOT include this as part of your bedtime routine! If it must be part of the routine (ex. food) then make sure there is at least a 20 minute gap between baby’s last meal and bedtime.
Sample Bedtime Routine – Bottle/Boob, Bath (no soap), Massage, Jammies, Book, Song, Bed.
5) Ensure that baby’s sleep location is ABSOLUTELY safe.
Dangling cords within reach of the crib? Unprotected outlets? The crib should be clear of any possible entrapment hazards (no stuffed animals, blankets or pillows!). The only thing in there, other than your baby, is potentially a small lovey. If your child is old enough enough to be out of a crib, put on your anal retentive hat and look at your child’s room. Does the furniture present tipover hazards? Are there toys which could break into sharp pieces? Choking hazards?
Special Case: What about Co-Sleeping?
Yes you can use CIO for a co-sleeping baby if you intend to continue co-sleeping. Most often this is used in the case where Mom wants to stop being used as a human pacifier but is happy to continue co-sleeping. This can be done but it’s challenging. You can’t leave an angry crying baby alone in an adult bed. Even if that “bed” is nothing more than a mattress on the floor. It is simply not safe and shouldn’t be done under ANY circumstance. So, where does that leave you?
If this is your goal, it leaves you IN the room with your angry crying baby. I realize this may sound like I’m joking but I assure you, I’m not. You put your child on your bed, preferably between you and the wall. Then you lie down on the bed facing away from your child. Then you bite your knuckles hard enough to keep from flipping over and nursing your crying child to sleep.
6) Use your words.
Your baby’s receptive language develops far earlier than their expressive language. This means they understand what you are saying long before they can speak themselves. “It’s time for you to sleep buddy. Mommy and Daddy love you. We’re right next door. We’ll see you with big hugs and kisses in the morning. But for now we’re going to leave so your body can get the sleep it needs to be strong and healthy. I love you little baby!” Use the same words every night as part of your bedtime routine.
7) Give baby as much soothing as possible!
For older babies (6+ months) your options are generally limited to loud white noise, block out blinds, and a small lovey. It’s sometimes helpful to have Mom stuff the lovey in her bra and wear it there all day so that it smells like Mom. If your baby is still swaddled that is also really helpful. DON’T use any sleep aids which will feed into your object permanence problem. So pacifiers, timed music, etc. are all forboden.
8) Leave the room.
There are some books that suggest that it is more gentle to stay in the room so that your loving presence can help provide helpful soothing. In my experience staying in the room has the opposite effect, making your baby more upset, “WHY AREN’T YOU PICKING ME UP! HELLO?!? I can SEE you sitting RIGHT THERE!” It also has the unintended consequence of potentially creating a new object permanence problem for you in that they will expect to see you sitting there when they wake up throughout the night. For these two reasons I suggest that once you put your baby down, you get out.
9) Mom or primary care giver should leave the house.
Decide which parent (if there are 2) is the most likely to turn into emotional jelly at the sound of their baby crying (generally this is Mom). The emotional jelly parent should get out of the house and leave things to their more stalwart counterpart. Lots of parents feel that they need to sit in the hallway, curled into a fetal position, crying tear-for-tear with their baby as some sort of penance for their failure to teach baby to fall asleep. Crying in the hallway serves no purpose other than to make you miserable. Worse, it creates the opportunity for the dark strains of guilt to muddle your thinking. “I feel horrible! Maybe I’ll just nurse him to sleep one last time?” Backsliding won’t solve any problems and even worse, guarantees you even more crying in the future. A good way to avoid backsliding is to simply leave it to your partner and get out.
10) Commit to Check and Console or Full Extinction.
Personally I recommend the Full Extinction or Weissbluth method. However as I was unable to find any research that backed up my theory that this method results in less crying, you’re welcome to consider both and determine which works best for you.
11) Cry it out does not mean night weaning.
IF your baby has been eating/nursing at night then you will need to feed/nurse your baby when they wake up. CIO is not a good way to cut out night feedings as hungry babies will cry A TON. If your baby had been eating at predictable times then feed your baby when they “regularly” would be eating. If your baby wakes up crying at a time other than when they would regularly eat, then I recommend you don’t go to them.
If your baby was previously sleeping glued to your boob (don’t laugh, this is a REALLY common problem) then sorting out what is a cry for attention vs. a cry for food will be challenging. You’ll need to listen to your baby and your gut and make the best determination you can. I would suggest you try to space out the feedings as best as you can. For example if you nursed your baby at 6:30 PM then I would be reluctant to offer more food before, say, 11:00 PM. If you nursed again at 11:00 PM, then potentially the next feeding could reasonably be expected to happen at 3:00 AM. However these are not hard and fast rules, listen to your gut. It’s almost always giving you good advice.
12) Put baby back down awake. Or don’t.
In my experience the key with sleep training is to put baby down awake at BEDTIME. If you feed your baby during the night AFTER that point, it is generally OK if they fall asleep in your arms and then go back into their bed. I have not found that it is critical to wake baby up enough to “put baby down awake” at 2:00 AM. However if they do not organically fall asleep during the feeding I would not encourage you to rock them to sleep in your arms intentionally and THEN put them down asleep.
13) When baby wakes up early?
CIO is very effective at bedtime because there are a number of biological factors that make it very difficult for your child to stay awake at that time. However if your baby wakes up very early in the morning (4:00 AM or 5:00 AM) letting them cry will almost never result in them falling back to sleep. If your baby wakes up very early and doesn’t seem to be falling back to sleep (it’s been longer than ~20 minutes) then it’s morning time for you. This is horrible but generally temporary. You may want to consider offering baby a quick snack, putting baby in the swing, or bringing baby back into your bed. Sometimes these options will buy everybody a few more hours or sleep. But crying is unlikely to do anything productive.
14)
If you’ve started down this path then in almost all cases the worst thing you can do is to cave in halfway through. Night #1 will be stressful for everybody. But what happens if you go to your baby to rock/nurse them after 45 minutes of crying? You’ve failed to let them figure out how to fall asleep without rocking or nursing. But you have taught them that if they cry for 45 minutes, you will come and rock or nurse the to sleep. Which means that the next time you have a go at cry it out (and trust me, there is ALMOST ALWAYS a next time) it will be longer and rougher than it is right now.
The truth is that there are a thousand frequently asked questions about CIO but I’ve narrowed it down to a few hot button questions which I’ve answered below:
Cry it Out FAQ
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How long will the crying last?
I suppose “it depends” is not a particularly useful answer. If you follow all my advice then you’ll generally find that kids will cry ~1 hour at bedtime on night #1, ~20 minutes on night #2, and 10 minutes on night #3. They may continue to grumble at bedtime going forward but it will generally be only for a few minutes. Some babies will only cry at bedtime. Some will wake up periodically and cry for 20-30 minutes throughout the night. As long as you aren’t trying to night wean via CIO, the middle-of-the-night crying generally stops after night #1.
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When will I be able to put my smiling baby down for sleep at bedtime?
When do you smile when scrubbing toilets? Never? Well there’s your answer. Most kids will not enjoy bedtime until they are old enough to have their OWN kids at which point it will quickly become the favorite part of their day.
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Am I a bad parent?
I don’t know, are you? I don’t believe that CIO makes you a bad parent. I do believe that you have tried everything you can to avoid letting your baby cry. And that nothing worked. And nobody is sleeping. I also believe that your whole family will be happier and healthier when you are all able to get the sleep you need at night. Cry it out is a bummer and nobody likes to do it. But 3 nights of unhappy baby are a worthy tradeoff.
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Can I use CIO for naps too?
That is a whole separate topic which I’ll write about in the future. I don’t recommend tackling naps until AFTER night sleep is well established. So for now, focus on getting night sleep sorted out and let things settle into a positive and predictable sleep routine before you start mucking about with naps.
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Won’t they get confused if I keep (rocking, nursing, pacifier) for naps but not bedtime?
Different parts of the brain regulate day vs. night sleep so you aren’t mucking things up by rocking to sleep at naptime then using CIO at bedtime. Many people feel they need to tackle the whole day at once but I don’t recommend it. Sorting out naps tends to take a while and involve quite a bit of crying and not napping. Babies who don’t nap become overtired. Overtired babies cry at bedtime. A lot. So with the goal of minimizing crying you would work on having GREAT naps (by any means necessary) so your baby is well-rested coming into CIO bedtime. Once night sleep is well established sorting out naps becomes easier (because well-rested babies sleep better), which is why I recommend focusing on night sleep FIRST before moving on to nap battles.
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If I can’t use CIO to night wean, how DO I get out of night feedings?
Once you are done with crying at bedtime and things have become a bit more predictable, you can use these gentle night weaning techniques to gradually get out of night feedings. The bad news is that depending on the age of your child and the # of feedings this may take 1-3 weeks. The good news is that it’s surprisingly effective and tear-free.
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What if my baby throws up?
Some kids can get themselves so worked up they throw up. It sucks when this happens. You’ll need to quietly go to them, clean them up and get them fresh jammies/bedding, ideally with as little light and fuss as is possible. Put them back in their bed, use your words, and leave.
Anybody have any experience they would like to share? Words of wisdom, kind advice, and lessons learned are very welcome!
So, stubbornness runs in the family. My 1.5 year old daughter has started to sleep standing up. So here’s the rub, If I go in my room (we have a tiny two bedroom apartment, one room for my two older daughters, one for adults and baby) for any reason, she pops her head back up and angry screams for an hour. If I lay her down, she uses baby jiu jitsu and stands back up and eventually rests her head on her hands and sleeps standing up. I’d like to sleep in my own bed. Anyone else? The crying is bad enough, but seriously. Sleep standing?! What the actual f!
We’re on day 8. Baby has slept through every single night since day 1, but cries from 15-35 minutes before falling asleep every night. This doesn’t feel good enough to me. I could use any advice, encouragement, or stories of it getting better. Thanks so much!
Hey Emily, I would say if it’s taking over thirty minutes you may choose to move bedtime slightly later until the crying time shortens. My son was similar so I feel your pain. He is now 2.5 and sleeps 11-13 hours: 10-11 overnight and 1-2 during the day. No drama anymore. It will work, hang in there.
My 4 month old baby has a pacifier sleep prop. She has to have it to go to sleep. It was fine, but now she keeps pulling it out of her mouth and cries immediately and will do this repeatedly. Also if she wakes up in the night or early in the morning it has to be reinserted for her to fall asleep. I like like to try cio (it’s been taking 1 hour- 1.5 hours to get her to bed having to reinsert the Paci) should I wean the pacifier in some way or just take it away completely and go full cio? Should I expect longer cry times since she already has a strong established sleep prop? She is used to going 12 hours every night between feedings but the sleep in between has been the struggle.
This is my problem as well! Do we remove the pacifier before crying it out or do it at the same time?
Emily, We are on night 6 and my baby is still crying 20-30 minutes. Did your baby eventually stop? How many nights did it take you?
Honestly, we quit. We’re co-sleeping now and while it’s a bit more work intensive than the promise of sleep training, the two weeks I spent listening to my baby cry his heart out for 20-40 min per night really made me come to terms with who I want to be as a mom. This babyhood is fleeting. No one knows what effect this is having on the babys’ psyches. There’s research on both sides and none is based on what babies said because they can’t. I decided to err on the side of too much closeness.
I’m glad you found a solution that works for you. But I need to address some issues here:
– If there is a persistent struggle to fall asleep at bedtime you almost certainly have a scheduling issue that can be identified and resolved
– if anybody is reading this and is struggling with similar issues my strong advice is to read the book which goes into sleep training, schedules, etc. in far greater depth. Check the troubleshooting chapters and join the FB group.
– we DO know what effect this is having on our children psyches and the answer is “absolutely none.” There is no bothsiderism here – the evidence is clear.
– cosleeping is not an appropriate or safe solution for all people, nor does it solve all sleep woes. Calling it “work intensive” is generally code for “we all wake up multiple times a night”
– uninterrupted sleep is a basic biological need for us and our children. It ranks right up there with water and clean air. As a culture we’ve convinced ourselves that this is untrue but again, the evidence is clear. It is reasonable for all of us to seek uninterrupted sleep for ourselves and our children as a foundation for good health.
I have used all of this advice and it has worked to a T! At 3 months, it took 3 nights of CIO to get him sleep trained, and now at 13 months he has regressed. I am on night 2 of cio at this age and hopefully it works again. But I am all for CIO because as soon as he was sleep trained, I felt like myself again! This advice is perfect to mommies who are new to CIO. And I swear the “walking out of the room” bit is key! After he’s had a belly full of dinner, we do a bath, he has a sippy if warm milk, then I take him to his bed. We have a floor bed (transitioned from the crib a month ago) and I sit on the bed with him and sing to him while he snuggles his blankie. When I am done (he is usually fussy bc I am sitting and not standing while holding him lol) I lay him down with his blankie and he kicks and screams. I kiss him and tell him goodnight as loving as possible then walk out with no eye contact after I leave the bed. I have his tv going (I know, I know,…bad mom) but when it catches his attention, he slows the crying and focuses on that. After 5-10 minutes, he is quiet and sucking his thumb. He finally goes to sleep. If he, for some reason, crawls to a toy (I keep very few simple toys available to him in his room so that he can’t get too distracted) he will become bored of the toy and crawl back into bed. I love that he has the freedom of moving around his room and he will crawl back into his bed when he is ready to sleep!
I got off topic, but as a whole-this article is perfect and following these steps are key to a successful sleep trained baby! Grab a glass of wine (or whatever you like) and sit in your recliner with the monitor until your baby is sleeping! Don’t beat yourself up over him crying to sleep because he will get a much better nights sleep and will learn that when you do this night routine then it is time for bed , and you can give him all of your love and affection during the day!
Hi,
We just finished night 2 and have a couple questions. Both nights we have had several wake ups and periods of 3 hours of crying. Is this ok?
Also, since he is up for so long he wants to sleep late. The first night we woke him at 6:30 (to keep him “on schedule” and this morning we let him sleep until 8:30 (so he and we could get some much needed sleep as well). Any thoughts?
I have a similar story with my 15 month old. Be interested to know any advice on this as well.
Hi,
This is night 1 for us. My 9 months old wakes up after 30 mins and goes back to crying for 1hr. Is it ok? Someone experienced this?
Be curious to know how this worked out for you. We just had night one and it was 2.5 hours until our 5 month old feel asleep, and by then it was past 10pm. She slept in today until about 8:30a, so wondering if we should still try putting her to bed at 7:30p (usual time), or if this will just upset her (lead to more crying) and instead move bedtime back a bit. Also very envious of the people who say their babies only cried for 40 minutes the first night!
Hi, my 12 month old has no problem going to sleep but wakes every night at 3-4am, he can’t self settle at this time but he can any other time. The only thing that will settle him is some milk! I’ve tried offering him water which he will drink but once you put him back down, he screams the place down! But when milk is offered he will sleep for a further 2 hours.
Any advice?
Can I start using this for naps too? We have been doing the cio for over a week now and wanted to get a better nap schedule as my 6 month old doesn’t nap more then 2 hours during the day. Just wondering when I can start doing this for naps as well?
My 16 month old daughter keeps waking up around 5:15/5:30. When does this usually stop? 18 mo or 2 yrs possibly? I just want her to sleep 30-45 more minutes.
Is 12 weeks old too early to try CIO? We seem to have hit some sort of sleep regression following a cold where my girl wakes up at least once in the night and wants to be held so she can go back to sleep. She has developed the habit of falling asleep on my shoulder after her last feed as I hold her up to help avoid any issues with her reflux. I’ve been trying to change our bedtime routine around so that she has her last bottle before her bath but that’s proving difficult to implement. She’s been sleeping 10-11 hours at night with no wakings or feedings since she was 8 weeks old and started daycare. She doesn’t nap well at daycare yet so I don’t know if a CIO type of training will work for her yet.
I have a 7 month old. He had pretty bad reflux and had colic therefore there was very little routine until after 12 weeks when the colic had gone. He still woke twice in the night and was rocked/fed/white noise or shushed to sleep until around 5 months. My advise to you is 12 weeks is too early to be expecting anything more than what you have and it sounds like shes doing really well. We are now at the point where he sleeps 11 hours at night, naps twice a day and can be put down drowsy. They go through so many sleep changes it’s amazing! X
I want to start this but my baby poops A LOT in the middle of the night. How do I work with that? He poops a lot during the day as well (usually once per feed, sometimes more) so it’s not an issue of trying to get it all out during the day.
We are really struggling with wake ups but my children share a room are there any recommendations on how to help the younger child go back to sleep by herself with the older child in Tempe room
My 22 month old co-sleeps with me, and falls asleep only while nursing. I am desperate to get him to sleep in his own bed and fall asleep on his own, as I know it’s not good for him or me to continue this way. He has a consistent bedtime routine, and has a good 1.5-2 hour nap each day. Is sleep training (with the extinction method) an older child any different/harder? Any advice or reassurance would be greatly appreciated.
We just started sleep training or 4.5 month old. My question: if he wakes up at a time that he doesn’t typically eat but then cries until beyond when he normally would (woke up at 10:30pm, is still crying after 11:30 and he normally wakes to eat around 11:30-midnight), should I go in to feed him? I did that tonight, but I’m not sure if we should be trying to wait it out… My concern is that he’s getting hungrier and hungrier as he cries, and will then not go to sleep.
Please help!
Thank you
Hi I’ve been doing cio for 15 nights and still no joy my daughter is 13 months, was a brilliant sleeper until ill about 6/7 months when I started her on solids, then would wake every hour in the end 2 months ago we discovered she is allergic to dairy and so was uncomfortable, felt sick and in pain so once we had this sorted I thought the sleeping would be better but it isn’t and I’m not sure how much of it is habit? I am on night 15 and still she is crying for over an hour the most I could stand was an hour and 10 so I end up going in and laying her down leaving my hand on her and just standing there untill she goes to sleep and repeating this at least 8 times a night? She has two naps one at 10.30 for an hour and a half and one at 3.30 for an hour and a half, at bedtime I give her a bath, bring her in the frontroom give her a bottle, take her into her room read her a story in my arms which I hardly ever get to finish because she is falling asleep so I lay her down and the screaming begins?? I’m sure I’m doing something wrong but I really don’t no what? Any help would be greatly appreciated??!
So I was wondering, if when using the ferber method, if my child stops crying, but is just sitting or standing on crib after the timer is up, do I than wait to go in until he cries again or still go in at the set increments?
I have a question about your early waking CIO thoughts– If they wake up early, why wouldn’t you let them CIO until they fall back asleep until their daily wake time? If you get them up early, isn’t that just reinforcing an early wake time? Or are you recommending that you get them up but not feed them until the same time daily, etc? Thanks!!
Question! We’ve implemented extinction CIO, worked amazingly fast (on day7)for bedtime and naps! We have no crying for naps or bedtime, however consistently, 1 hour after she goes down for the night, she whines, cries, complains moves around on and off for up to an hour. We watch her in the monitor, head goes down and 5 minutes later she cries out again. Anyone else experience this? What is going on and how can I help this situation?
I need advice. My LG has been sleep trained since 12 months but for about a week now she’s started waking in the night at about 10:30/11:00. She’s now 23 months and will stand up in her cot and scream blue murder. I have been going in and cuddling her until she’s dozing off and putting her back in her cot but this now doesn’t work. The second I put her down she gets back up and starts screaming again! Last night it took 2 hours of cuddling, putting her down, over and over. It was dreadful. What should I do? Full extinction like the first time we sleep trained? Even though she now stands up (and often vomits from crying)? HELP