sleep training/overtired (long)

[lizajane]

so i thought we needed to sleep train, so we started 2 days ago. and he cried for 10 minutes for 2 naps. i helped him find his thumb and he went to sleep. today, i watched really carefully for when he got tired, and he went down with just 2 min. of rocking and right to sleep. now, i ran an errand (stupid stupid kinkos) and got home at the 1 hr and 30 minute mark (since last waking.) well he got tired in the car and started to fuss. i have spent 30 minutes trying to get him down and now he is just plain screaming in his bed because i got so frustrated and had to eat a bowl of cereal before i got sick from being so hungry.

i feel like i can't make him cry when he is overtired because it is my fault that he wasn't in his bed at the right time. but am i defeating the purpose if i rock and nurse and rock and nurse and pick him up and pick him up? am i "ruining" the sleep training idea if i make an "overtired exception?" i have to go get him, i just don't think it is fair to make him cry when overtired??

thoughts?? help??? THANKS!

[cchavez]

We haven't sleep trained yet...but I feel for you. It is hard running errands when you are adhering to a nap schedule. I probably would rock him to sleep don't know????

[cchavez]

BTW, have you sleep trained nites already? Are you doing naps first? or both at the same time? I am not sure if I want to do naps first b/c he doens't really have a consistent schedule....maybe if you tackle nites first and then do naps later....

feel free to email me if you need support.

[Momof3Labs]

Personally, I think that 4.5 months is too young to CIO. I am not anti-CIO, but we didn't do it until about 8 months, and I wouldn't do it much earlier than that next time. I would get Colin to sleep however I could (nursing always worked well for us) and worry about keeping him from getting overtired for the next nap.

[emilyf]

I did let Charlie cio very occasionally starting at around 4 mos. Only when I was very sure he was tired. It was important to me that he learn how to go to sleep independently (it isn't for everyone) but I absolutely made all kinds of exceptions depending on how things were going. I was still rocking him to sleep and nursing him to sleep quite often at that age. I didn't let him cry more than 10/15 mins at a time. I remember well trying to get that routine started and it was hard but so so worth it. My advice is to try and be consistent, but take it a day at a time and trust your own instincts!
Emily
mom of Charlie born 11/02

[713abc]

When DS was about 2 months (a few weeks ago) we started letting him CIO for a few minutes and it has worked great b/c he only cries for about 5-8 minutes b/f he passes out. If he is extra fussy and cries longer than that we pick him up and sooth him.

We've been lucky because I think he is naturally good at going to sleep on his own (has recently learned to suck his thumb to soothe himself). During the night he has ALWAYS been able to go back to sleep immediately after nursing, so that hasn't been an issue. In the beginning he usually took all naps without crying at all. It was only when he got to be about 6 weeks he started fussing at some nap times.

The reason we started letting him CIO for a few minutes was b/c firstly, he often goes to sleep without a problem or with just some minimal fussing. If he objected more strongly with crying, then walking him around to soothe him wasn't always working anymore and at times it was taking so long to get him to sleep. We just tried the CIO as an experiment to see how it went, and stuck with it b/c it has worked for us. If he wasn't able to consistently fall asleep after such a short time of crying I don't think we wouldn't be using CIO this early, but try to find other ways to sooth him.

[lizajane]

well... the interesting thing here is that i am anti-CIO. but i have three friends from "mommy group" who have very successfully used cio on babies one month younger than mine. it actually turns out it isn't necessary right now. i just have to be extra on top of when he gets tired. i realized after three days of careful obervation, he only cries at all when he is overtired. (this is after i FINALLY figured out a food issue that was making him cry before every nap, which is why i thought we would need sleep training) if i get him upstairs to his room as soon as i hear the first fuss, he gets super snoozy after only 2 min of rocking, and then goes down without any fight. so i hope i can get away with this plan until he is old enough to follow a time schedule (naps within a 1/2 hour range or so) at which time i should be able to determine if he needs sleep training or not. and if he cries because he is overtired, well, that is my fault. it isn't like he can walk upstairs and get into his bed!

we may have to do something about bedtime, though. maybe not. we will have to see if we can get the naps a little more solid now that the food issue is resoved so that we can determine what time bedtime should be.

sorry. i tend to ramble.