Questions about sleep training (CIO) from the BDTD crowd-long

[tarahsolazy]

OK, I know you have all commiserated with me about DS's nightwakings, and I know there's been plenty of advice given to me and others. I'm on dial-up, temporarily, and the searches aren't working well. I also have specific questions I haven't seen addressed.

Firt, like any good patient, here's my history:
DS slept 3-4 hours at a time between the ages of 6 weeks and 8 weeks, and that is the longest he has ever slept. I went back to work at 7 weeks, and its been pretty downhill from there. We held DS for all naps and I held him cosleeping all night long. At about 3 months, we started swaddling him for naps and night, because we could put him down without waking him. He's still being swaddled at almost 8 months, he doesn't like it, but he can't fall asleep without lots of writhing and fussing otherwise. His naps are 40 min, exactly, and he takes 3-5 a day. He goes down at night, and continues to wake every 40 min to 3 hrs all night long. He can sleep 3 hrs in my arms, but even then ususally wakes every hr or so. He nurses every 3 hrs at night, if I try more frequently, he wakes all the way up, angry.

I consider myself pretty AP, in general, but I feel this is a bad habit, not a need, of DS's. He'll usually settle back to sleep after 5 min of walking or rocking, but every hour, this is tiring. Right now, I am alone with him at my parent's house, while DH is at our new house, 6hrs away. DH does half the wakings, usually, so I'm really tired right now!

I think its time to CIO. I have read Pantley, Ferber, Weissbluth.

My main questions:

Did CIO lead to night-weaning in BF babes? Can you get them up to nurse sometimes, but not other times? Does this defeat the purpose. All I really want to accomplish is going to bed, sleeping for three hours, and waking to nurse. Is this possible.

DH and I are going to try it when our new house is all established, in a week or two. I plan to go in every few minutes at the start. If he cries for more than an hour, we will probably abort.

Anyway, experiences with CIO for BF babes?

TIA!

Sleepy Tarah

[MartiesMom2B]

We did CIO a bit with Martie. First of all you have to make sure that Forrest isn't sick or teething. It's just not going to happen.

We read Weissbluth's book I forgot what the title is. Happy Child, Health Sleep Habits? I started to get Martie established on a night time routine before tackling naps. You should probably do a sleep journal to establish Forrest's sleep habits and see what his sleep cues are.

The most that I let Martie CIO was an hour. Some people will go in and settle their kids when they are crying and comfort them and leave them. If we did that it would piss her off even more that I didn't take her out. It probably took a week of this before she went to sleep without crying for more than 10 minutes.

Martie BF'd for 14 months. She slept through the night at 12 weeks so was mostly night weaned by then. But if she woke up I always got up to nurse her or brought her into bed and when she was making me feel uncomfortable I made DH bring her back upstairs.

Just a warning, that CIO is very tough. I had to take many a long shower so that I didn't hear her cry. But now my child sleeps 11 - 12 hours a night and takes 2 1/2- 3 hour naps.

-Sonia

[lizajane]

first of all, IT IS OK to use CIO as your last resort. you are not a bad mommy and your child will not hate you! i know this is a controversial topic and many feel otherwise, but i wanted you to know that you have my support.

schuyler slept 7 hours at 9 weeks. he was exclusively breastfed for 8 months (with a few attempts at solids that failed before that) and was breastfed for a total of 14 months. (edited to clarify- he only had breastmilk and then solids. i didn't mean that we added formula, just that we added solids at 8 months.) we never had any breastfeeding problems due to sleeping at night. i did nurse him when he woke at night due to illness/teething/travel.

try going back in (ferber) every 5 min, then 10 the next night, then 15 etc. BUT if it doesn't work, you might want to try not going back in to comfort. we checked on him so that he couldn't see us because if he saw us, he FREAKED OUT and started all over.

please don't sit on the floor right outside the door and listen to the crying. it doens't help anyone and it will just encourage you to give up after 10 minutes. use the light function on the monitor, or make DH take the first night.

finally, why are you concerned about night-weaning? if he needs to eat, he will wake up and eat. but it is very possible that he no longer requires food at night and he will move into a 12 hour sleep. i am not sure why you don't want him to sleep all night without eating. it didn't affect us AT ALL that he didn't eat at night after 9 weeks. (unless, like i said, i nursed him for comfort because of a specific problem.)

[tarahsolazy]

I am just a little paranoid about my milk supply. When I work, DS nurses in the morning, then twice between when I come home, and when he goes to bed.He nurses two or three more times before morning. If he night-weans "prematurely" by which I mean I make him wean by CIO, and then I lose my supply, I will be heart-broken. BF is very important to me, and has been going so well. I am a little afraid I won't be able to pump as well, and we'll have to use formula, which, if I just sucked it up and got up with him hourly until he sleeps on his own, we wouldn't have to do. I am home for two months, so I won't have to pump at all. That's why I am even considering the CIO thing, he can nurse as much as he wants during the day for now.

[slknight]

Here's another thing you might want to try. I am not against CIO, but I was always too chicken to try it! What we did do was Dr. Jay Gordon's gentle night-weaning:

http://www.drjaygordon.com/ap/sleep.htm

It's been recommended by several people here and it worked like a charm for us. I think they say to do it after a year, but I think that if you can CIO before that, you could try this. (We did it around 14 months).

One another thought - how much have you tried really trying to get him into a set sleep pattern (meaning time between naps) like Weissbluth? I ask because 40 minute naps seem kind of short to me. I *think* that by his age, 3 to 5 short naps sounds a little bit off. I would think that 2 longer naps would be better (someone correct me if I'm wrong here - I lent my copy of Weissbluth to a coworker). Doesn't Weissbluth say that anything less than 45 minutes doesn't "count?" So maybe before you start CIO for night, you try getting the naps to be a bit longer. I don't know - just a thought. Good luck!

[nitaghei]

Tarah
CYE - or email me at obedcocker at yahoo.com. BTDT.

Nita
mom to Neel, January 2003
dog mom to a cocker and a PWD

[sadie427]

To make a long-ish story short, we did CIO and it worked for us. He was waking every 2 hours or so at night, after proving that he could sleep longer. He cried an hour the first night, 1/2 hour the 2nd, 10 minutes the third, then only woke up once a night to nurse after that and went right back to sleep.

I did successfully drop some night nursings but not all of them; I just decided what a reasonable period of time between nursings (based on his earlier pattern) and only nursed him if it had been that long. We got him from waking up every two hours to waking up once, then he dropped that nursing on his own at around 8 months.

I'd be careful about having a pre-determined limit about how long you can stand the crying as I think it's common to cry a long time the first night then not so much the next. If you give up, you teach them that you eventually will go to them if they keep crying.

[mudder17]

>I'd be careful about having a pre-determined limit about how
>long you can stand the crying as I think it's common to cry a
>long time the first night then not so much the next. If you
>give up, you teach them that you eventually will go to them if
>they keep crying.
I agree about this. I don't have a pre-determined limit for night times, but an hour limit for naps. Weissbluth suggests the same thing. The first couple days of sleep training were really tough, and while we didn't sit by her door listening to her scream, we were next door playing a computer game (it was the only thing that distracted us enough) with the video monitor on (but no volume) so we could watch her occasionally, but keep ourselves occupied. After the second day, things got much better, then the 7th day hit and she learned to roll over and seemed to have to retrain. But then things got better after that. These days, if she fusses/cries/screams for an hour before falling asleep, it's because she's really really tired--way overtired. Otherwise, she'll usually fall asleep pretty easily.

Oh, and while he says that <45 minute naps don't really count as naps, I agree that DD probably doesn't sleep as deeply if she's slept for <45 minutes and so they're not as restorative as longer naps (which could be why Forrest needs 5-6 of them a day), but I also do know that a couple of times a week, at least, Kaya will fall asleep for a third nap that only lasts 30 minutes and the power nap, as I call it, seems to help her make it until bed time without having a meltdown.

Of course, now she's either teething or testing because she's been up at least a couple times a night for the last three days and has had a really tough time going back to sleep after the second time. Sigh. I feel your pain, Tarah!

Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_garnet_6m.gif Breastfed 7 months and counting

[jubilee]

I can echo pretty much everything that Sonia said, except my son would wake around 4 am to breastfeed until he was around 6 months old. But everything else is exactly the same. The only sleep book I liked was Weissbluth- I didn't follow it to a T, but it sure gave me a foundation to work with.

[KrisM]

I know for us, I have tried and tried to get a longer nap out of my son. But, he is really good at taking 3-5 45 minute naps. I can sometimes get a longer morning OR a longer afternoon nap, but I have no idea how it comes. I've read that book and I've really tried to extend the naps, but without success. Maybe some babies just don't want to sleep more than 45 minutes or so?

For Tarah, our son was doing the 45 minutes sleep pattern all night for a while, too. We didn't do CIO, but we took away the pacifier, which helped a bit. It got him to go to sleep better. Then, magically, he started sleeping for 3 hour stretches a few weeks ago. I have no advice for CIO, but I want to wish you luck.

[lizajane]

i understand! but it sounds like if you are home for 2 months, you would be able to establish your supply before you had to pump again. you could always add a "dream feed" when you go back to work (feed him without really waking him) to ensure good supply.

[mysweetboy]

Tarah, I empathize w/you! After Charlie outgrew his bassinet and swaddling in the Miracle Blanket no longer worked (around 3.5 months), we co-slept. Before co-sleeping, he would have at least one 4-5 hr sleep stretch. After, neither of us got any sleep...he woke up every 2-2.5 hrs. I nursed every time, whether he was hungry or not, b/c that was the only way to get him back to sleep.

Now he is finally in his crib and is getting much better sleep. We did a form of Ferber....there were times we picked him up, went in before the next scheduled time, etc. We just did what worked for us. Now he usually wakes 1-2 times/night and I nurse him unless it's only been a couple hrs since his last feeding. When I put Charlie back down after nursing, he falls asleep w/out a fuss. If your DS doesn't wake up as often as you'd like, I think that you should be able to get him up for feedings and put him down w/out a problem.

The only other advice I can offer is to do what you feel is best for your DS, DH and you. For us, we knew that Charlie needed more sleep and letting him cry allowed him to get that. It was a tough decision only we could make but our baby now wakes up happy, so we feel that we made the right one.

Best of luck to you!

Lori
mommy to Charlie, 5 1/2 months old!

edited to correct spelling

[sntm]

Tarah,

Have you had him fully evaluated, to make sure it isn't reflux, adenoids, teething, anything else? Totally not being rude, I just know I sometimes overlook the simple diagnosis or assume that I should be able to diagnose him myself when I am too close to the situation.

With the time off, you could consider a couple of other options also. When he wakes, rather than get up and walk with him, stay in bed and just pat him to sleep, or just snuggle with him. Then, you aren't leaving him like you would with CIO, but you are at least reinforcing that getting up to walk isn't an option.

And maybe you can wear him for naps for a few days, just until his naps become more regular and he catches up on sleep. That may help the nighttime part too.

Have you been in Nighttime Parenting over on MDC? They may be able to help.

Jack goes through spurts where he wakes a lot of times, but he does outgrow them, and is now waking once at night and once early in the morning to nurse. That's it.

You're a fabulous mom, and if you do resort to CIO, it will be more than outweighed by all the other things you do for him. But, if I were you, I'd give Pantley and Dr. Jay a try first.

If you need some support, pm me and I'll send you my phone number.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_gold_12m.gif[/img][/url]
Breastfeeding 16 months and counting