momster
03-31-2007, 09:11 AM
Dear All,
Our son is 16 months old and he has been breastfed since he was born. We have started the process of weaning him 2 months ago and have gotten rid of all the night time feedings except for the one before night. And now we are working on the nap feedings. All is going well here. We breastfed DS on demand all the way until he was 8-9 months old. And since we were new at this there were times my wife woke up 4-5 times a night to feed.
Eventually, at 12 months the wakings were 6-7 times a night regularly and we just couldn't take it anymore. We did some reading (Weissbluth) and discovered all the "mistakes" we made. Oh yeah, he wasn't a terrific nappper either (two 20 minute naps a day).
After reading we decided to first tackle weaning (we were only planning on bf until DS was 1yrs old). When we took care of the night time weaning which took about 1.5 - 2 months we decided to CIO.
We were apprehensive about CIO since we had such a great bond with our son and we didn't want this to harm it. But we bit the bullet and really needed him to sleep longer stretches for us and for himself. On our first night he only cried for 15 mins. then slept. He woke up two other times, but went to bed in about 10mins. w/ crying. The next was the same and on the third night no crying except for when he would wake up and put himself to bed with about 5 mins. of crying.
There were nights early on - I can remember two nights specifically - where DS cried for one hour then for two hours - straight. But we could hear him trying to put himself to sleep, so we never went in. On a side note we are much better at distinguishing his cries now. He does howl at times, but it is very brief and not often.
One side effect that really, really bothered me was how DS acted before we put him down. We always created a good consistent sleep routine, but when we CIO DS would get fearful and begin to cry b/ he knew sleep was coming - or we would leave him. This wasn't overtired crying - he seemed scared. After about two weeks of this we were going to throw in the towel even though DS was putting himself to sleep pretty well, but the before the sleep fearfulness and the insecurity he displayed during the day did not sit well with us. We figured we did not make sleep a place he could feel safe.
Now after 5 weeks of CIO there have been some changes. We did stick it out and continued - and DS does not show any visible signs of fearfulness or insecurity. He actually signs sleep now whenever he is asleep. He pretty much sleeps through the night except for teething bouts of illnesses. If he does wake he puts himself to bed in about 5-7 mins. He has not cried for over 10mins. in about 3 weeks. He sleeps from 7:30 pm to 4:00-4:30 pm (but recently he has been waking up at 3:30). DS also naps for about 1 to 1.5 hours twice a day sometimes just once. So he night time sleep has improved and his naps have improved.
Throughtout this whole ordeal I learned that kids are resilient and that my wife is great. I wouldn't recommend CIO to everyone, but for us it did help in some areas. Had DS still displayed signs of fearfulness and insecurity we would have stopped, but he actually is more giddy now and has more energy than before (just so you know he had a lot before now it is doubled).
Hopefully this will help someone out there. I have learned alot from this message board - thanks.
Oh yeah, my one question: How can we help our DS to sleep later? Ideally, we would like him to wake up at 5:30-6:00. We have tried having him sleep earlier. We have tried shortening his naps....Any advice....
Robert
Our son is 16 months old and he has been breastfed since he was born. We have started the process of weaning him 2 months ago and have gotten rid of all the night time feedings except for the one before night. And now we are working on the nap feedings. All is going well here. We breastfed DS on demand all the way until he was 8-9 months old. And since we were new at this there were times my wife woke up 4-5 times a night to feed.
Eventually, at 12 months the wakings were 6-7 times a night regularly and we just couldn't take it anymore. We did some reading (Weissbluth) and discovered all the "mistakes" we made. Oh yeah, he wasn't a terrific nappper either (two 20 minute naps a day).
After reading we decided to first tackle weaning (we were only planning on bf until DS was 1yrs old). When we took care of the night time weaning which took about 1.5 - 2 months we decided to CIO.
We were apprehensive about CIO since we had such a great bond with our son and we didn't want this to harm it. But we bit the bullet and really needed him to sleep longer stretches for us and for himself. On our first night he only cried for 15 mins. then slept. He woke up two other times, but went to bed in about 10mins. w/ crying. The next was the same and on the third night no crying except for when he would wake up and put himself to bed with about 5 mins. of crying.
There were nights early on - I can remember two nights specifically - where DS cried for one hour then for two hours - straight. But we could hear him trying to put himself to sleep, so we never went in. On a side note we are much better at distinguishing his cries now. He does howl at times, but it is very brief and not often.
One side effect that really, really bothered me was how DS acted before we put him down. We always created a good consistent sleep routine, but when we CIO DS would get fearful and begin to cry b/ he knew sleep was coming - or we would leave him. This wasn't overtired crying - he seemed scared. After about two weeks of this we were going to throw in the towel even though DS was putting himself to sleep pretty well, but the before the sleep fearfulness and the insecurity he displayed during the day did not sit well with us. We figured we did not make sleep a place he could feel safe.
Now after 5 weeks of CIO there have been some changes. We did stick it out and continued - and DS does not show any visible signs of fearfulness or insecurity. He actually signs sleep now whenever he is asleep. He pretty much sleeps through the night except for teething bouts of illnesses. If he does wake he puts himself to bed in about 5-7 mins. He has not cried for over 10mins. in about 3 weeks. He sleeps from 7:30 pm to 4:00-4:30 pm (but recently he has been waking up at 3:30). DS also naps for about 1 to 1.5 hours twice a day sometimes just once. So he night time sleep has improved and his naps have improved.
Throughtout this whole ordeal I learned that kids are resilient and that my wife is great. I wouldn't recommend CIO to everyone, but for us it did help in some areas. Had DS still displayed signs of fearfulness and insecurity we would have stopped, but he actually is more giddy now and has more energy than before (just so you know he had a lot before now it is doubled).
Hopefully this will help someone out there. I have learned alot from this message board - thanks.
Oh yeah, my one question: How can we help our DS to sleep later? Ideally, we would like him to wake up at 5:30-6:00. We have tried having him sleep earlier. We have tried shortening his naps....Any advice....
Robert