CIO not working

T

tomogotchi

Registered User
We have been doing CIO with our 8 month old baby boy for more than two weeks now, and it?s not working. He manages to fall asleep on his own without fuss at the naptime and bedtime, but he still wakes up once during the night every day, and cries for over an hour even if we regularly check up on him. I feel cheated, fed-up and angry about this whole CIO? My boy is pretty strong headed, but surely two weeks would be enough to get him learn to self-sooth no?

I wonder if anyone has had a similar experience with ineffective CIO. Maybe it?s time for me to conclude CIO is not for my baby and go back to the old methods of cuddles, a pacifier, and feeds to make my baby go back to sleep?
 
I think he may be hungry, as if he settles well when tired but wakes and cries for that long it sounds like something else is going on. Have you tried a dream feed before you go to sleep? Try and feed him some milk whilst he is sleeping before you go to bed. He wont be aware of it, will not stop him from being able to self soothe to sleep.
 
You could try to modify it a bit...

My daughter is pretty stubborn and when I've tried CIO with her, she can cry so much that she throws up on the bed making all of our lives more difficult - then when we change the sheets and change her and clean her up, she falls asleep instantly because she's exhausted from crying so much... She's 22 months though so much older than your boy... but what DOES work for her is to give her some books and she'll often read herself to sleep easily and happily.

Maybe try modifying it a bit, even give him a toy, turn on a night light, try to keep him happy first of all...

Now that my daughter is in a "big girl bed" she'll bring herself into our room in the middle of the night if she wakes up and we end up cosleeping for the rest of the night. It happens once or twice a week but it doesn't really bother me that she does that. It's not worth forcing her back to bed in our situation...

Sometimes I think it's worth it to pick your battles, and if this is one that you're happy to let him win, try to find a solution that works for both of you!! Experiment til you find something that works :)
 
Does your baby eat enough during the day? Usually when they eat enough, they will sleep better. If they nap well during the day, they'll sleep better too. I'm a big believer of dreamfeeding, however dreamfeeding should be cut by 7 months when eating solids has been well established, so it might not be a good idea to start at 8 months. I would try to see if you can get your baby to eat more during the day and see if that works.
 
Have you been following strict rule/routine with the CIO? When we did CIO for our 14/15 month old, it also took a really long time - over 2 weeks. After we fixed his bedtime routine so he stopped crying when he went to sleep, he still woke up in the middle of the night and cried for a few times more until he stopped that. But I was told by our sleep consultant that you really need to follow the CIO routine stricly and when you hear them cry, you MUST NOT go in to them to hold them, pat them or talk to them. So that's what we did - when he cried in the middle of the night, we just let him go at it and eventually they learn. We also learn to tell the difference between just a fussy cry, where we let him go at it, and a something is wrong cry (i.e. i've had a nightmare or my diaper has leaked) and if something is wrong, we do go in and try to soothe him.
 
Thanks ladies!

My baby eats solids very well during the day (three times a day and a good amount at each time), although his milk intake is not huge. I thought after a few days into the training that he was still hungry because his sleep actually deteriorated once we stopped milk feeds during the night, but then his cry when he wakes up sounds more like he's grumpy because he's not being comforted rather than hungry.

>Sometimes I think it's worth it to pick your battles, and if this is one that you're happy to let him win, try to find a solution that works for both of you!! Experiment til you find something that works :)

I agree. I was committed to this sleep training and made sure there was consistency. People say that you cannot give in until the baby cracks how to fall asleep on his own, otherwise you have to start all over again. But I tried for 2.5 weeks, and at this point, I'm happy to modify our training, and find something that is reasonable for both of us... It's just so frustrating to continue CIO not knowing how much longer it would take. Our neighbors are also getting alarmed and pissed off I'm sure.

Even the babies who learn to sleep on their own through CIO revert to old sleep habits due to teething, illness, travel etc, right? So when that happens, do the parents do CIO all over again?
 
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