Crying it out

Hey mommies, I just wanted to tell everyone that our recent trip to singapore went really well!!! NO CRYING at all before bedtime. I would feed my 7mth old his milk after his bath, put him into the grobag and lay him down awake at 7pm and he would sleep through to 6am, wake up and talk for a bit, then back to sleep until 8am!!!!!! I was sooooo relieved!!!!! We are now back in HK and had crying the first night we were back - about 15mins. i think it's because we live in a noisy area and he prefers a quiet room...but he will have to get used to it. Tonight is the 2nd night and there was no crying. i hope it stays like this!!!

peainpod - i think it's ok for you to do CIO for naps first. how does your baby go to sleep for naps? does helper milk him to sleep?

CIO is actually about establishing a habit for your baby so if he can learn to sleep during the day without help, when you eventually do it for bedtime, it should be smoother since he will already know from naps. I also think it's important for both parents to agree and follow through on a method. if you disagree about CIO for bedtime, then wait until he is able to sleep for naps without help so you can show your husband that it is possible.

From experience, you will need each others support when the baby is crying. if one person always wants to rush in, it will be difficult to follow through. For babies, once you start CIO, it's most kind to stick to it. otherwise you will actually end up training your baby to cry longer before bed since he will learn that eventually you will come and nurse him.

It took us about a month from when we first started to this past week which i would now consider my son as sleeping through the night. There were good nights, bad nights, alternating up until now.

If your helper is doing CIO during the day, make sure she has clear instructions on what to do and for how long, etc. so you know exactly what she is doing every time.
 
obviously do what you feel comfortable doing with CIO, but remember that if you baby senses mixed messages (ie parent behaviour differs during daytime sleeping versus night time sleeping, it might screw him up.) see how it goes though first and if he/she is still not sleeping though the night you might want to consider the above as a factor. it's hard, but stay with it. good luck!
 
Thanks for the input, everyone. (MilkMonster, congratulations! It's so nice to hear that you've succeeded - gives me something to aim for...)

So I had a serious discussion with hubby and again, he wasn't *unsupportive* except he really did want to be there to start with. (He said either he or I should be there - i.e. not just leave our helper to do it herself - as we as parents should be a better judge of what's best for our child.)

Also he made a valid point that we haven't tried ANY form of sleep training at all with our baby so is it really good to go for such a drastic way right away? He was suggesting maybe we should do the "putting him in bed awake and patting him to sleep" first, to see if that will do the trick.

What do you think? Should I take the softer approach first or take the plunge and go straight for CIO (for daytime first)?
 
give it a try as it doesn't hurt and it's important that you and your husband are on the same page. if that is his comfort level, then that's it for now.

before doing CIO, we tried the patting on the back, but every time we did it, my son thought was playtime and immediately stood up in bed....every child is different and responds differently to each approach.
 
give it a try as it doesn't hurt! you and your husband should be on the same page when doing this so if patting on the back is where he is at in terms of comfort, that be supportive. you two should also be the ones sleep training your child and NOT your helper though it be good for her to observe so down the road, she can also model the right responses to your baby.

before CIO, we tried patting on the back, but every time we did it, my son thought it was playtime and immediately stood up in his cot....every child is different and responds differently to each approach.

(ps - sorry i posted twice in a row - have no clue what happened there!)
 
Yes, definitely try a softer approach and see if that works!!! We only resorted to CIO after other options like patting and pickup/putdown didn't work for us. Hopefully the other methods will work for you!!! Good luck!!!!
 
Thanks for all your support! I am happy to report that we have found success - so far (fingers crossed) - with the patting method.

We started just three nights ago (on Christmas night) when bubs was very tired after all day of celebrating. (We thought it would be easier that way...) Anyway, the first night was the hardest (as expected), since bubs did not understand why we wouldn't pick him up. But about 20-25 continuous minutes of patting (both hubbie and I), he stopped crying and we managed to pat him to sleep. He woke up an hour later crying and again, we had to pat continuously for about another 20mins.

Since then, it has become progressively easier. Second night we were able to put him to bed without patting but he started crying after about 10 mins alone and we had to go in and pat him to sleep (which took about 15 mins). Naptimes were quite easy, with fairly minimal patting.

Tonight (4th night), we put him to bed awake but sleepy, and he did not make any noise so we left the room. Of course we spent the next 10 mins hovering over the baby monitor waiting for him to make noise but surprise! - no crying at all (just a little bit of shuffling from him moving around the crib). After that, there was silence, and he just fell asleep on his own with no help from us at all!

I may have just lucked out on a good night and there will likely be some backsliding but I am just very very relieved that we finally have a sleep system in place for bubs. :yeah2

Thanks again everyone! :thanks
 
hello ladies,
i have so missed geobaby during my holidays....sp. this particular forum....but i am back now!! the CIO worked well on most days of my holiday though we did have some good/bad days/nights.....the most frustrating thing is that no one would understand CIO and the importance of schedules so i was ridiculed bigtime by family....all parties back home would begin at 7.30pm and i would politely excuse myself from the as i had no intentions of letting baby cry while i am having fun....soem nights when my mom stayed over i did get to go out but i was most happy having all the fun during daytime too.......hope u all did the same.
 
we had absolutly no crying while we were in singapore but came home and he cried for 10 days, every night. it was a bad relapse and i felt like we were starting all over again. but its been 2 weeks now and we haven't had any crying!! i am so thrilled. the boys are in bed by 7pm and up between 830 and 9am everyday. it's nice to have our lives back :)

mushi, it's hard when you don't have support for CIO and i totally know what you mean about not being able to 'have fun' while your baby is CIO. I literally sit like a zombie or in front of the door with my fingers crossed until he falls asleep.

good luck everyone else who is trying CIO!! stick with it, it will eventually work!!!
 
Welcome back Mushi and Milkmonster!
I'm just back from the most knackering Christmas ever and have now have major sleep problems. My MIL is having Chemo for breast cancer at the mo, so we couldn't have any crying at all. (In fact if he so much as snorted, we'd get a knock on our door. Can't really argue about it given the circumstances). Anyway the result was me nursing most of the night to keep him quiet- ahhh (It's a race between the bags under my eyes and my boobs as to which will reach my knees first!)
Anyway, now back with 2 jet lagged kids I have a plan of action which is keeping me sane:
1) Get them over the jet lag.
2) Use the 'pick up put down'/ pat pat shush to get him used to sleeping in his cot again.
3) The same but move him into his own room
4) If need be CIO

He's 8 months now, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to be breaking out the bubbly by the time he's 9? 10?....(months not years I hope)
I'll keep you posted!
 
Hope your MIL is ok...

you must be really tired!! for us, going over to Canada was always much easier than coming home. jet lag sucks and i am one of those who turns into a dragon when i'm tired so it's hell for hubby as well. babies scream at me, i scream at hubby...

there was another thread about getting baby to sleep in the cot. That mom just spent some time playing with the baby while baby was in the cot so the baby got used to being in there and it worked for her. the baby didn't fight being in the cot at sleep times.

good luck! looking forward to hearing all about it!!
 
Hi everyone,

After what seemed like a miracle start, we had an all-out relapse - and on New Year's Eve (of all nights!) and we ended up having to cancell our NY Eve plans with our friends. We had optimistically thought we would have bubs in bed and asleep by 8:30 p.m. (at least that was what had been happening for the past week or so) and we had arranged to join our friend's house party at around 9'ish.

Well, we ended up hanging around outside bub's room for close on 100 minutes, with him crying and screaming for the large part. He finally quieted down at around 11 p.m. But then he woke up intermittently throughout the rest of the night - with me nursing him to keep him quiet.

The next few days, daytime naps became a nightmare as he would actively resist it (whenever he wasn't dead out tired.) Hubbie's position was that if he really wasn't that tired at naps, we shouldn't force him to stay in bed - hence, we have picked him up a few times after fierce crying, which makes me worried that this may reinforce bad behavior and will have repercussions for night-time.

Now, I'm not sure where we are at. Nights tend to be easier - although for the most part, I am nursing him to sleep and then gingerly putting him (rather than confidently expecting him to sleep on his own.) Some nights/naps, he will cry and then sleep. A few times we've failed miserably and picked him up after prolonged heavy crying.
:crib


I am still clinging onto the hope that we are ahead with our sleep training - as in he is learning to sleep on his own (even if he won't do it all the time) and that one day, there will be eventually be no need to pick up.

But we just booked flights for a week in Langkawi (leaving next Fri) and I am very worried about what this will do to his sleep routine. :-(
 
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i'm just not sure sleep training ever works when you nurse them to sleep to start with. If they require your help to fall asleep in the first place then it would seem reasonable to need help in the night when they come into light sleep during sleep cycles.

I am a big believer in always putting baby down wide awake.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had success with sleep training and getting baby to sleep thru the night while also aiding them to sleep.
 
how to break the 6.30 start

althought my CIO is quite successful i can;t manage to break the 6.30 am wake-up time for my baby/....it is so cold nowadays and quite dark at that hour too ... how can i get him to wake up at 7..00 am instead? he sleeps at 7.00-7.00pm everyday.
 
hi aussie mum, just read yr comment.....i aid my baby to sleep every night either thru bottle or a gently pat-pat....and he sleeps thru teh night...sometimes he does wake up once in teh night but then cries himeslef to sleep after 5 mins.....only if he really struggles to go to sleep even after the aids do i put him down on some nights and let me cry himself to sleep....but CIO works in both cases.....in fact i aid him to sleep during his nap times too....his naps are extremely short due to this i guess just 40 mins...but i have tried CIO in daytime and it is too stressful with everyone hearing him ....that is his brother and my helper.....it stresses me out a lot so i do this way.
 
I agree with aussie mum - putting your baby down totally awake is the best thing to do so that your baby can learn how to put him/herself to sleep which in turns helps them figure it out during the night and during the day. My son who is 12 months, goes down like clockwork at 7pm and wakes up at 4:30am usually for a quick nappy change and then goes right back down until 6:30am - 6:45am. When he is teething, we give him the soother at the 4:30am wake-up which seems to help him. If he wakes up any earlier than 4am, we usually let hiim cry it out. it lasts no longer than 10 minutes.
 
hi peainthepod, are you solely nursing him? how old is your baby? it would appear that the last meal you give him should be real filling - perhaps if you are nursing him, give him EBM so that you can gage how much he should drink in order for him to sleep longer stretches during the night. waking up is normally due to hunger i'd say. my daughter is on formula and she sleep trained herself basically because her last feeding i gave her enough and she was full enough to last 10 hours.

as for the naps - i'm not very regimented in any sense of the word - she naps whenever and for as long / short as she wants BEFORE 6pm (bed time is 9pm) and for the past month she has been able to sleep for 10hours straight. sometimes the excessive crying is because they are over exhausted - you will have to observe your son to which category he falls into though...

initially my daughter would wake up around 4am, but i let her cry for 3/4 days in a row (the length of crying time will gradually decrease- i did pat her but did not talk nor pick her up - put on the lullabies a couple times as that is part of the bedtime routine) ...by the 5th she didn't wake up to cry anymore at 4am.

good luck! patience is the key!
 
hi lesliefu, our son is 10 mths. We used to give him EBM for the last feed but now since it's getting harder for me to pump at work, I am only producing enough for his daytime feeds and i nurse him during all the times i am home.

actually the situation is not that dire. while we still use some sleep aids (nursing him before bedtime), some nights he is awake and will cry for literally 5-10 secs as we are putting him down but then stop immediately after we leave the room. he is however, still waking up in the middle of the night for a feed - but he seems so hungry (drinks from both sides) that i don't have the heart not to feed him. Also, these middle-of-the-night feeds help keep up my milk supply.

I'm not there for the daytime naps but my helper doesn't have much problem getting him to nap (for 2-3 times a day from anywhere between 40 mins to 1-1/2 hrs).

So I guess the situation is copeable right now for us. Sometimes I think about waking him during the times when he falls asleep on my breast during the night-time feed but then it's just hard to do that, isn't it?
 
hi everyone : )

If my son falls asleep on the bottle before bed we don't wake him up either. we make every effort to put him down awake but sometimes he's just too tired and even if i change his diaper and put him into the grobag, he still is fast asleep. it's been working for us, so i am thinking it's ok. my older son used to do this as well.

mushi, regarding early morning wake ups, both my kids used to wake up between 5-6am but we never went in. if they stayed awake they would babble to themselves and fall back to sleep so that was ok, if they cried then we would wait 15mins before going in. wait 20mins the following morning, 25mins the morning after, until the desired time. eventually both of them got the idea that neither mum or dad were early risers and now both sleep in until 8 or 830am. I am thankful that we did this and don't have to get up at 6am everyday...

i agree that hungry babies don't sleep as well. If your baby is genuinely hungry at night or early in the morning, it means they could take in more food during day time hours. especially at this age, they could be having a growth spurt so i definitely wouldn't let a child go hungry in hopes to sleep train. i would however increase the meals/milk during the day. even a few more spoonfuls for solid meals or 30ml of milk will make a huge difference. my 8mth old just added another solid meal to his day because he was going to bed at 7pm and then waking up at 8pm crying and taking a full bottle of milk. tonight he went to bed at 7 and hasn't woken up so i am hoping he had enough to eat today!!

i usually serve the fruits earlier on in the day and make sure dinner is something hearty like sweet potato or squash mixed with cereal + formula.

hope the babies sleep soon : )

peainpod - sorry to read about your NYE plans!! the first few times we tried to leave a sleeping baby resulted in us getting in a cab, almost reaching our destination, receiving the phone call that baby is crying, asking the cab driver to loop back around, coming home and calling it a night!! haha we've had a few of these drive around hk never make it there nights!!!

if it's working for you and you need the baby to help keep your supply up, then don't worry about it. i think it's awesome that you're making so much effort to breast feed your baby!!! How was your trip to langkawi?
 
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