Crying it out

hi milk monster....thanks for yr suggestion, but since he gets up at 6.30 am , if i let him cry it out he takes another 20 mins to go back to sleep, its time for his wake up call in any case i.e. at 7.00 am.......has anyone tried changing the sleep timings to alter their wake up time? mine goes off to bed by 7.00pm sharp.
 
i think after a while, your baby would learn not to wake up before 7am. If you CIO for 20mins, let him sleep for 20mins then you wake him up, maybe he will learn to sleep until woken? Haha we did a lot of things including playing music at wake up time so the babies would associate the music with wake up time. The other thing we did was pretend it was a night feed - i.e. no eye contact, no talking while we fed him and then put him straight back into the crib until wake up time.
 
Well I'm finally doing it.... the controlled crying version. (Hence posting at 1:40 in the morning... bet the neighbours love me!) Trying to keep busy as every minute seems like an hour, but this is the only way that worked for my eldest, so keeping my fingers crossed!
Been a long journey to get even this far. Took a few days to get over jet lag and then had to get him used to sleeping in his cot again. Screamed blue murder every time at first, but just kept picking him up, comforting and then putting him back unti he got used to it. Then it was the case of cutting down on his night nursing. This was easy... got my hubby to offer him formula instead and he refused it point blank. Spent a few days getting him used to his own room. The funny thing is that I've realised he loves my dressing gown as a comforter... whether I wear it or my hubby, as soon as he's near it, he snuggles into it and starts chewing it. Considered putting it down as a sheet, but don't think it will fit!
Anyway... been at it almost an hour now - about to gradually move from every 5 mins to 10. Unfortunatey he keeps standing up, so I pop in put him back down, he calms instantly, I say goodnight and walk out again. AHHH. Just keeping my sights on the nights of sleeping that I hope are ahead ( and my mouth full of chocolate which I stocked up on in preparation for this!!!)
Will let you know how it goes. Now to find something else to keep me busy!
 
I must say after a long night of constantly waking to put my daughter back down, it was really comforting reading these posts knowing that I am not the only mom awake at 2AM with a crying baby :) I guess the important thing is not to give up and know that it will get better.
 
hang in there!! I loaded up on chocolate and sweet snacks too - helps a lot when you are up in the middle of the night : ) I would also save up some articles i wanted to read for night time so the time would go by faster...hope you're ok...the crying is really hard to listen to but be strong!!
 
After a week in Langkawi and the last few days of CNY festivities, it feels like we are back to ground zero. Bubs' schedule has been so disrupted that I have found myself nursing him to sleep every time (day and night) for naps and night-time as well as middle of the night wake-ups.

I am hoping to ease him back to his regular routine but am really not feeling very confident right now. (We had the most horrible nap times today - after napping only briefly in the morning, he would not go down for his late afternoon nap - but was so obviously tired that I ended up nursing him and holding him asleep for close to an hour in my arms on the sofa. I haven't done this since he was 3 months old, (btw, he is now 10 months!) just to get over the witching hour! (I did try transferring him when he was sleepy and later when he was sound asleep, but both times, he woke up immediately as I was transferring and immediately started crying violently!)

I have a feeling it is going to be a very very long night tonight.
<sigh>
 
Glad to know others are up and going through it!
Starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. First night he had 2 sets of crying ( I'm doing controlled version): one 90 mins and one 20 mins, second night he woke up 3 times, but only took about 5 mins each time to fall asleep, night 3, woke up 2 times but I only had to lay him down in his cot before he stopped crying and chattered to himself before he went straight off. Unfortunately, a power poop woke him up properly at 5:30, so that was the end of that night. Tonight, actually slept from 7:30 until 3:40 (whooo!). It's now 4:05 and after 3 bouts of crying and some chattering all is quiet. Will wait a few mins before popping my head round. Part of the problem seems to be that he stands up wants me help to get down... so we're spending a lot of time during the day practising this.
Peainpod - hang in there. Takes a while to get back on track - I was nursing mine every 2 hours a month ago out of desperation to get him over his jet lag and because I just didn't have the energy to get out of bed. Takes determination, lots of chocolate and lots of rambling posts to keep you company in the wee hours!
 
Wondering if anyone did CIO for extended length of time? With my first kid, it only took 3 days until we had a full night's sleep. (Same age with her...9 months) NOw with this one, after a positive improvement for 3 days (not sleeping through, but less crying), he has had a long bout of crying ( on and off for over an hour) for the last 4 nights. Listening to him is pure torture, and it's started to affect my 3 year old as he is waking her up in the small hours.
I know there's nothing wrong with him, as he's as chirpy as anything during the day and is fine until I leave the room --then he screams blue murder! AHHHHH.
 
Wanfamily, both our kids took a long time to CIO...like you, it would be torture for us but we stuck with it. We started back in Oct and our now 9mth old didn't really stop crying before bed until very very recently and some nights we still have 5-15mins of crying but no more 1hr marathons. The thing with him was, he would cry on and off for 1hr but after that he would sleep through for 12-13hrs, now we are back to 12hrs. But in your case, since he is not sleeping through, do you know why? is he hungry? growth spurt? how do you get him back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night?

hang in there...hubby and i used to sit there and bitch at each other over silly things when the baby was crying. i know how stressful and upsetting it is...took us 4mths but we are happy we stuck with it.
 
sorry forgot to mention that we would have good nights or even the week we were in singapore - absolutely no crying and then relapse over and over again...not sure why but it was a very very gradual process for our 2nd son to stop crying to sleep.
 
That's good to know. No, I know he's not hungry - he's well over 10kg and eats like anything during the day. He just likes 'mummy comfort' (bless him) Stops crying the moment I put a hand on him. (and starts the moment I take it off) He loves co - sleeping (which I did for a few months), but then he'd wake up every few hours and just nurse for comfort. I didn't sleep properly when he was with us either. I'll stick at it....must be light at the end of the tunnel at some point!
 
the fact that your son cries when you leave and stops when you are with him was similar to us. he would stop as soon as we picked him up. this was a sign for us that our son definitely needed to cry it down as nothing was bothering him except he just wanted the comfort of us. it's definitely a work in progress, but his sleeping habits are 99% better and i would say once or twice every 2 weeks he will wake up, but it's usually due to teething or a really wet nappy. we just stay consistent as best we can and for the most part it's worked.
 
How do you strike a balance when your child is ill? I'm trying to keep something of the sleep training as we'd got my daughter to the point of sleeping through the night but now she has an ear infection and is waking up screaming for up to 3 hours. So far, I can't say I've handled it particularly well. Stayed out the room for up to an hr, gone in and held her hand for an hr, then worn out, walked out again and let her cry to sleep for around half hour. My only consistency has been my inconsistency! Poor girl doesn't know what the hell I'm doing, and quite frankly, neither do I!
 
Forgot to say, my daughter is also suffering from seperation anxiety which occured at the same time or was triggered by the ear infection, and now suddenly is scared of her bath before bed and won't let me lie her down to dress her etc. She'll feed then hold my hand to go to sleep just fine but then wakes up screaming a couple of hours later. I can't tell if it's an 'i'm in pain' scream or a 'where are you?' scream as her crying style has changed recently and all sounds the same to this worn out mum!
 
Oh no! Sorry I think when they are sick it's normal for them to be clingy. When my son is sick he only wants mommy and will literally sit ontop of me ALL day if i let him...Usually if it's a cold and nothing painful, we try to stick to the CIO but I've never been in a situation where they've had an ear infection...can you give panadol before bedtime so she is not in pain?
 
Milkmonster,

How long did it take you to train your son when he was 10 months old for day time naps and what did you do? I'm going mad and getting increasingly frustrated and miserable at not succeeding in training my daughter for her day time naps. I try sitting in the room and making no eye contact as this is what worked for nighttime sleep. I've had about 50% success over the past week. It sounds better than it is. 50% as in screams for an hour and then falls asleep or gets one nap in the whole day around midday falling asleep after 5 minutes having been up from 6am.

I'm at breaking point and am so,so fed up.
 
have you tried first recording when he begins melting down or getting over-tired? when i trained my son's daytime naps and overall sleeping schedule, i first started to record everytime he would show signs of getting tired. i used my notes to formulate his own schedule. Once you have the approximate times, create a routine and stick with it. when my son goes down for a daytime nap, we walk into his room together, pull his curtains closed, i gave him a little kiss/cuddled and then put him down totally awake. Then I tip toe out and it takes about 5-10 mins for him to put himself to sleep. we have not veered from this routine since 6 months and he is now 13 months.
 
Thanks for your response, Southside852. She sleeps from 6.30pm-6.00/6.20am and then seems to show signs of tiredness 50 minutes after waking. That seems a little early though for a 10mth old, doesn't it? I put her down around 1.5hrs after wake up and today it took her 1hr and 15mins to sleep then she slept for 45 mins. At 12.00 I put her down again as she showed signs of tiredness and then she cried, played, screamed, fiddled and talked alternating for around 1.5hrs and then fell asleep when I walked out in frustration after an hour. She then slept 45 mins again and now she's exhausted. If I don't get a morning nap out of her, she falls asleep around 11.30 and sleeps for 1.5hours. Either way I can only seem to get 1.5hours out of her and she is constantly tired and needing my attention as a result. How did you sleep train your son? I really wanted to take a 'gentle' approach but I'm wondering now is CIO the only option for me at this stage? I'm travelling in 3 weeks time and really need to get this sorted before then. I'm also at breaking point and am getting so agitated and miserable as a result.
 
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