CC/CIO Support and Information Thread

[bananaz]

Last night was better for us. She had similar wake-up times (10:30pm, 2am, 4am, 5am) but she went back down until 6:30am and there was no actual crying - at 10:30 and 4 she resettled herself with less than 10 minutes of grumbling, and went back down very easily after being fed at 2am and 5am. So it's progress! Hopefully tonight she'll be back down to only two or three wakings...

 

[Noelle610]

Yes because she is rolling over and waking herself up every 10 minutes doing that. Plus she is 20 lbs and very tall so the largest one they sell here no longer fits her. Her startle reflex is only sometimes, and it doesn't wake her up.

Charlotte was doing the same thing! Waking all night long because she'd roll from back to tummy and get frustrated, wanting me to roll her back over. Oh gosh, it's so awful... I feel for you. At first I kept going into the nursery and rolling her, but it wasn't helping. I finally decided to just let her fuss for a few minutes and she usually goes back to sleep. I also put her to sleep intentionally on her belly or side so that she's not shocked when she wakes that way (thanks for the suggestion, Bananaz!). During the day, lots and lots of tummy time so that she gets comfortable in that position. It's starting to get better. My other mom friends tell me it's just a phase that they do grow out of.

Does Charlotte cry when she rolls to her front or does she just fuss?
This is one of the MANY things we're struggling with right now. She goes down so easily on her back (after feeding to sleep) but wakes up as soon as she rolls on her belly. She starts with a fuss and then goes into crying and I'm exhausted rolling her over all the time. I don't want to leave her to cry and see if she gets herself comfortable because I'm scared she's going to work herself up and be even harder to get to sleep.

Honestly, she was starting to get VERY upset. I tried flipping her, soothing, etc and nothing really worked. I had to let her cry a bit to get through it. She never cried more than 5 or 10 minutes due to being on her belly. It's getting much better and she slept on her belly all last night. She did wake, but only to eat (twice). She is still upset on her belly for naps, though, which is so weird. I read that a different part of the brain is responsible for day sleep, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

 

[Noelle610]

I've decided to start night weaning Charlotte. She's gaining weight beautifully and has shot up in percentilse. Her ped thinks it's okay. I'm having a REALLY hard time distinguishing between whether or not she is hungry for night wakings and it's making sleep training difficult for both of us.

She typically has 6/7 ounce bottles during the day. Last night I reduced the amount of breast milk and offered 4 ounces at both her 11pm and 3am wakings. I figured I'll do this for 3 nights, then offer 3 ounces for 3 nights, etc. She seemed angry when the bottle was finished, but was able to go back to sleep with minor fussing and a paci (will worry about that later). Does this sound right? She sometimes only has one night waking at midnight or so, so I'm wondering if she would have slept through the rest of the night had I fed her a full 6 ounces. Perhaps it's short term pain for long term gain with this?

 

[Natsku]

Anyone had any experience in having to take a night off sleep training and how much it set them back? We're at the hospital over night so obviously she couldn't be left alone to fall asleep, the nurse put her to sleep by sitting next to her and not talking or anything but waiting til she tired herself out crawling around the bed and then stroked her til she fell asleep. I obviously can't leave her if she wakes in the night but without bottles I dunno how I'll get her back to sleep

 

[lysh]

Yeah, my Pedi can be by the book, he quotes SIDS research a lot- which is fine but having hervstay in my room might not work.

I tried nursing her to sleep and putting her in her crib so she wakes up there (as recommended by pedi for a first step) but just like in the past she kept waking up. After 3 hours of attempting this and maybe getting her in the crib for 10 min at a time I gave up. This wont happen without crying being involved.

So, to hopefully make it less traumatic, DH and I decided we will keep the crib in my room but I will go to the guest room with DH as needed. I will follow ferbers advice for cosleeping and once she is set in her crib we will eventually move her into her own room.

I am not looking forward to doing this this weekend though. Any positive thoughts to help with the guilt involved? I know better sleep is important and I need to be able to function at work,but I hate knowing we will be making her cry. She gives me the cutest smiles when we wake up together in the morning and our eyes meet- I will miss that.

 

[DaisyBee]

Natsku - can you do what the nurse did for getting her to sleep in the first place? Is she sick or she is just there visiting?

 

[Natsku]

Natsku - can you do what the nurse did for getting her to sleep in the first place? Is she sick or she is just there visiting?

She's not sick, she's here for observation as her grandparent's are worried she might have epilepsy.

She woke up and I couldn't do what the nurse did, it wouldn't work, she was too stressed out cos the alarms kept going off and when she saw me she thought I would take her out of there and take her home so the nurse had to take over again after an hour of trying. You could hear her screaming all the way down the corridor and she kept waking another baby up
I don't know if she woke up anymore, I slept in the parents room and the nurse took care of her.

 

[bananaz]

Yeah, my Pedi can be by the book, he quotes SIDS research a lot- which is fine but having hervstay in my room might not work.

I tried nursing her to sleep and putting her in her crib so she wakes up there (as recommended by pedi for a first step) but just like in the past she kept waking up. After 3 hours of attempting this and maybe getting her in the crib for 10 min at a time I gave up. This wont happen without crying being involved.

So, to hopefully make it less traumatic, DH and I decided we will keep the crib in my room but I will go to the guest room with DH as needed. I will follow ferbers advice for cosleeping and once she is set in her crib we will eventually move her into her own room.

I am not looking forward to doing this this weekend though. Any positive thoughts to help with the guilt involved? I know better sleep is important and I need to be able to function at work,but I hate knowing we will be making her cry. She gives me the cutest smiles when we wake up together in the morning and our eyes meet- I will miss that.

Keep in mind that the long-term goal is a reduction of crying; I'm sure she's cried a lot more during her hourly night wakings than she will during this transitional period. And it's not like you have to just chuck her in her crib and walk away - you can modify the routine to fit your LO. I've found that my girl cries less when I spend a couple minutes shushing or singing to her before leaving the room, but several people on this thread have had success staying in the room and soothing their babies in their cribs until they go to sleep. Obviously Ferber would frown at that idea but IMO anything that helps them learn to fall asleep in the crib is a step in the right direction.

I'm hoping your DH will be helping you with this? If so, I would advise you two to take shifts and when it's not your shift turn off the monitor and get some sleep! There's no point in staying awake and agonizing over every peep she makes. You need sleep and she needs a functional, well-rested mama.

 

[katrinalorien]

The sleep is important for both of you! You have to have it to function but so does she. If my Lily doesn't get sleep she won't do anything all day except cry.

 

[lysh]

Yeah, my Pedi can be by the book, he quotes SIDS research a lot- which is fine but having hervstay in my room might not work.

I tried nursing her to sleep and putting her in her crib so she wakes up there (as recommended by pedi for a first step) but just like in the past she kept waking up. After 3 hours of attempting this and maybe getting her in the crib for 10 min at a time I gave up. This wont happen without crying being involved.

So, to hopefully make it less traumatic, DH and I decided we will keep the crib in my room but I will go to the guest room with DH as needed. I will follow ferbers advice for cosleeping and once she is set in her crib we will eventually move her into her own room.

I am not looking forward to doing this this weekend though. Any positive thoughts to help with the guilt involved? I know better sleep is important and I need to be able to function at work,but I hate knowing we will be making her cry. She gives me the cutest smiles when we wake up together in the morning and our eyes meet- I will miss that.

Keep in mind that the long-term goal is a reduction of crying; I'm sure she's cried a lot more during her hourly night wakings than she will during this transitional period. And it's not like you have to just chuck her in her crib and walk away - you can modify the routine to fit your LO. I've found that my girl cries less when I spend a couple minutes shushing or singing to her before leaving the room, but several people on this thread have had success staying in the room and soothing their babies in their cribs until they go to sleep. Obviously Ferber would frown at that idea but IMO anything that helps them learn to fall asleep in the crib is a step in the right direction.

I'm hoping your DH will be helping you with this? If so, I would advise you two to take shifts and when it's not your shift turn off the monitor and get some sleep! There's no point in staying awake and agonizing over every peep she makes. You need sleep and she needs a functional, well-rested mama.

Thanks- she does not cry too much during the night because she is happy as long as she is nursing....but I obviously cannot keep waking every 1-2 hours and she should not be either.

During the day I stayed with her while she cried to get her use to her crib for naps...at that point I was not truing to get her to self settle, just wanted her to accept not being my arms for every nap. However, the little stinker decided that it would be better to stop crying and smile to try to play!!!

My DH is going to help...but I still will go in to nurse until I feel she is ready for me to space them out. If she can get use to her crib and self-soothe a bit she might not want to nurse as often.

How did your LO do last night?

 

[bananaz]

Thanks- she does not cry too much during the night because she is happy as long as she is nursing....but I obviously cannot keep waking every 1-2 hours and she should not be either.

During the day I stayed with her while she cried to get her use to her crib for naps...at that point I was not truing to get her to self settle, just wanted her to accept not being my arms for every nap. However, the little stinker decided that it would be better to stop crying and smile to try to play!!!

My DH is going to help...but I still will go in to nurse until I feel she is ready for me to space them out. If she can get use to her crib and self-soothe a bit she might not want to nurse as often.

How did your LO do last night?

Haha, well it sounds like leaving the room might be the better option for you then. Nighttime may also go better than the naps did, simply because they are more tired at the end of the day. I'm guessing you already have a bedtime routine in place? If so, that should help a lot too.

Last night went quite well. She fussed at 11:30pm and 1am but went back to sleep in less than 10 minutes both times so I didn't even end up getting out of bed. Then she started crying at 3am so I fed her, and she went back down until 5:30am when I fed her again. Unfortunately she decided she was up for the day at that point I think I'm going to try moving her bedtime earlier and see if that helps.

 

[lozza1uk]

Glad this thread is still here!

I'm planning to start sleep training tomorrow night but have a quick couple of questions:

Here's out situation. My LO is either fed or rocked to sleep and then wakes up anything from 2-4 hours later. Sometimes I can resettle him by rubbing his back (sleeps on his front) but usually I have to pick him up and either rock or feed him back to sleep. I think he wakes with wind, as if I hold him long enough he passes it and that's when e can be rocked back, but only ever lasts another hour or so. After that first initial long (!) stretch he wakes every 2 hours, more like 90 mins towards the end of the night and always is fed back to sleep, usually cosleeping by this point!

So my question for starting out is do I feed him and put him down awake tomorrow night and let him get himself to sleep, or do I feed him and let him fall asleep then start cc when he first wakes up? If I do the former, and it takes say 90 minutes to get him to sleep, do I then have to do cc again when he first wakes up? What if he wakes again?

The HV has approved this, he's gaining weight fine and shouldn't need to feed in the night. He barely feeds when I do feed him back to sleep so I'm pretty sure it's a comfort thing (or makes his wind feel better?)

Basically I need to do something as my DH is still in the spare room and his constant night wakings is having its toll on our relationship.

One final thing. The HV said stay strong and don't give in as he has to sleep eventually, but how long should I leave it the first night before assuming it just won't work with him (he's a determined little Duracell bunny baby!)

 

[DaisyBee]

Lysh - I found Megan self settled way faster for dh vs me. When she saw me she cried harder. And anyone who is the breastfeeder, rocker, general go to person your child sees at night that is probably going to be true. If your oh can do some of the leg work with cc it might go quicker.

My girls are more hysterical when I am in the room, and crying but not hysterical when I leave. So for us it was better to leave the room.

Lozza - I would start with bedtime, one of the main goals of this is to get them to self settle to sleep for bedtime. If they do that they can actually wake less often as they can sleep through sleep cycles better. Jordan wakes up needing to burp or with gas a few hours after falling asleep sometimes. I do go in immediately as for her that is a totally different cry. I pick her up, burp her or jiggle her around a bit and she will burp or toot and then I lay her back down and she self settles to sleep again.

I'm not sure now long to leave it, and I don't have the Ferber book in sight to reference. At this age if I started with Jordan today I would say I would continue until she fell asleep. But if it went over 2 hrs maybe I would then feed her, calm her down, and try again? I'm really not sure.

 

[DaisyBee]

Bananaz - sounds like things are going well!!

Natsku- in that situation I would have just done whatever seemed right. In that kind of circumstance I think you just have to do what you have to do and worry about changes when you get home

 

[Natsku]

The nurse put her to sleep again tonight after her dad tried to and failed. I'm just going to try whatever I can to get her to sleep if she wakes but if I can't settle her I'll ask the nurse to do it like last night.

 

[DaisyBee]

Yes sometimes our kids settle better for others. I found that with daycare kids were settling better for me than their parents, not sure why that is?

Good luck!

 

[megangrohl]

Hey it's me again! Well I got fed up of cosleeping again and put her in her crib since she woke up at 11:30 and ate 5 oz. I put her in there about 12:10am and gave her a blanket I've been sleeping on to add my scent to it and gave her her pacifier and a little cuddle bear and she's asleep! Fingers crossed. She hardly cried! Just some whimpers and I went to reassure her I was still there and held her little hands and she is out for now. We will see how long it will last but she needs to get used to being I'm here so I think I will do this nightly now.

 

[Noelle610]

Hey it's me again! Well I got fed up of cosleeping again and put her in her crib since she woke up at 11:30 and ate 5 oz. I put her in there about 12:10am and gave her a blanket I've been sleeping on to add my scent to it and gave her her pacifier and a little cuddle bear and she's asleep! Fingers crossed. She hardly cried! Just some whimpers and I went to reassure her I was still there and held her little hands and she is out for now. We will see how long it will last but she needs to get used to being I'm here so I think I will do this nightly now.

Good luck! One thing that helped us with the crib was letting Charlotte play there during the day so that she associated it with fun things rather than being scared and alone.

I mentioned on another thread that I spoke with a "sleep coach" recently and she mentioned it takes 3-7 days for a baby to break a habit. If you can consistently put Lilly in her crib for a week, I bet she'll be used to it!

 

[megangrohl]

Thnx. So she slept 1230-630 in her crib. I had to go in there a lot to give her her pacifier but she was still asleep. She didn't have a middle of the night feed either. I think becuz of her 1130pm feed though. I will be doing this every night now and i do put her in there during the day with a few toys so she's used to it.

 

[lysh]

Yes sometimes our kids settle better for others. I found that with daycare kids were settling better for me than their parents, not sure why that is?

Good luck!

All my MIL has to do is rock my LO in her Rock N Play and sing to her and she falls asleep. DH has to bounce her around the room until she screams herself to sleep and I have to nurse her. The parents have it the hardest!