CC/CIO Support and Information Thread

[DaisyBee]

We did cc and still gave a night feed for Jordan, Megan at 13 months didn't want milk she just wanted to be rocked. My goal was self settling for naps and bedtime, not dropping the night bottle for jordan. She still had a bottle for another month at 3-4 am and then I gradually offered less bottle at that time before putting her down awake. She would self settle, but then in the morning wouldn't want her bottle. And every time she was waking she would wake Megan up, so I decided to do cc at night then as well. Her dr said her weight was fine for doing cc at night and having her drop that bottle. I was giving her only 2 oz for over a week before doing the cc at 3am. That took one night of 30 minutes crying with me going in at intervals.

When doing cc for bedtime I did pick her up once to make sure she didn't have to burp. We did cc during a time when I knew she wasn't sick and she was acting normal vs acting like teeth were bugging her. No big changes during her day or routine. I did our normal bedtime routine. After cc, if she cries at night I decide what kind of cry it is. She has a tendency to wake a few hours after sleeping needing to burp, she has a pain cry. I go in and burp her and then lay her down awake and she goes back to sleep. In the middle of the night I wait 5 minutes to see if she will settle as she usually will. If she isn't settling or sounds upset then I go in, check her diaper, make sure her diaper didn't leak, try burping, I take care of things. But then I lay her back down awake and she goes to sleep herself. This last week she was sick so I just cuddled her all night one night as she cried and couldn't sleep. I've been feeding her at night as well as she has been barely eating. I use common sense about what my baby needs at the time and go with my gut. I've found that sometimes she cries and I go to her and me going to her annoys her. She doesn't want me and cries harder if I pick her up, she just wants to go back to sleep and here I am bugging her.

My goal with cc was to put them in their crib awake so they weren't falling asleep on me. They needed to learn how to fall asleep. If Jordan falls asleep on the bottle before nap I gently wake her before putting her down as I learned that she will only nap 30 minutes if she falls asleep on me. As I lay her down in the crib if she is sleeping I just say her name and stroke her cheek or something and she wakes and looks at me, it's usually enough to stop the sleep assocation. If she wakes part way through a nap and has a bm, ( i usually hear her do it in the monitor, and if i don't... i always do a quick check if she is crying anyway.( asI am able to change her and tell her night night mommy loves you and she falls back asleep. That's why cc works well for me. I am able go to them and sort things out ( burping, diaper, pacifier found, too hot of pjs, whatever and then they will fall asleep themselves).

 

[bananaz]

Stalking this thread. My LO will be 5 months tomorrow and I don't have an issue with rocking or nursing her down but for the past week even those things haven't been working for naps - she'll fall asleep and then pop awake when I go to set her down. I tried for almost 2 hours this morning to get her down and we both ended up in tears.

I've already given PU/PD a shot but picking her up just makes her scream louder. The only way she'll calm down is if I actually take her out of the room. I just don't know what to do with her at this point. It makes me so sad to see my smiley girl being so grumpy and exhausted

 

[pinklightbulb]

Some babies don't take well to the PU/PD method. Eamon didn't. It just distressed him more that I was picking him up and then leaving him again. Have you tried the ssh-pat method? This is leaving baby in crib/cot and patting off to sleep without picking up.

 

[bananaz]

Some babies don't take well to the PU/PD method. Eamon didn't. It just distressed him more that I was picking him up and then leaving him again. Have you tried the ssh-pat method? This is leaving baby in crib/cot and patting off to sleep without picking up.

Yes, shush-pat is one of the few methods that has actually helped, but lately she has been so hysterical when I try to put her down that even that won't work Maybe I've been doing it wrong though. Do you put your LO down completely awake and then shh-pat him to sleep, or do you get him mostly asleep first and then use shh-pat to resettle him if he fusses?

 

[pinklightbulb]

I put down drowsy to begin with, then gradutated to awake down the track

 

[BethHx]

Im not sure if this is what im looking for but Izzy is 15 weeks two days. So im aware to young.
She sttn, has done for a while now.
But she always falls asleep on me, on her bottle or i allow her to suck a dummy for two minutes then she sucks her thumb.

I would love it if she could advice herself to sleep by sucking her thumb without me holding her.

I don't like the cio idea, are any of these other methods right for me?
Or does anyone have some other advice?
She is a brilliant sleeper i just don't want her to get into the habit of me settling her off x

 

[pinklightbulb]

Would you be willing to try the pick-up/put-down method?

 

[Saphira]

I'm looking for some advice as perhaps there's something we haven't tried that would be worth trying. I feel desperate because I'd love to find a cry-free solution (or at least something close enough to it), as unrealistic as it seems and probably is. As I wrote in my first post, my daughter's a sleep fighter. Even if she's poorly napped through the day and is rubbing her eyes at bedtime she still nearly always puts up a fight for bedtime. She's the sweetest thing during the day, an easy baby, but when it's bedtime her whole world turns upside down.
I feel like she could be teething as she wasn't really herself yesterday, pretty much a grump the whole day, and pushes bottles away/drinks less. That's how she was before and shortly after her first two teeth came in 2.5 months back. So, I'm putting a lot of the extra drama down to teething. We gave her some teething gel last night. Since I think she's probably in some pain/discomfort I tried to find other ways other than PU/PD to get her to sleep easier. First, we brought her in bed in between us to cuddle. That lasted maybe 10mins. before she started getting bored and wanted to crawl around. I figured that's how it'd go because she isn't the cuddling type and hasn't been since she was around 3 months old. So, we then tried putting her in her crib and staying with her. Well, that also didn't work at all as she stood up looking like a sad puppy in a cage and started whining and crying to get out. We resorted to the usual after those tries, giving her a bottle, carrying her for 5ish minutes, putting her in her crib, saying goodnight and leaving. By this time it must have been nearly 11PM. She cried 5mins. then thankfully slept after a 3hr. battle. I feel this is how it goes most nights, bedtime between 8-9PM and a 2-3hr. battle to sleep.
I write this as I feel frustrated because it hurts me a lot. Every night the same lately and this goes on for hours. I don't know how to get her down with the least amount of tears because nothing is working, no matter what we try there are tears because she doesn't want to sleep. I mentioned when she was 5 1/2 months - 8 months I'd take her out of her room and into ours with some of her toys to keep her entertained. This prevented tears for the moment but sometimes ended up in more since she became overtired. She just wants to stay up with us and play but of course no one can function on no sleep. That wasn't a good routine for her if I can even call it a routine. You just begin to run out of ideas. I'm just so sick of the nightly battle no matter what we try.

 

[mrsbeano]

Some babies don't take well to the PU/PD method. Eamon didn't. It just distressed him more that I was picking him up and then leaving him again. Have you tried the ssh-pat method? This is leaving baby in crib/cot and patting off to sleep without picking up.

Yes, shush-pat is one of the few methods that has actually helped, but lately she has been so hysterical when I try to put her down that even that won't work Maybe I've been doing it wrong though. Do you put your LO down completely awake and then shh-pat him to sleep, or do you get him mostly asleep first and then use shh-pat to resettle him if he fusses?

I try to make my LO really happy in his cot before I leave him to it. I play his mobile and give a kiss and a cuddle and then he will go on his own. Sometimes he wants a dummy or a little shhh pat but I found he drifts off okay if he's happy before I leave x

 

[BethHx]

I would yes but i find when she's settling if i pick her up it wakes her back up to being wide awake. She can settle herself off in the day in her different chairs, etc.
Just not in the Moses at night.
I moved her into her own room lastnight so i will see how she gets on in their for A week then try and see how she settles on her own.
Will pop back onto this thread if i don't have much success. She's a brilliant sleeper just don't want her to rely on me rocking her to sleep as she will then get use to it x

 

[bananaz]

I try to make my LO really happy in his cot before I leave him to it. I play his mobile and give a kiss and a cuddle and then he will go on his own. Sometimes he wants a dummy or a little shhh pat but I found he drifts off okay if he's happy before I leave x

Yeah, I have tried that method as well, and she will be happy for a little while until she gets bored and then she starts fussing, which escalates into screaming within a few minutes

But today I've been using the shush-pat method today and it's been working surprisingly well. I nurse her until she's drowsy then set her down in the crib and roll her onto her belly. She fusses for like 2 seconds before I start patting and shushing, and then she's out. Her naps so far have all been pretty short, but progress is progress, right?

 

[ArmyWife1984]

I'm looking for some advice as perhaps there's something we haven't tried that would be worth trying. I feel desperate because I'd love to find a cry-free solution (or at least something close enough to it), as unrealistic as it seems and probably is. As I wrote in my first post, my daughter's a sleep fighter. Even if she's poorly napped through the day and is rubbing her eyes at bedtime she still nearly always puts up a fight for bedtime. She's the sweetest thing during the day, an easy baby, but when it's bedtime her whole world turns upside down.
I feel like she could be teething as she wasn't really herself yesterday, pretty much a grump the whole day, and pushes bottles away/drinks less. That's how she was before and shortly after her first two teeth came in 2.5 months back. So, I'm putting a lot of the extra drama down to teething. We gave her some teething gel last night. Since I think she's probably in some pain/discomfort I tried to find other ways other than PU/PD to get her to sleep easier. First, we brought her in bed in between us to cuddle. That lasted maybe 10mins. before she started getting bored and wanted to crawl around. I figured that's how it'd go because she isn't the cuddling type and hasn't been since she was around 3 months old. So, we then tried putting her in her crib and staying with her. Well, that also didn't work at all as she stood up looking like a sad puppy in a cage and started whining and crying to get out. We resorted to the usual after those tries, giving her a bottle, carrying her for 5ish minutes, putting her in her crib, saying goodnight and leaving. By this time it must have been nearly 11PM. She cried 5mins. then thankfully slept after a 3hr. battle. I feel this is how it goes most nights, bedtime between 8-9PM and a 2-3hr. battle to sleep.
I write this as I feel frustrated because it hurts me a lot. Every night the same lately and this goes on for hours. I don't know how to get her down with the least amount of tears because nothing is working, no matter what we try there are tears because she doesn't want to sleep. I mentioned when she was 5 1/2 months - 8 months I'd take her out of her room and into ours with some of her toys to keep her entertained. This prevented tears for the moment but sometimes ended up in more since she became overtired. She just wants to stay up with us and play but of course no one can function on no sleep. That wasn't a good routine for her if I can even call it a routine. You just begin to run out of ideas. I'm just so sick of the nightly battle no matter what we try.

What bout trying a dummy? It was hard for me to hear the crying after the 1st night of 1hour 45min of CC/CIO.
So I tried a dummy, and he would spit it out the first few times I tried, but I would keep trying every night to give him a dummy and now he loves having it and doesn't cry anymore in the crib.
just fusses and tosses around until he falls asleep.

That may be one way to have cry free solution...Other than that I am not really sure. The only other thing we did was give him bottles in the crib, and then take it away once he was asleep. That was another thing we did to avoid the crying. Best of luck Momma!

 

[DaisyBee]

I'm looking for some advice as perhaps there's something we haven't tried that would be worth trying. I feel desperate because I'd love to find a cry-free solution (or at least something close enough to it), as unrealistic as it seems and probably is. As I wrote in my first post, my daughter's a sleep fighter. Even if she's poorly napped through the day and is rubbing her eyes at bedtime she still nearly always puts up a fight for bedtime. She's the sweetest thing during the day, an easy baby, but when it's bedtime her whole world turns upside down.
I feel like she could be teething as she wasn't really herself yesterday, pretty much a grump the whole day, and pushes bottles away/drinks less. That's how she was before and shortly after her first two teeth came in 2.5 months back. So, I'm putting a lot of the extra drama down to teething. We gave her some teething gel last night. Since I think she's probably in some pain/discomfort I tried to find other ways other than PU/PD to get her to sleep easier. First, we brought her in bed in between us to cuddle. That lasted maybe 10mins. before she started getting bored and wanted to crawl around. I figured that's how it'd go because she isn't the cuddling type and hasn't been since she was around 3 months old. So, we then tried putting her in her crib and staying with her. Well, that also didn't work at all as she stood up looking like a sad puppy in a cage and started whining and crying to get out. We resorted to the usual after those tries, giving her a bottle, carrying her for 5ish minutes, putting her in her crib, saying goodnight and leaving. By this time it must have been nearly 11PM. She cried 5mins. then thankfully slept after a 3hr. battle. I feel this is how it goes most nights, bedtime between 8-9PM and a 2-3hr. battle to sleep.
I write this as I feel frustrated because it hurts me a lot. Every night the same lately and this goes on for hours. I don't know how to get her down with the least amount of tears because nothing is working, no matter what we try there are tears because she doesn't want to sleep. I mentioned when she was 5 1/2 months - 8 months I'd take her out of her room and into ours with some of her toys to keep her entertained. This prevented tears for the moment but sometimes ended up in more since she became overtired. She just wants to stay up with us and play but of course no one can function on no sleep. That wasn't a good routine for her if I can even call it a routine. You just begin to run out of ideas. I'm just so sick of the nightly battle no matter what we try.

Cc is the only way we stopped the tears with jordan. Yes there were tears during cc, but the way things were going for us it was actually less tears than a normal night. I said I would never do cc, I waited with my first until she was 13 months old. I tried anything and everything as I was not wanting her to cry. So I completely understand. It is hard to hear your baby cry. But I wasn't doing either of my girls any favors.

And with bedtime that late after not settling for hours, Your lo is probably fighting it as she is overtired as well. It's a vicious cycle.

 

[TheSmpsns]

I'm glad there is a thread that does not bash CC! I have used this since LO was about 2 months. He does well with it and very seldom cries when placed in his crib now. He is 3 months old on Wednesday and is STTN, 10-13 hours.

 

[albs]

we started cc with ds a week ago. (i know this is earlier than recommended and if anyone is interested/concerned with how/why we did it then message me and i'll happily explain, just don't want to ramble on too long here or people will stop reading.)

he now goes down perfectly at bedtime, sleeps nice long stretches and usually self settles in the night.

naps are different though. after the first day he found his thumb and started going down for short naps after a short protest. since friday though he has settled almost immediately, but then 2 - 5 minutes later wakes up properly screaming. each time it happens i pick him up and try and burp him in case it's wind because it's such a loud scream, but i rarely get anything. i don't leave him for more than a minute or two when he's really screaming, and he does eventually re-settle. if i pick him up and try and calm him he just keeps screaming until i give up, leave the nursery and stop trying to get him to sleep. he's always very tired when i put him down to sleep so i can't work out why he's waking up so quickly and so distressed. i don't know what i should do when he does this.

any ideas?

 

[mommie2be]

Corey has officially started sleeping 7-730 ! With no wake ups ! *touch wood* Thank goodness for CC.

 

[NannyWhitney]

Does anyone co-sleep and use CIO or CC? I've been considering CC, since my LO is a horrible sleeper. She won't nap and won't sleep for more than 3 hour stretches at night, and if we get that, we're lucky! Usually she wakes every 1 1/2-2 hours and won't go back down unless I nurse her. I'm afraid I'm developing really bad habits with her, and would like to break them now before they get set.

I just don't know if we can use the CC method if she's in a co-sleeper right next to the bed and I'm not quite ready to move her into her crib yet. Any suggestions?

 

[libbylou]

Tonight we're starting CC so I'm glad I stumbled on this thread.
I love the idea of a no cry method, but honestly would be spending my whole night trying to get her to sleep because she cries the minute she thinks I'm trying to get her to sleep
Nap time and sleep time are a huge battle in our house and have been since she was born. She's an active little girl who can't shut off and sleep and then once she's asleep, her tummy troubles (gas) wake her every light sleep cycle (45-60mins) and she needs me to nurse/rock her back to sleep. So we cosleep for the majority of the night.
I love the cosleeping (other than the back and hip pain I get from it) but I don't love spending 1-2 hours fighting her to sleep nightly and fighting her down for 2-3 naps a day

We did our bedtime routine, nursed her, burped her and put her down. Am sitting beside her crib ocassionally patting and shushing her and telling her its bedtime. She's been going for a half hour (not hysterically) and is shockingly almost asleep. I was expecting much more as she generally screams until she gets nursed to sleep, in the past she has screamed as long as two hours while I tried rocking/patting/shushing.

 

[Irish Eyes]

Im not sure if this is what im looking for but Izzy is 15 weeks two days. So im aware to young.
She sttn, has done for a while now.
But she always falls asleep on me, on her bottle or i allow her to suck a dummy for two minutes then she sucks her thumb.

I would love it if she could advice herself to sleep by sucking her thumb without me holding her.

I don't like the cio idea, are any of these other methods right for me?
Or does anyone have some other advice?
She is a brilliant sleeper i just don't want her to get into the habit of me settling her off x

Have you tried laying her down in her crib while she's still awake? When we've done the bedtime routine i cuddle him for a few minutes and tell him I love him etc. Then I put him down in his crib. He sometimes does a little whinge which he does for his naps as well which is fine, if he starts crying at all then I always go in and pick him up and he'll fall asleep on me. However he's now been falling asleep on his own 9/10 times. I have no problems with him falling asleep on me though, I actually miss it when he doesn't!

 

[Mummy Bean]

Well this weekend was to be our trial run and getting lo to sleep in his own cot in own room. so i had in my hed to use cc. but after 45min he was just getting more hysterical so we found that just sitting next to the cot holding his hand worked wonders. the following nights we did all the usual routine but him down n left for 10 min then came and sat with him. both nights he was asleep within half hour with hardly any crying. then he woke twice each night where again i put his dummy in and sat with him and he was asleep within 5. Hoping as time goes on he wont need me to sit with him.

I know it dosent really teach him to self settle...but at least we seem to have got him to sleep in his own bed. (although very early days).