Alternatives to CIO - Page 2

[TheGirls]

I suspect the reason that most of those methods aren't mentioned much is because they're unlikely to work for folks with sleep-resisting babies. My babe is a relatively easy sleeper and none of that would've remotely worked for her. By the time people are desperate enough to consider CIO on here, they've already tried shushing and back patting, KWIM?

And frequent nursing is, in fact normal, natural, and healthy for young babies. As is cosleeping. When cosleeping/nursing doesn't work for whatever reason, then you have to try the more laborious methods, but there's no way I'm gonna get up and wear DD for a half hour while walking around the house (the only other method of getting her to sleep) if I can stick a boob in her mouth. Neither of us wakes fully to nurse.

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

Sooooo.... what would be, then? Giving the baby drugs to stop it screaming / crying / whining? Because when your goal is "get baby to stop screaming/crying/whining", I think you and baby are pretty much on the same page. The problem is, neither of you know what baby wants.

It is possible for a child to cry in the arms of a loving, gentle caregiver.

I have a baby that cries to sleep almost always as well (though in the last couple months it is finally getting better!!!).. I just meant that if you DO know what baby wants (boob) and you are witholding that from them in order to train them to soothe themselves it isn't very gentle. Also wanted to clarify that I do realize that sometimes it IS necessary for mama's sanity..

ETA: Edna, if you look through the FBNP forum you will see many posts of mine regarding Liam's sleep fighting, etc. So I am right there with you. He FINALLY started "just" nursing to sleep around 10 months old or so.. and he still fights it about half the time. He cried to sleep almost every time the first 10 months of his life.. but always in my arms. I get where you are and I am sorry if I was unclear in my original post.. I was not speaking of babies who cry to sleep no matter what you do, and who won't nurse to sleep.

[EdnaMarie]

Sorry, if I sounded defensive, well I am, I'm sleep deprived right now. I believe you about your son. Just feeling a little... irritable. y

I'm feeling a lot of confusion over this issue because what worked with DD! doesn't work with DD2, and in addition, it is soooo much harder to do the whole shebang with DD2 because I'm alone with the kids (DH is in the army, not deployed but not here now), and DD1 needs social interaction, so we are halfway through No-Cry Sleep Solution and just cannot make any progress. I keep falling asleep. Baby is confused. It sucks!

Tonight, she nursed to wake, binked to sleep, went to sleep in her cradle with nature sounds playing and woke up after 45 minutes- one sleep cycle. I re-binked, no deal. Re-binked again with shushing. Nope. Picked up, re-binked, shushed and swayed- and the pre-schooler entered, saying, "DID SHE WAKE UP???"

The fact that my pre-schooler is still alive and relatively well is the only evidence I have that I am not a bad mother.

[tanyam926]

To the op- I think the answer is that those methods you described work really well on babies that are already easy/good sleepers and if you compare nursing back to sleep w/those other methods it is easier for moms (me!) to nurse back to sleep. We get more sleep and it is less disturbed.

The moms that are starting the desperation threads have babies that need much more help to sleep, nursing to sleep doesn't work nor does shushing, patting, etc.

Does that make sense?

Basically what I am trying to say is that those of us w/easy sleepers don't start the at breaking pt threads bc we don't need any help, and the moms w/babies that do need help have already tried the obvious methods.

I really feel for the sleep deprived mamas out there, I am lucky to have had 3 babies that are pretty easy to get to sleep and sleep well (we nurse and co sleep at night) but I know that this has to do w/my kid's personalities, not my parenting skills. If we were to ever have a 4th baby it could be a TOTALLY dif story.

[AislinCarys]

Originally Posted by lilabet

Babies are learning creatures, they can so so easily learn good soothing methods that don't involve disturbance on the scale I see (the threads where mamas are at breaking point.)

I HATE when people, like you, implicate that I am not a good enough mother (or not as good as you, perhaps), because I haven't "made the effort", I guess, to do the little easy thing of teaching my DD good sleep habits.

But don't beat yourself up about it. I'll just assume you have an easy sleeper, and have no idea what it is like to have a more difficult one. I worked as a nanny for years. And I was good at it. I believed that you can mould your baby's behaviour. Sometimes it may be hard, but I believed it possible. Then DD was born, and she'd rather not sleep at all than do things any other way than her prefered way. And I feel awful about how judgemental I was.

[echoecho1528]

Originally Posted by AislinCarys

I HATE when people, like you, implicate that I am not a good enough mother (or not as good as you, perhaps), because I haven't "made the effort", I guess, to do the little easy thing of teaching my DD good sleep habits.

But don't beat yourself up about it. I'll just assume you have an easy sleeper, and have no idea what it is like to have a more difficult one. I worked as a nanny for years. And I was good at it. I believed that you can mould your baby's behaviour. Sometimes it may be hard, but I believed it possible. Then DD was born, and she'd rather not sleep at all than do things any other way than her prefered way. And I feel awful about how judgemental I was.

Thank you AislinCarys for addressing this. I was thinking the exact same thing and am surprised that others hadn't addressed it yet.
Babies have different temperaments and their temperaments effect their sleep patterns. Period. The OP comes off as extremely judgmental, and similarly to AislinCarys, I was the same way until DD came around.
OP, if you are so bothered by reading about those of us that have similar sleep problems with our babes, then maybe just skip those posts? Or, you can always visit all of our houses and "fix" the problems we have created for ourselves??

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

Sorry, if I sounded defensive, well I am, I'm sleep deprived right now. I believe you about your son. Just feeling a little... irritable. y

I'm feeling a lot of confusion over this issue because what worked with DD! doesn't work with DD2, and in addition, it is soooo much harder to do the whole shebang with DD2 because I'm alone with the kids (DH is in the army, not deployed but not here now), and DD1 needs social interaction, so we are halfway through No-Cry Sleep Solution and just cannot make any progress. I keep falling asleep. Baby is confused. It sucks!

Tonight, she nursed to wake, binked to sleep, went to sleep in her cradle with nature sounds playing and woke up after 45 minutes- one sleep cycle. I re-binked, no deal. Re-binked again with shushing. Nope. Picked up, re-binked, shushed and swayed- and the pre-schooler entered, saying, "DID SHE WAKE UP???"

The fact that my pre-schooler is still alive and relatively well is the only evidence I have that I am not a bad mother.

I cannot imagine how hard it is with a baby like that and another child making it even harder.

How old is your baby? Just curious.. for us around 8 months was the absolute worst. Around 9 months it got a little better, then worse again around 11 months, and now it is getting a little better again at 14 months. A LOT less fighting to sleep. Once he started walking that made things better too.. he is happier and wears himself out more!

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by AislinCarys

I HATE when people, like you, implicate that I am not a good enough mother (or not as good as you, perhaps), because I haven't "made the effort", I guess, to do the little easy thing of teaching my DD good sleep habits.

But don't beat yourself up about it. I'll just assume you have an easy sleeper, and have no idea what it is like to have a more difficult one. I worked as a nanny for years. And I was good at it. I believed that you can mould your baby's behaviour. Sometimes it may be hard, but I believed it possible. Then DD was born, and she'd rather not sleep at all than do things any other way than her prefered way. And I feel awful about how judgemental I was.

[kiara7]

Originally Posted by AislinCarys

I HATE when people, like you, implicate that I am not a good enough mother (or not as good as you, perhaps), because I haven't "made the effort", I guess, to do the little easy thing of teaching my DD good sleep habits.

But don't beat yourself up about it. I'll just assume you have an easy sleeper, and have no idea what it is like to have a more difficult one. I worked as a nanny for years. And I was good at it. I believed that you can mould your baby's behaviour. Sometimes it may be hard, but I believed it possible. Then DD was born, and she'd rather not sleep at all than do things any other way than her prefered way. And I feel awful about how judgemental I was.

Totally agree.

OP- do you think we are inadequate mothers because we nurse our babies to sleep instead of teaching them some "self soothing skills"?

Everyone needs to take a look around. As much as we'd like to think of ourselves as intelligent humans, we are still in the end animals. How many cats, lions, monkeys, dogs has anyone seen that sleep separate from their babies? How many animal babies sleep NOT attached to their mothers? And how many lions use the "pick up, put down" method?

We forget what is developmentally appropriate for babies.
They will all learn to put themselves to sleep in their own time. No need to create some elaborate scientific methods if what nature intended works for you.

[EdnaMarie]

Originally Posted by LadyCatherine185

I cannot imagine how hard it is with a baby like that and another child making it even harder.

How old is your baby? Just curious.. for us around 8 months was the absolute worst. Around 9 months it got a little better, then worse again around 11 months, and now it is getting a little better again at 14 months. A LOT less fighting to sleep. Once he started walking that made things better too.. he is happier and wears himself out more!

She's six months even. DD1 was soooo easy- so easy that even I could tell it wasn't anything I did, kwim? DD2 is pretty hard sleep-wise. I keep thinking that once we're crawling, it will get better. Here's to that!

[MrsBone]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

I've tried all that and more.

She cries in my bed, in my arms, on my boob, so you can't blame us for thinking, would it really be SO bad for her to cry in a cradle? Really?

Luckily we get sleep reprieves every so often... but yes, we tried all that. Rocking. Swaddling. Tummy sleeping. White noise. Absolute silence. Darkness. Semi-darkness. Cradle. Different-room sleeping with a monitor. Warmer clothes. Cooler clothes. More day nursing. Shushing. Swaying. Bouncing. Vibrating chair. Carseat. Co-sleeping. Sleeping on me while I walk around for hours. Finger. Binky (she takes one but pulls it out when sleeping). Other binky. Sleeping on breast. Nope, none of them work for us for more than 30 minutes.

My child doesn't nurse to sleep. She nurses herself awake. If I could nurse her to sleep, I would. To me, that seems obvious. She just doesn't sleep, and if I over-nurse her (to get her to nurse when not hungry is a horrible struggle) she then vomits all over.

The only thing that even moderately works is rocking to sleep, laying down on tummy or on side, and sleeping in a different room, with me getting up to comfort her every two hours (she doesn't nurse). And that's what we do, and we change methods every night because nothing works twice in a row.



Sooooo.... what would be, then? Giving the baby drugs to stop it screaming / crying / whining? Because when your goal is "get baby to stop screaming/crying/whining", I think you and baby are pretty much on the same page. The problem is, neither of you know what baby wants.

It is possible for a child to cry in the arms of a loving, gentle caregiver.

Mama, do you drink caffeine? Have you considered a caffeine senstivity in your baby? it sounds an awful lot like my little one. He wouldn't nurse to sleep, slept 30 minutes at a time and woke frequently at night. He never nursed to sleep either. I finally figured out that he was sensitive to the tiny amount of caffeine I was having daily. One cup of coffee here, a piece of chocolate there.

[LeoneLover13]

I am unfortunately going to have to agree you are coming off a little judgmental...I am another "Breaking Point Mama" and believe all of us, we have tried your 'suggestions' plus A LOT more...hence why we have a thread dedicated to us.

Picture this, if you have never been in our situation:

DD FINALLY nursed, rocked, bounced, walked to sleep after 45 mins at 9pm. This is after an hour long walk, bounce, nurse, outside when she usually falls asleep. She then woke 35 mins later, so I RAN in and nursed her back to sleep real quick. She will wake again after another sleep cycle in an hour or so. And that will continue..ALL NIGHT LONG. Why would I pick her up, walk, bounce, rock, shh, pat for another 45 min-2 hours when I can nurse in less than 2 mins, and get the sleep I so desperately need, or relax by myself?

Every Mother needs time to herself, and needs sleep..for those who do not get the sleep they need, a little extra time to themselves is warranted, and for me...and probably a lot of the other 'B.P Mamas'....I will do whatever I have to, to get an hour or two of time to myself.

[moonmom08]

It does sound a little judgmental. But I hear this from a lot of moms, talking about their great sleepers and ticking off all of the things they did to make them sleep that way. I personally do not think it is awesome parenting skills that create a "good" sleeper, no more than crappy parenting skills create a "lousy" sleeper. My DD is somewhere in between, and I take no credit for the way she sleeps, only for recognizing the way she sleeps and accepting it, and learning to work with it when I could.

I usually assume that other things have been tried, but...Many mamas don't even have the resources to try new things and have to keep doing what they're doing. It's survival mode. And so what if they HAVEN'T tried anything else and don't plan to? Why can't a mama vent when it's hard? Because even though it's normal and natural, it's (usually) hard... if you've ever seen a nursing mammal in the wild, she's usually pretty haggard, thin and tired. Even when someone chooses to co-sleep and nurse every hour, they can complain and rant and break down about it when it is really, really hard.