CIO: Sure Lookin' Good Right Now! - Page 5

[MaterPrimaePuellae]

We did not officially co-sleep-- I put DD in her crib at night, then when she woke up crying I nursed her in the twin bed in her room where we often slept until morning... if I woke up, I sometimes transfered her to her crib and went back to bed with DH.
I have not found CIO to be effective at all... in my experience, if DD goes to sleep peacefully (either I rock her or DH plays the guitar) she sleeps longer and better.
One caveat to this,though-- there is one particular cry (which I can almost always recognize) that seems to be her version of talking in her sleep. She very often does this in the early morning. If I go in and get her out of her crib, she fights me a bit and then wakes up and has a very hard time going back to sleep. If I leave her for a little while (no more than 5 min, generally), she settles back into deeper sleep and sleeps for at least another hour or two. She seems *much* happier upon waking (and throughout the morning) for having a few more hours of sleep. This all just comes down, I think, to knowing and responding specifically to your baby.

[emma_goldman]

Originally Posted by seoul_mama

wow, this is great to hear. would you mind sharing whether they self-weaned or if you initiated it. AND if you initiated, how did you do it???

I don't know if this has been covered- I stopped reading at this one- but my 31-month-old co-sleeping night nurser has just started sleeping through the night if he's not teething or sick...

So, it DOES happen!

[Astrogirl]

You know, as horrible as CIO is for a child emotionally (and thats reason enough right there), I just don't think it works. My coworkers 2 sons 'sleep through'....uh...kind of. The first one was rigidly sleep trained at 6 months - and his mom is one of those women who bragged and touted it as the solution to sleep problems. Thats up till the age of 2, when they cant really talk and all they can do is cry. So he CIOd at 6 months and until he was 2, he put himself to sleep like a 'good little sleeper' : and alls well that ends well, right?

Wrong. What happens when he's older? He's 4 now and is harder to put down. Hes not in a crib anymore. He can't be left to CIO at that age. He can walk, he can talk and now they have no methodology, no routine to handle it since all they had before was CIO. The youngest is 1.5 and still cries throughout the night - all night long. Not violently (as in vomiting), but still. He's been around for 1.5 years and they are still doing this since he was 6 months old? Yet they brag that he sleeps through and can put himself to bed and thats a life long skill (eyeroll). Of course he can put himself to sleep. He has no choice! But i seriously am starting to consider the idea that when he realizes he DOES have choices, they will be in the same boat.

[junomama]

I just wanted to add my two cents to your original post, though I know you've been updating and responding throughout. Like you, DH and I know a ton of people who brag about how they sleep-trained their child through CIO, and how their babies now sleep through the night, etc. But it's interesting ... occasionally, a friend here or there has confided in me that she hasn't been able to bring herself to let her baby cry it out yet (as if that's a failing or weakness on her part). The thing is, more often than not, those babies are doing just fine in sleeping through the night, particularly once they've gotten past the first few months or. Sure, they wake up now and then (which is sometimes tiring for the mom, but nothing to worry about), but often, they'll sleep for up to five hours at a time. And these aren't co-sleeping, long-term breastfed babies, either — they're pretty mainstream, formula-fed babies (whose moms are probably being strongly pressured to CIO). I don't think non-CIO babies necessarily have "sleep problems." They're perfectly normal babies who just feel comfortable expressing their perfectly normal needs — needs that the rest of society has made us think are "problems."

We don't do it, either. We tried once, caving under pressure, and it was just too heartbreaking. It just didn't feel natural or right to let him cry. I'd rather have our son grow up knowing he can trust us to respond to him.

This has been such an interesting thread to read. Thank you for starting it!

[wannabe]

Originally Posted by Astrogirl

Wrong. What happens when he's older? He's 4 now and is harder to put down. Hes not in a crib anymore. He can't be left to CIO at that age. He can walk, he can talk and now they have no methodology, no routine to handle it since all they had before was CIO.

You don't want to hear this, but they still do CIO - they lock the door so the kid can't get out :

[phreedom]

Originally Posted by MaterPrimaePuellae

We did not officially co-sleep-- I put DD in her crib at night, then when she woke up crying I nursed her in the twin bed in her room where we often slept until morning... if I woke up, I sometimes transfered her to her crib and went back to bed with DH.
I have not found CIO to be effective at all... in my experience, if DD goes to sleep peacefully (either I rock her or DH plays the guitar) she sleeps longer and better.
One caveat to this,though-- there is one particular cry (which I can almost always recognize) that seems to be her version of talking in her sleep. She very often does this in the early morning. If I go in and get her out of her crib, she fights me a bit and then wakes up and has a very hard time going back to sleep. If I leave her for a little while (no more than 5 min, generally), she settles back into deeper sleep and sleeps for at least another hour or two. She seems *much* happier upon waking (and throughout the morning) for having a few more hours of sleep. This all just comes down, I think, to knowing and responding specifically to your baby.

My DD sometimes does that too. My "rule" for that is, if she is laying down then I don't pick her up (if she's not obviously awake). I always go in to check on her and will stay in the room until she stops. Which is usually less than a minute. If she is standing up, then she is awake. And the longer it takes for me to get to her, the harder it will be to get her back to bed. So I try to respond as soon as I can. Usually all I have to do is nurse her and she goes right back to sleep.

I don't like to ignore her cries because usually there is a reason for it. And for some reason I don't think manipulation is it. I have went in many times to find her in a poopy diaper or a wet, urine soaked bed from a leaky diaper. I couldn't imagine her sitting in that all night :

As far as the "sleep competitions", compared to my CIO friends, my child actually seems to sleep really well. Not that I'm competing with them, I'm not. But how your child sleeps really depends on the child. Each child is different and there is not "one size fits all" method that will get them to sleep all night. They will do it when they are ready. In the meantime, if your helpless baby is crying in the middle of the night, it is your job (collective "you") as their parent to address those needs. Ignoring them is neglectful.

[joannejoanne]

My little DS is almost 5 months old and we have co-slept from the start. Right now it's rough as he wakes up at least every hour (sometimes multiple times an hour). I am so tired I can hardly see straight. But I could never do CIO. He has the most heart wrenching sad face and I cannot imagine him making that face all alone in a room at night, wondering why no one is there to comfort him.

[WoodlandFairytale]

I haven't read all the responses, but surely there are others who were subjected to CIO themselves where the effects extended into childhood. I am one of them. My mom said that when I was a baby, they kept my bassinet in the living room at night while they slept in the bedroom. I was their first and they had no idea how to deal with a crying baby at night, and thought they were supposed to just let me cry in another room.

I clearly recall - from the age of 3 until probably about 10 - fighting over going to bed every single night because I was scared to be away from my parents. They closed and locked their door every night. I was afraid of the dark and constantly had nightmares. I would cry and knock on their door and ask them to let me in, and most of the time they'd ignore me, though they'd occasionally open the door long enough to yell at me to go back to bed already. The problem was exacerbated when (I think I was 8 or 9) someone was breaking into our house through my open bedroom window and I went to try to wake up my parents and it seemed to take forever to get my dad to come to the door.

I can still remember the nightmares I had during those times. After my sister was born, I would go in her room and sleep on the floor next to her crib. It didn't make me feel much better, but I was glad at least to have *some* company and looking back, hopefully it helped her too.

Even as an adult I have issues with sleeping alone. I never feel safe. When my husband's not here, I barely get any sleep at all - I'm always waking up at every little noise, worrying that someone will try to break in or something.

ETA: I may be an extreme example, I guess, but I used to be a nanny to many children whose parents used CIO who had similar sleeping issues... Regardless, I hope you find a solution that works for you AND your baby. Good luck!

[seoul_mama]

Originally Posted by WoodlandFairytale

I haven't read all the responses, but surely there are others who were subjected to CIO themselves where the effects extended into childhood. I am one of them. My mom said that when I was a baby, they kept my bassinet in the living room at night while they slept in the bedroom. I was their first and they had no idea how to deal with a crying baby at night, and thought they were supposed to just let me cry in another room.

I clearly recall - from the age of 3 until probably about 10 - fighting over going to bed every single night because I was scared to be away from my parents. They closed and locked their door every night. I was afraid of the dark and constantly had nightmares. I would cry and knock on their door and ask them to let me in, and most of the time they'd ignore me, though they'd occasionally open the door long enough to yell at me to go back to bed already. The problem was exacerbated when (I think I was 8 or 9) someone was breaking into our house through my open bedroom window and I went to try to wake up my parents and it seemed to take forever to get my dad to come to the door.

I can still remember the nightmares I had during those times. After my sister was born, I would go in her room and sleep on the floor next to her crib. It didn't make me feel much better, but I was glad at least to have *some* company and looking back, hopefully it helped her too.

Even as an adult I have issues with sleeping alone. I never feel safe. When my husband's not here, I barely get any sleep at all - I'm always waking up at every little noise, worrying that someone will try to break in or something.

ETA: I may be an extreme example, I guess, but I used to be a nanny to many children whose parents used CIO who had similar sleeping issues... Regardless, I hope you find a solution that works for you AND your baby. Good luck!

Thank you for sharing this. What a poignant example of the potential consequences of not responding to a baby's cry.

[mouso]

I wanted to post again to let you know something interesting. I am on another message board and someone posted a question asking how a particular group of the moms who used CIO are doing (these were the holdouts who did it "later" - at about 8-9 months). They wanted to know how their babies are sleeping.

Every one of them is saying how their babies have "regressed." They are all still having to let their babies cry at least once a night. And I know some of them said that the CIO "worked" a couple of weeks ago.
And some of them say they have "given in" and feel guilty for answering their child's cries.

So there is another instance of CIO "working." And this is approximately 5 moms.

[seoul_mama]

Originally Posted by mouso

I wanted to post again to let you know something interesting. I am on another message board and someone posted a question asking how a particular group of the moms who used CIO are doing (these were the holdouts who did it "later" - at about 8-9 months). They wanted to know how their babies are sleeping.

Every one of them is saying how their babies have "regressed." They are all still having to let their babies cry at least once a night. And I know some of them said that the CIO "worked" a couple of weeks ago.
And some of them say they have "given in" and feel guilty for answering their child's cries.

So there is another instance of CIO "working." And this is approximately 5 moms.

Thanks for sharing this. I'm so intrigued by the guilt that parents feel in terms of "giving in." Said another way, parents feel that responding to their baby's cries is tantamount to failing. This seems to reflect the values of the broader culture, whereby independence, autonomy, and self-reliance are privileged and viewed as moral virtues. So it makes sense why parents who cio struggle with guilt - they want to respond, but have come to understand that responding may foster a needy child unable to rely on him/herself.