The reason she had never done CIO is because she never needed it. She didn't cry at all before naps until then even though I put her down awake for every nap since 3 days old.
The first several times she cried before naps, I went to her. I assumed something was wrong since she hadn't cried in nearly three months before a nap. I found it odd. But I couldn't find anything wrong with her. She didn't cry before every nap. It was usually the third nap. Over a few days, it started creeping into other naps.
Since I was used to her going to sleep rather quickly, I worried she would become overly tired and throw off her entire day, so I moved her to the swing. One day, she started crying before her first nap. This was when I knew I needed to start CIO. I knew I had her waketime perfect for her first interval and her crying was protest crying. At nearly three months, she was getting more and more social. I figured she was not pleased with her social hour ending. I don't think McKenna hates naps like Brayden did (does), but I also don't think she has the love of them that Kaitlyn did (does). She is pretty neutral, so if something more appealing is going on, she will choose that instead.
Despite the fact that I have done this before, I found a book particularly worthwhile as I faced this situation. The book is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Many of you blog readers love this book and wanted me to review it, so I had ordered it from Amazon, not knowing what it contained. It came a few days before I started CIO. This book is very helpful for doing CIO--but more on that in future reviews of the book.
One Monday morning, I mustered up my resolve and was ready to face CIO. I was not excited. It isn't fun. I had done the four S's from The Baby Whisperer from birth, though we only ever needed to use the first three. I told my husband this was not fair; I had been careful and diligent and did not want to start CIO now. He told me if anyone could, it was me. So I faced the music.
Well, she must have sensed my resolve. She didn't cry for long. It was only a few minutes. Perhaps I should have allowed her to cry a bit in the first place? By her third nap, she wasn't crying at all anymore. She did take a long time to fall asleep, though. I sat and watched her in the video monitor. I was tempted to run up and put her in the swing so she would be able to get a good nap in. I told myself no. For whatever reason, she was needing to re-learn how to fall asleep on her own. I needed to leave her be and let her fall asleep. She wasn't even crying! I needed to be patient and allow the learning process to happen.
Prior to this week, she had been taking about 20-30 minutes to fall asleep (not crying, just taking that long). Hogg says this is normal, but it really just didn't feel right to me. After this CIO process, she was going to sleep within a few minutes. Here are a few things that just clicked with the week:
- Waketime Length: I finally figured out her optimal waketime length for all but one interval (that is the last one). She goes to sleep fine for it, but takes a short nap. This might be totally normal, though, since she is old enough to be having a short fourth nap.
- Stimulation: In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, Weissbluth states to expose your child to lots of stimulation so he will be tired enough for nap time. I realized I was still trying to protect McKenna from stimulation like I had when she was a newborn. I needed to start exposing her to more stimulating activities now that she was older. This seemed to help a lot.
- Darkening: Also in Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, Weissbluth says to darken the room for naps. Hogg (the Baby Whisperer) also says to do this. Now, I did/do this with Brayden and Kaitlyn, but their rooms have white blinds. It darkens the room, but it doesn't make the room dark. With McKenna, we went with dark brown blinds. They really make the room dark. I didn't want her to require a dark room to sleep. However, I decided to give it a shot. I decided that she sleeps at home most of the time and if she needs a darker room to sleep, she needs a darker room! There is no logical reason to fight it like I was. This also rippled into keeping her room much, much cooler so it isn't so hot in the afternoon.
- Eye Contact: Before I would leave the room, I would look McKenna in the eye and tell her to go to sleep. That seemed to help.
In the end, I think it was really good for McKenna to have had the four S's from the beginning. It was an easy, gentle way to help her sleep (though keep in mind that we never had to get to the fourth S). As she got older, she didn't like being held before the nap so I stopped it. Eventually, she started crying before naps. Since she already had skill at going to sleep on her own, the crying was not prolonged once we started CIO.
One week after starting this CIO process, there were still some naps that McKenna will cry before randomly. It usually lasted only 1-2 minutes tops (it often stopped as soon as I shut her door). But the process was much faster and much more painless than it was with Brayden and Kaitlyn overall. Two weeks after starting the CIO process, she goes down to sleep without a peep and falls asleep quickly. She goes to sleep well on her own and greets me with a smile when her nap is over. I am happy to have this process over with :)
Related Posts/Blog Labels:
- CIO Bootcamp: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/2007/11/cio-bootcamp.html
- CIO Responsibly: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/2009/01/cio-responsibly.html
- CIO (blog label)
- in action (blog label)
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20 comments:
I'm glad you mentioned HSHHC. I did Babywise from birth with our daughter but I didn't feel CIO was well addressed in the BW series. At 3 months DD went through the same change as McKenna did(she had previously went down awake but tightly swaddled) and she was also going down w/o crying by the 3rd nap on the first day we did CIO. It was great!
I can't wait until you review HSHH. It was a total lifesaver with Olive. I think the best thing about that book is that it is written in such a way that you can employ it with whatever method you choose. If you do attachment parenting there's something in it for you. If you are a parent directed feeder, it works too! I also really like that it helps you know that it isn't the end of the world if your baby is only sleeping for an hour. It just gives you more tools for your parenting toolbox. I will say, however, that without something like Babywise or Babywhisperer it would an incomplete sleep training system.
My daughter is just about to be 5 months old and we are experiencing some difficulty with naps. She sleeps through the night and has since she was about 8 weeks old. And I have done CIO with her. She seems to have mastered her morning nap, but her other naps she doesn't do so great. She will fall asleep with little or no crying but 30-60 minutes into it she wakes up. I know about the 45 min. intruder but I can't seem to shake it. There doesn't appear to be anything specific that wakes her up. I have also tried letting her cry a little in order to fall back asleep. (Sometimes she does but she only sleep for another 10 minutes or so. I know she is still tired because she wakes up cranky and when she has had a good 1 1/2 hour or 2 hour nap she is happy when she wakes. Any suggestions?
I am so grateful for your blog and have scoured the pages and posts over the past months as we've implemented BW with our first. I have a Nap/Sleeping question regarding our almost 8 month old little girl. We've done BW from the beginning with her and have pretty much found her to be by the book. I've also found the Baby Whisperer to be very helpful. We've had nap issues from pretty early on, though (probably 3-4 months of age). Maddy is extremely inconsistent with her naps - sometimes taking a two hour nap and other times a 45 minute nap. At 7 1/2 months, we are currently down to two naps a day with an optional late afternoon catnap if needed (which it still often is). As I understand it, she should be sleeping 1.5-2 hours for each nap in order to be well rested and get good nighttime sleep. She sleeps very well overnight for the most part - a solid 12 hour night with a dreamfeed at 10p. We have noticed, however, that about once a week she seems to have a bad night's sleep - fitful, waking up, crying out, etc. I usually attribute it to teething, but she's yet to pop a tooth so I can't know for sure. Anyways, her daytime schedule - or at least our attempted schedule - goes something like this: wake 7a, nurse 7:30a, solids 8a, independent play, together play, nap 9a; wake 11a, nurse 11:30a, solids 12p, play/outings, etc., nap 1p, wake 3p, nurse 3:30p, solids 4:30/5p, bath 6:15p, nurse 7:00p, bed. The trouble is she is consistently napping only 45 minutes-1 hour. This throws off the whole routine and necessitates a catnap - often her longest nap of the day (because she's so tired at this point!). I have tried watching her waketime amounts and have put her down both early and late with no consistent observable difference. I have debated simply accepting her short naps (especially since she's generally a good nighttime sleeper), but she almost always wakes up cranky from her short naps and I know that's a sign that she's still tired. It breaks my heart to see dark circles around her eyes all the time and she's simply not herself on these short naps. I would give anything to know the reason and/or to find a way to help her get longer naps! Any suggestions or insight?!?
I'm glad to see that you had success combining both Babywhisperer and Babywise. We started sleep training very late with our son and so we used the pick up/put down method from Babywhiperer. This helped him get the idea of going to sleep on his own but it didn't always work. After a few weeks, I switched to CIO and it only took him a few days before he stopped crying for longer than 5 mins. I think a combination of Babywhiperer and Babywise works really well!
About the room darkening, my 11 1/2 month old has been a perfect little BW baby until he was ten months and started to move around, crawling, pulling up, rolling over etc, all in the same couple of weeks. I have struggled with his afternoon naps ever since. He just plays and plays. I actually posted a question to you about this a few weeks ago somewhere. But then someone mentioned to me making sure his room is dark. He already has shades, curtains and one more layer over each of his windows, but his room was not pitch black. So I removed his night light which he had slept great with up until then, and made sure there was no light peeking through the windows. He has been taking great naps all week now. So I guess some babies just need the dark! And for him, this as something he grew into when he became active.
I can't wait to read your review of HSHHC!! I think it's something to add to our "parenting toolbox" as PP put it, but hubby seems to think we have things "under control". Ha! So he thinks...for now!
I have a question..my 8 week old is starting to STTN with some help. She is on a 3 hr schedule with her last feeding falling between 10 and 11. The problem is she wakes up aroung 4 and I have been letting her cry it out. She crys for around 45 min then sleeps till 7am. I have been doing this for a week now and although the CIO has gotten less..started 1 hour to now 45 min. she is still waking up. It is exactly a week now of this. Should I give-in a feed her at 4 or wait it out an dhope she will stop crying soon. Not sure if she is waking up out of hunger or habit. Before when I used to feed her at 4am she would not finish her feeding thats why I assumed it was waking out of habit and so I started CIO. Am I depriving her of food? not sure what to do now. She is getting 6 feeds a day at about 4oz at each feeding..Is this enough or should I add another feeding. Thanks for your help.
I am working on putting my LO down for naps, but have hit some roadblocks. The biggest is that I work 3rd shift so CIO is VERY difficult. In order for him to CIO (he is 11 weeks) I am literally going without any sleep. My husband doesn't have quite as much resolve as I do (which isn't much sometimes either) and can hardly stand for him to CIO. Any suggestions? I want our baby to benefit from putting himself to sleep and I also want him to get the sleep that he needs. Thanks for your great blog too! I'm planning on checking out the books you have suggested. God bless!
Ditto on what Jennifer said on July 10th about her 5-month old's napping pattern! I am experiencing the EXACT same thing with my almost 5-month old daughter. Any suggestions?
Ashley, thanks for sharing! I am glad McKenna wasn't the only one! I was not pleased with the development--lol.
Natalie, it will be coming. I want to finish my other book reviews first (Making Children Mind and Baby Whisperer) so I just have one going on at a time :). I agree that it would be incomplete by itself. And there are things I definitely don't agree with. But it is worth the read and great as a resource.
Jennifer, first, are you positive she is falling asleep? I ask because with my video monitor, there was a time McKenna would start to cry 20-30 minutes into the nap. She was 100% silent up until that point and I would have thought she was asleep but knew she was awake because of the monitor.
If she is awake, she might need a longer waketime.
Also, there is a post dedicated to 5-8 month sleep problems. It is under "Sleep" (or sleep problems?) in the blog index.
mamunaco,
See the 5-8 Month sleep disruptions post.
Also, sh might not be sleeping well at night because she might need the dreamfeed dropped. Even the Baby Whisperer (who says to drop it late IMO) says to drop it at 8 months. It starts to interfere with sleep patterns.
Usually for a child that age, short naps is because of too short of a waketime. Start with focussing on the first waketime of the day. 2 hours is probably long for an 8 month old. It will take some time to find that right number because even 5 minutes can make the difference. Once you get the first waketime length down, you can figure out the next ones. The first is usually the shortest of the day.
Thanks for sharing Janelle! I agree.
Thanks thesprian! That is good to know. I agree that some babies need it darker than others. And since he is old enough, you don't need to worry about day/night confusion.
lol Lisa. You had better give DH a block of wood to carry around so he can sufficiently "knock on wood" as needed ;)
24hrMommy,
That is something you will have to decide. But it seems I answered a similar question from you on this today and the time was 3 AM? So it probably wasn't habit.
In general, baby needs 2.5 ounces per pound of body weight a day. So a 10 pound baby would need 25 ounces. Spread that out over 6 feedings a day and baby would need just over 4 ounces per feeding. You can find calculators for ounces on kellymom.com.
Victoria,
Check out the other CIO posts on this blog through the CIO blog label. That can give you the guidance to make CIO shorter. You can also try the Baby Whisperer.
But also don't start CIO until both you and DH are ready and committed to seeing it through. It doesn't work if you go back and forth on it, and it isn't fair to baby to make him cry sometimes then not others because it disrupts his learning process. Good luck :)
Nikki, My suggestions would be the same as to Jennifer :)
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