New Sleep Issues.. Mommy Needs a Nap, or 7 - Nutley,NJ

Here's one of my many issue's with CIO. Sure a baby may not need to eat in the night, but how do we know they aren't hungry or thirsty. I should be able to sleep through the night, but i don't sometimes I get up to use the bathroom and other times I need a drink, sometimes multiple times. Why do we expect an infant to do it.

I've done this 8 times, none have ever done CIO, and not something I would even think of doing. Is dad around? would he be willing to take over every once and while so that way no one persons sleep is being overaly interrupted?

Your friend is right. It's okay - you know now. What is happening is that your baby is not self-soothing. She is expecting the bottle to do it for her. She doesn't need the milk. She wants it because it gets her back to sleep. It's a crutch.

The CIO method you are detailing is called the Ferber method. If you don't want to get up and down, or if it doesn't work after trying it for a week, then you can sit beside her crib and touch her foot through the crib slats. Yes, she will cry, but she will know that you are there. She will have to put herself to sleep without the bottle.

It will be hard the first few nights, and then it will get better. It is a real kindness to her to help her learn to put herself to sleep. It's a kindness to the entire family. Be 100% consistent. If you aren't, she will cry even more and longer because she will know that you will give in.

You can do this. Keep your eye on the prize - a good night's sleep!

Dawn

I have to say I agree with your friend...although babies can and do go thru alot of growth spurts the first year, so I don't like to rule out feeding...but at this age, anything more than 3 is excessive.

I also don't think it is something she will grow out of...once they know how to get mommy's attention, they will often continue to do so.

She is not waking because she is hungry, she is waking because she is now aware enough to know that 'mommy is not holding me and I really want to be held, so I'll cry and she'll hold me'.

I've read about and tried both 'no-cry-sleep-solution' and the modified CIO plans. I can say that no-cry is not for the weary. It requires you to stand over the crib for long periods of time...and to be honest...did not work for me.

With my first I did not want to do CIO either (who does?) but at 8 months I was soo exhausted and out of options and decided to give it a try. It seriously took 12 LONG (at the time) minutes and she slept through the whole night. Then next night she cried 5 minutes and slept the entire night. The 3rd night I put her in bed tired but not sleeping and she shocked me by not crying and sleeping 11 hours.

I know it does not happen this easily for every baby (my second took much longer) BUT I'm trying to say that you really won't know until you try. Sometimes I wonder if I had tried CIO at 6 months that I may have gotten 2 extra months of sleep, and wish I hadn't waited so long.

I won't ramble on about CIO anymore if you're still not wanting to try it. BUT if you are wanting more info...I have an ebook I can email you with steps on how to do a 'modified' CIO, just shoot me a private msg and let me know.

Best of luck to you!

It really stinks when your baby is waking in the middle of the night, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason. I'm not always great at thinking in the middle of the night, so I sometimes had trouble figuring out what my boys needed.

I would keep an open mind about feeding her in the middle of the night. She is almost 6 months old, so it's very possible she is going through a growth spurt or about it. Even if she didn't need to eat last night, she might tonight. I just think you might want to keep it as an option.

Have you considered bringing her into your bed? When our boys were that age and woke in the middle of the night, we would just bring them into bed with us. Usually they would just go right back to sleep. It really seemed to help them feel safe at night. If they woke again (we usually didn't even notice) they would touch us and know we were there and go right back to sleep. Our boys are now 6 1/2 and almost 4 and sleep in their own beds (unless they are sick).

I would try a few different ideas and see what works. I'm a big fan of sleep, so I really don't care where people sleep as long as everyone gets a good night sleep.

I do not believe in CIO at all. I truly believe if your baby cries, he/she needs you. Parenting is 24/7, and we don't get to ignore the cries just because we're tired.

Bring her to bed with you. You might be surprised at how well that works and how much sleep you get.