STTN Part II

We are still experiencing difficulties with sleep, so this is not a cure-all. I can say that things have dramatically improved, but we are not yet done “sleep training” or maybe I should call it “nighttime parenting” as a reminder that babies aren’t robots that methodically lay down at a certain time each night for their recharge and don’t budge til morning. With all that being said, I will describe what has happened over the last several weeks and what has been working, and certainly improving our situation.

The very first night of CIO, I went ahead with the bedtime routine as we had done before. I made sure he had a full tummy by giving him his bottle in his highchair before changing into pj’s. After book and rocking (until I saw long blinks), I placed him in his crib, kissed him goodnight and left the room. He then cried for 22 minutes. When I say he cried, I mean he screamed. A very angry, upsetting cry. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (yet was only 22 min), he settled down and went to sleep. When he woke in the middle of the night I went to him like normal, soothed him back to sleep. He woke twice the first night. The next morning, he was the same happy kid I knew before I made him cry.

The second night, I did everything the same, but he only cried for 13 minutes. The third night, he only cried for 1 minute. After that, each night he has either cried for no time at all or for a short time (less than 2 minutes). Unfortunately, each night he was still waking up twice, despite all the books saying that allowing him to CIO at bedtime will help him learn to self-soothe, I think our little one had such a strong habit of waking at those times in the night that it couldn’t be solved without further intervention. I knew we would have to embark on CIO for middle of the night wakings.

I actually did CIO for a middle of the night waking the first time out of frustration (which is something I’m trying to avoid as a parent…doing anything out of frustration, but I failed on this occasion). I had gone to him in the middle of the night (around 4am) to soothe him back to sleep. I got him asleep in my arms and went to put him into the crib and he started crying (the angry cry). I picked him back up and soothed him until he was asleep again and tried to put him in the crib…once again, he started crying the angry cry. I repeated this until the 4th time I put him in the crib, I had reached my limit. I decided right now we will cry it out for a MOTN (middle of the night) waking. Well, he cried/fussed/got quiet/cried again/etc for 45+ minutes. It was difficult, but I didn’t go to him (still not as hard as the angry cry at bedtime). Finally, he soothed himself back to sleep. When I woke him up for the day about an hour later, he was (again) that happy baby that I knew. He didn’t seem frustrated, distant, less loving or anything…he seemed just like the boy I knew before CIO.

After that impromptu CIO for MOTN waking, he seemed to kind of “get it”. The majority of MOTN wakings since then have required only a paci replacement and a roll onto his side. I have gotten to the point where I will let him work it out for a while before I go to him, but I also want to avoid him getting too wound up and increasing the crying time (because he’s no longer sleepy enough to accept a paci replacement and a roll onto his side). I would estimate that for several weeks, 50% of the time, I didn’t have to get out of bed at all, because he was learning to find his paci and roll onto his side himself. 50% of the time I still had to go to him and help him get in position. Even at this point, I rarely had to actually pick him up out of the crib.

We have had several hiccups along the way. Most notably was a recent bout with a high fever and lots of miserable, seemingly painful screaming which (of course) we attended to. However, once he recovered (after about 3 days) we had to basically CIO at bedtime all over again. The first night was very long 38 minutes plus a MOTN wake up that required an almost 2 hour CIO session. It wasn’t all crying of course, I never could have made it that long, but he would get very quiet, maybe even fall asleep for a few minutes, then wake again, fuss, toss and turn, then cry, then get quiet again, etc. The second night was 17 min, third night was 8 min, 4th night was no crying at all.

I don’t know if all babies have a tendency to fall back into bad habits easily or if it is just that we had created such a needy baby from coddling him so much for so long. I am hopeful that as we get more CIO time under our belt, his “re-training” won’t take as long.

After this most recent round of re-training, we are having a lot of STTN success. In the last 2 weeks, I have probably only had to get out of bed to assist him 2-3 times (and those times were quick, I didn’t even remove him from the crib). He will wake up and fuss a little, but he has been able to work things out on his own.

I am extremely pleased with the progress. It has been very hard, and at times has made me wonder if I’m doing the right thing (like during the 2 hour CIO in the MOTN). Most of the time though I feel like I AM doing the right thing. I am enabling him to get the sleep that he desperately needs. Nothing is easy about this method. I personally think it’s probably best to try other methods before resorting to this (but I am not trying to make judgments about other people’s parenting decisions on this topic. You have to do what you feel is best for your situation). The best part about this method is you do see improvement quickly. I am a believer, but I’m not sure I would do this any sooner with a second child. I needed to feel confident that my baby didn’t require a MOTN feeding. I also needed to feel confident that he was ready for this sort of training. I also needed to know that his wake-ups were excessive and not likely necessary. None of these things would have been so clear if I had done this earlier.

There it is...my CIO experience. I'm quite sure we aren't done yet. I know there will be many other nights of exceptions, leading to more re-training. There will be illnesses, breaks in routine, travel, etc that will all potentially cause the need for retraining. In fact, I've heard from parents of "sleep-challenged" babies that they have fought this through the toddler years as well. I have also heard the opposite though, that the consistency of this and the ability to self soothe created an environment that allowed children to "cure" their sleep challenges. I'm hoping for the latter, but sort of assuming we will continue to have challenges. At least now we have a game plan.