Im such a softy when it comes to CIO. DD is 14 and a half months and she still sleeps in our bed at night and we still pat/rock her to sleep! Jessicas post got me worried about how things are going to be when the baby gets here! When did you do CIO with your kids? We have tried it in the past, the one where you lay them down, check on them every 10 minutes and calm them down but dont pick them up, and we did that for 2 hours one night until we finally gave up and put her in bed with us and she went right to sleep! I really need advice! How long did your kids cry a night? Im gonna loose it! :nutts

When we move in May Im moving to my moms and shes going to get a big girl bed. I honestly dont think she likes her crib because she will sleep by herself in our bed for hours. Do you think that will help her sleep alone? We are planning on her sleeping in her own room in the big bed at my moms but I dont know how that will go either!

My kids always slept in thier own bed so I never had a problem trying to get them used to thier own bed.. but good luck :)

We did CIO with Ethan when he was 6 months old. He only slept with us when he was a newborn because his gagging freaked me out! After that he was in our room in our pack 'n play. The longest I'd let my child CIO was 30 minutes. Never would I let him cry for 2 hours...
Ethan's still in his crib.
I would try getting her comfortable with a toddler bed now, rather than later...
Will she sleep in a Pack n' play?!

We did CIO with Ethan when he was 6 months old. He only slept with us when he was a newborn because his gagging freaked me out! After that he was in our room in our pack 'n play. The longest I'd let my child CIO was 30 minutes. Never would I let him cry for 2 hours...
Ethan's still in his crib.
I would try getting her comfortable with a toddler bed now, rather than later...
Will she sleep in a Pack n' play?!

She will sleep in her bed but not all night! Some nights though she wont at all. We rock her and will lay her in her bed, some nights she will be in there until 3 or 4 in the morning, some nights she wakes up and starts crying as soon as we lay her down! When we put her in our bed we lay next to her and pat her and she goes to sleep and sleeps all night!

We cant get her a toddler bed now because Im moving to my moms and all of our house stuff is going to Lemoore. So we can only take what we can fit in the car!

We had to do this with Aiden because he preffered our bed over his any night! You are going to have to change her bedtime routine and the way you put her down. I do not do cry it out. I read the book No Cry Sleep Solution and I recommend it.

I never had any trouble getting Lydia to sleep in her own bed except after Eddie left for Iraq, we went through a tough couple of weeks. There are a few good books out there on sleeping techniques, Good luck on this, I wouldn't be able to let her CIO either

I let ella cry sometimes b/c most of the time she is a good sleeper. She's always slept in her own bed so I can't help you with transitioning her to her bed. Good Luck I would suggest picking up a good book maybe they'll have some goo tips for you. Good Luck!!

Some kids and CIO work and others dont. Ethan it didnt really work on. We tried the "ferber" method of it where we would let him cry then check on him in intervals and he got wise to that and knew we'd come get him. So we did full CIO but no longer then 30-45 minutes. This worked awesome for about a week.

What ended up finally working for us was I put him in his crib asleep and kept doing that. If he woke I would sleep in his room. No talking to him, I wouldnt get him out of his crib, nothing. I stopped doing this about 2 weeks later because he FINALLY started sleeping thru the whole night and I didnt need to be in there. Then after a few weeks of that I would put him in his crib drowsy. I would stand by his crib for 2 mintues then take a step back. I repeated that until I got out of the door way. Then after a few nights of that I started standing just in the doorway for about 5 minutes and then leaving. After a few nights of that I just started sticking him in his crib and walking away. And he was great He would chat to himself for a bit then conk out. Now mind you he never slept IN our bed. He slept ON me on the couch usually. SO I dunni if thats different. But that is what worked for us. It worked VERY smoothly and he has been putting himself to sleep in his own bed ever since

G'luck

If you do choose to do CIO, you need to be prepared to stick to it. Every time that you 'give in' will start you back over to day one AND will make future attempts much harder. So, if you plan to go that route, you need to be absolutely ready to stick out a couple really tough nights. I would highly recommend Dr Ferber's book http://www.amazon.com/Solve-Your-Childs-Sleep-Problems/dp/0671620991

More info:
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babysleep/3522.html
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babysleep/teachsleep/7755.html

CIO is not the evil thing that some people make it out to be IF it's done properly. If you follow Dr Ferber's method, it WILL work. But no one claims that it's easy so you have to be prepared for that.

We used MODIFIED CIO which means we basically followed Ferber's basic methods (do not pick up when you go in, only go in at timed intervals, etc) but we set our own time limits and I set them lower than what he suggests. It only took a few nights and Shelby and Jaxon both slept the night through and have ever since. We've never had sleeping issues with either one of them. They go to bed on their own and stay in bed. No long, drawn out fights or battles, they go back to sleep if they wake up at night, they sleep good, long stretches....

Hunter is the worst sleeper out of the three and he also has a much more high strung, high needs personality so we will do a form of CIO but we'll modify it to how we see fit, based on how he reacts. We've used it a little bit already only to get him to initially fall asleep at night and it's worked fine. He fussed and cried but he did eventually fall asleep and stayed asleep. Now, we are able to just lay him in bed awake and he'll go to sleep on his own most nights. He does still wake up at night but it's usually to eat and he's not quite 5 months old also. So, that's to be expected.

I am a firm believer in CIO if it's done properly. The problem is that most parents don't do it properly so it doesn't work and it ends up being a really long, drawn out process that makes everyone miserable. I plan on writing an article about this for TWH. When I do, I'll send you a copy of it, if you're interested.

Ok I guess I al lost. I have no idea what CIO is. whatever it is my kids always slept in their own crib/bed. I am just not a fan of having kids in my bed.

Luckily I have never had this problem. I do not believe in kids sharing beds with their parents.

Good luck girl. I know it must be tough.

All of my kids have been different.

With Lexi I tried everything. Finally what worked was buying her a toddler bed and comforting her her until she fell asleep. After a couple of weeks I was able to just put her in bed and leave the room.

With JD I would rock him and he would stay asleep all night. That was great until I was about to pop with Sarah. So we had to start CIO with him at about 15 1/2 months. This worked very well until he started crawling out of the crib 2 weeks later. So we bought a very tall doorway baby gate and left him in his toddler bed and he cried it out. Then my dh lost the parts when we moved so i would just shut his door. Now since we have moved here we are able to lay him in his bed and say good night with very minimal problems. Only once in a great while will he try to get up and play and run around.

Sarah is just like your little one. We are about to start transitioning her to a CIO method or comfort method of some sort. I am just waiting to wean off her breast milk in a couple of weeks. I think we are going to see if we can comfort her on her bed first and see how that goes. She seems to be a lot more like her sister with the sleep thing.

Good luck to you.

I did a modified CIO with Val as well. What I did was set her 'crying' time limit to 10 minutes. If she stopped for a few minutes and then started again, the 10 minutes started over...It would take anywhere from 30min-1 1/2 hours for her to finally get to sleep. It took a SOLID 2 months for her to not cry at night. BTW, she always slept in her own bed so it was just getting her used to going to bed without nursing.

I never had an issue since my children have never been given a choice as to where they will sleep.

I do want to say good luck though! I'm seeing what a friend of mine is going through with her 21 month old since having her baby almost 2 months ago. Wow. I admire any family who can handle having two children under the age of 2.

I never had an issue since my children have never been given a choice as to where they will sleep.

I do want to say good luck though! I'm seeing what a friend of mine is going through with her 21 month old since having her baby almost 2 months ago. Wow. I admire any family who can handle having two children under the age of 2.

It's really not so bad if you get your routine and things like sleep and independence established prior to the baby coming. We transitioned Shelby into a toddler bed and also had her off of the bottle before Hunter came so it really wasn't very difficult. They are only 15 months apart but it works out okay because we had everything under control before he came so she didn't feel like everything was being changed/taken away BECAUSE of the baby. If you can get a good routine in place, it's actually a pretty smooth transition.

I didn't let DD sleep with after she turned 3 months old...I was losing way too much sleep, and it was time she got used to her crib.
I let her nap with me occassionally, but most of the time she sleeps in her own bed. I am definitely not a fan of having my kids sleep in the same bed with me all the time.

I need my space and I need my sleep.


If you're going to do the CIO method, the only way it will work is if you commit to sticking to it and being firm...otherwise, you're always going to backslide.

Ds is 18 months and stills co-sleeps part time with us. He is still a baby and there will come a time when he wont want to cuddle. So I am soaking it in now. We dont CIO also. That is his way to communicate to us. Hope you find something that will work for ya.:hugs

Thanks for the advice! We do backslide and I think thats our problem with the CIO!!! Im really set on doing it this time so we will do it!! I think Ill start with naps in her bed at first then go to the night time! Brandi I would love the thing your going to put in TWH!

It's really not so bad if you get your routine and things like sleep and independence established prior to the baby coming. We transitioned Shelby into a toddler bed and also had her off of the bottle before Hunter came so it really wasn't very difficult. They are only 15 months apart but it works out okay because we had everything under control before he came so she didn't feel like everything was being changed/taken away BECAUSE of the baby. If you can get a good routine in place, it's actually a pretty smooth transition.

:yes