You cio or your child wakes up forever

[Newsenmum]

Posting for traffic and a wide range of views. Never sleep trained my six year old. Hell and sleep deprivation for many, many years. He still needs cuddling to sleep and is in my bed the second he wakes. There are sen needs so maybe that’s part of it but loads of separation anxiety, despite me doing everything possible to stop that!
Nearly two year old needs feeding, cuddling to sleep. Wakes every hour when sees Im not there. Tried comforting her in cot, being there but shushing and other methods but just really upsets her.

I guess my question is, how on earth do you all do it? Every thread I see goes on and on about how demonic it is to let your child cry. What do you do then? Genuinely?

So what happened?

So did they cry a bit ans you picked them up and in timw rhey did it kess?

Bear in mind OP that if your oldest is autistic then it's quite possible your youngest is ND too. DS was still waking every hour or two at night till just gone 2, turned out he was autistic - but not diagnosed till nearly secondary school age. It did stop though and by three he was sleeping through. Night weaning and him eating more made the difference I think, as well as just being older.

Crying it out doesn't teach them anything apart from to give up crying because no one is coming.

I think it depends on the baby. And on you. With DD I was OBSESSED with sleep. When she was a baby she never slept longer than 20 minutes at a time and developed insomnia. It was awful. But I didn't want to let her cry herself to sleep, partly because when we tried to leave her she would just escalate and become more and more hysterical. She didn't "fuss" and go to sleep. So we kept breastfeeding or rocking her to sleep and she got there. She's the best sleeper ever now, if she's asleep you could pick her up and throw her in a pool and she'd barely stir.

With DS I decided my sleep was most important and the way we got there was to cosleep. It meant that wake ups (for me) were just rolling over and getting a boob out. This meant I didn't' have to get up and really wake up, so I didn't get the same insomnia issues. He woke up at night till he was about 6, but just gets into our bed and goes right to sleep. This didnt' bother us (we barely woke up) and he didn't do it if staying with others, so it wasn't an issue. Now he's older and sleeps in his own bed all night.

I actually felt (for me) the biggest change to the stress about sleeping was trying not to think about it all the time. Accepting that there would be a while where sleep was hard to come by and just do what I could to keep myself rested. With DS I did not want to be back where I was with DD and actually although he probably woke more I overall felt more relaxed and rested.

Thanks, I do wonder this.

He decided one day, when he was about 4 and a half, that he wanted to sleep in his own bed. He had always had his own room with a bed, clothes and toys he’d just never slept in it.

My 18 year old did the same, as did my 11 year old. All around the same age, my 11 year old it was the week after her 5th birthday as her cousin wanted to sleep over. They slept in her room and she just continued.

My youngest is 5 at the weekend and hasn’t said she wants to go to her own room, and that’s fine, it will come soon. She won’t be in our bed when she’s 15, I can guarantee it. She’s the bad sleeper though, but so am I these days to be fair, so it’s not too bad.

I have twins and did CIO by accident:
When they were around 3-4mo (I think…) they would cry to be rocked/cuddled when put down for a nap. I tried doing it to both at once, didn’t work, switching between them didn’t work either, so I thought I would take care of the one who was almost settled and then move on to the other baby.
So here I am, rocking/patting baby 1 while baby 2 cries. But of course after a few minutes baby 2 was asleep.
After that I always let a bit of time pass before coming to settle them when they cried, and honestly most of the time they self settled very quickly.

I don't know what the answer is. I think it's largely luck. Very easy for me to say I'd never sleep train my child when my child has always slept well.
It does feel wrong to me to let then cry for sustained lengths of time but I can see the place for some types of sleep training for babies that don't sleep well.

I didn’t sleep train, and can comfortably say I wouldn’t have, for this child. Who magically went from waking every 2 hours to sleeping through… overnight. Aged 2. Would I have resorted to sleep training with a different baby who didn’t just suddenly get it? I don’t know

I can only speak about what I'd do (and have done) in this situation. Personally, I'd put a mattress in the corner of my room for the 6yo and tell him it's up to him, he can sleep there, but he can't wake me up. And a travel cot for toddler. But my bedroom is quite big.

Yep, we just bought the biggest bed we could fit in the room and all slept together. Gradually the kids decided to sleep in their own beds. Sometimes, even then, they came in during the night - but it’s just not that disruptive if you have space and enough pillows.

On the whole, teenagers don’t want to sleep with their parents!

I have 2 children and they are different. DS10 went to his room at 2.5 y and never came back. DS5 is a mummy boy and still keeps coming to our room every night for a cuddle. Eventually they will grow up and you will miss them.

I started earlier than 2 with mine but what I did was:
Have a bedtime routine
Didn't feed to sleep
Had comfort objects the child could have themselves eg dummies, teddies, blankets
Cuddled or rocked to sleep and then gradually 'helped' less - eg they needed vigorous rocking as young babies, then cuddling, then patting in the cot, then just a hand on the back, then just put in the cot and they went to sleep themselves
Night weaned from around 9 months

They will go to their own rooms when they feel confident. Mine all left my (superking!) bed at. 4/5. I only ever had one child in at a time though, due to age gaps!

I think it's so dependent on the temperament of the child too. Mine absolutely would not settle without feeding to sleep until she was at least a year old, so we fed to sleep, put her in the cot to sleep until her first wake and then co-slept for the rest of the night so that everyone got maximum sleep. The length of time of that first sleep gradually increased by itself, but I did decide to try some gentle sleep training at 18 months as I wanted to brush her teeth after breastfeeding!

Pick up / put down worked well for us to start her getting used to the cot. I'd cuddle/rock until she was settled, then put in the cot and pat her back, then pick her up as soon as she started crying, settle her and put her back down again. The first night did take nearly 2 hours (but very little crying as I always picked her up quickly), but the next night was about 45 mins, then 20-30 mins after that.

Since about 21 months her understanding was so much better so we had a bedtime routine of feed, teeth, book and a song, then she went in the cot, I stayed for a bit then left for a minute to go to the toilet / feed the car / tidy up etc and came back as promised. After a few weeks I could say goodnight and would only come back if she called (about 1-2 nights a week).

Ultimately though, it's what works for your child and the family, which will change depending on the age/development

I fed DD6 to sleep until she was old enough to have a conversation and say yes, I'd like to try going to sleep in my bed. That's when she was 3! She was sleeping through the night from 1 year old though and that's despite feeding her back to sleep at every wake up and lifting her into the cot. Now she can sort herself out if she wakes in the night but I still sing her to sleep at bedtime. It's no trouble. I have a baby as well who is fed to sleep, I do him first and then her.

2 ND children here (9 and 7), both shit sleepers in different ways, we have a 'family floor bed' in their room. They have their own bunk beds but we have a large mattress on the floor where we all end up at different points. Eldest is slowly going for more of their own space/bed. Youngest would crawl back into the womb if I allowed it 😂

Find a way that gets the most sleep for all. Co sleeping and family beds are more common than people think!

Exactly this.

I have never used CIO tactics, I don't think small children are evolved to be left alone crying. I tend to them in the night and cuddle / feed back to sleep.

My 7yr old and 2yr old both now sleep throughas they just gradually stopped night time wakes. On the odd occasion they wake up or are ill, they know they can appear in my room at any time and me or their dad will be there to help.

DD recently came home from a playdate and told me aghast that her friend isn't allowed in parents bedroom and "she has nightmares but she just cries quietly. She says her mum never comes even when she was tiny". So yeah, I think people just teach their kids to not bother them in the night, rather than teaching them to sleep.

Try to see it that your child deserves better than an exhausted stressed out mother. My DS was a terrible sleeper, couldn't self soothe and would either be awake or collapse with exhaustion, no inbetween. He was later diagnosed with ASD and ADHD which was no surprise. Our bed time routine got longer had more ridiculous until we decided controlled crying at about 15 months. It was hell, we would come to the door and leave again or sit silently ignoring him. Many different techniques were used. All worked eventually until the next phase, for example we mastered bed time, but middle of nights wakings got worse, we mastered that then it was 4am starts. Truthfully it took until 3.5 for him to sleep well. My other two went through bad phases and all of these approaches worked when applied properly, they do work on NT children. Jusf keep trying different things, they need to be scheduled and committed to for a few weeks. Remember a child who cannot self soothe is being set up to be dependent and cope badly with life, the more you work at this the better off they will be so be strong. It's not easy.

There are absolutely no good options when your child is not a sleeper, not too mention the internet is full of advice which might work with some kids but just makes you feel worse.
In the end you have to balance your child's and your needs and perhaps bite the bullet if you can.
My starting point was holding to sleep but he was too big, then went for a slightly gentler but still brutal method of putting him on a mattress on the floor and cuddling but not letting him get on me. Then the latter stage was popping out for literally 5 seconds repeatedly until he was asleep.
Etc etc. Also plenty of books for him to look at, although that was mostly later.
But you have to take your own route, what works for you and what works for your child.
Good luck

This was definitely the case for me, I remember being awake a lot at night, feeling scared and there is no way I would have dared go in my parents room. I knew my mum would be cross. So I have chosen not to do that to my child!

I never did cio. Dd1 stopped coming in at 2.5 and happy to go to sleep after a book, dd2 was a trickier customer - book, audio book but getting up by midnight and climbing into our bed but around 6 it started to reduce and by 7 stopped completely

Both of mine (DS5 DD2) are good sleepers but early risers... We did the gradual retreat method at between 9 and 12 months. In neither case did it involve leaving them to cry alone for long periods without reassurance.

I agree with @Dontlletmedownbruce above that independent sleep is something that can and should be taught. We had a great sleep trainer who encouraged us to go through "sleep rules" with the kids, which felt a bit silly at 9 months but which we still say to them because it sets expectations for what we know that can do at bedtime i.e. they can and will get themselves to sleep and - unless they need us - stay in bed until morning, and that its always the same and we'll always be there in the morning. I know not all ASD kids are the same but I think this has really helped my DS who has ASD because it reinforces routine and rules.

DD2 is 11 months and if I try and bedshare, she thinks it's party time and completely wakes up. Bed sharing with my first one worked perfectly! I'm in and out of her room a lot.... (EBF)