Anyone done CC or CIO to deal with early morning problems?

[fififrog]

hi again, a companion post to my other :)

Has anyone successfully used CC or CIO to deal with sleep problems that arise only in the early hours, i.e. when the child is unlikely to have enough time to go back to sleep before normal wake-up time.

I am not trying to deal with an early riser but 10mo consistent waking one to two hours earlier than normal and rather than wanting to be up for the day, lying there trying and failing to return to sleep.

If you want to suggest fuzzy alternatives, I did ask for help with those in my other post on how to settle 10mo.

Thanks!

Yes. I left DD2 to sort herself out when she got into the habit of waking at 5am, but still being tired. 1/2 hr of crying one day seemed to sort it.

Yes, we did this with DD who went through a phase of waking around 5.30am when she had previously been waking at 7.
Her crying was just grumbling really - and not constant - if it had been desperate or pained crying I would have gone to her. Sorted the early waking but it took a week or so. She was around 14 months I think.

Thanks, hard to tell where the threshold lies between grumbling and crying with this one, but I suspect we will give it a go when I am happy she's not teething (we had a different kind of waking baby last night!)

Gosh, I have to say 1/2 of crying would not be a successful 'cure' for me.

How about just some quiet awake time? Dimly lit room, some stories?

I don't want to be sitting there reading her stories in the middle of the night - to me that's just not what night time is about, but thanks for the suggestion, haven't yet decided on an approach to be consistent with so we may yet use a gradual withdrawal approach, though I think she gets tormented by any kind of interaction, hence wondering about leaving her to it. I just wondered whether it works if they don't necessarily go back to sleep because it's too near morning, but it seems to work for some!

Could you just bring her into bed with you? Maybe too namby pamby for you

My DD usually sleeps till 7.30ish but woke this morning at 6 so I just threw her into our bed and we all went to sleep and I had to wake her at 8.30, her and DH were snuggled up together asleep. So I'm thinking happy thoughts today about bringing DC into bed!

Just to add I do have a friend who just leaves her children (varying ages now, but I think she started when they were about nine months) to cry if they wake too early or in the middle of the night. Seems to work for her though I think the children can have relapses, and she's def left them crying for up to an hour at a time before they give up and go back to sleep. She is a wonderful mum, and it works for her, but just wouldn't be for me.

KD not too mamby pamby - bringing her into bed is the current solution but unfortunately it doesn't work for me at all as I just can't sleep and am beginning to suffer badly from lack of sleep despite going to bed at 9pm most nights. Anyway, she still wakes up every half hour or so or if I move any single muscle, so I am trying to work out how to get her to go back to sleep in her cot. I don't mind bringing her into bed occasionally or if she's ill, but it's now been most nights for six weeks :-(

I understand. I wouldn't be happy to have to bring DD in with us every night. And I'm lucky that once she goes to sleep in our bed she tends to stay asleep. I often have to sleep in odd positions to accommodate her but it's not so bad because I can toss and turn a bit without disturbing her. And it's not every night.

I hope you get a solution soon.

Perhaps do some research on the longer term effects of CIO. I did it with my first and thoroughly regret it now.

The only thing that sorted early mornings for me (and I had 5am starts a lot so really experiemented with this!) was cutting naps or moving naps later and moving bedtime later. O, also cutting out disturbing noises like boiler coming on and off.

It's awful getting up early.