Cry it out - success stories? How did you manage it?

[deepbluec]

Desperate for help of MN community. At wits end with my 14 MO, consistent sleep exhaustion is really starting to build up and I feel broken.

We still have 2 night wakings on average from 7pm-6 am. I understand some would say we’re lucky for this, but others (most) say baby is definitely old enough for sleep training AND that they certainly don’t need night feedings anymore.

I’ve tried controlled cry it out and dropping feedings but it doesn’t work!! Particularly with milk, of course I think it’s partly for comfort but sometimes that’s the only thing that settles her and send her back off. How do I stop this cycle??

Every time she wakes up it takes me so long to go back to sleep again. I’m back at work now and my DH and I split night wakings but we’re both up anyway from crying on monitor. I am a shell of a person. I’m broken.

I want to try CIO but I don’t know how I can face it. For those who did it and it worked how long did it take? Do you really just have to let them cry and cry even if it’s for an hour +? And no night feedings whatsoever?

If she’s had a bad day of eating, am I supposed to just let her be hungry at night to teach her she needs to eat in the day?

Please help!!!

Please don't let her cry it out. You could try water instead of milk?

My 20 month old still woke hourly for a breastfeed until a month ago until I weaned her and now she wakes once to twice a night, that's normal!

Every child is different and there's such pressure on sleeping through the night but not all children do this, I never have!

Also to clarify, milk never makes her fall asleep just drowsy. We've always done drowsy but awake back in the crib. So she's technically going back asleep herself but with a full tummy.

She also pushes bottle away when she's full. Which leads me to question if she's actually hungry??

Can you just cosleep? She’s maybe waking because she wants contact/comfort. We all got much better sleep when we bed-shared.

@Verbena87 I've tried that but it seems to work her up more

Didn't work for mine... cosleeping did.

Cross post... it sucks... ds would make himself sick if we left him crying which is why we did co-sleeping and let him feed if he wanted to. Felt never-ending and I basically gave up on all the "techniques". I so remember I got a book called gentle sleep book, might be worth a look.

Sleep training is going to be a disaster if there’s something actually wrong. So don’t start when you know she’ll be hungry and choose a day when she’s eaten well. Is she warm enough? If she’s still having 2 naps it’s probably time to drop to 1. Stop milk before bed if there’s an association issue- it should be given earlier in a sippy cup and teeth brushed afterwards anyway. Is there anything that’s happening when she’s falling asleep that isn’t there overnight- playing white noise, you sat in the room etc? Are you consistent handling all sleep, naps, night wakes in the same way?

@FlounderingFruitcake thank you!

I always check the back of her neck when I go in at night, and she seems fine.

She is on two naps still, but she is yawning and grizzly after a three hour awake window so I don't see how it's possible to switch to one nap just yet.

We do teeth and stories after her milk to help break up the association. She goes to daycare in the mornings for five hours, and she doesn't even have milk at all to put her down for her naps there so I guess the routines Across-the-board are slightly different.

I should be more consistent with each of her night wakeups but it feels like the time of night and what will settle her is also different every time

Sounds like the bedtime routine is good and the milk isn’t a strong association. You can’t rule out hunger though if she often doesn’t eat well. Is there anything filling she loves you could give before bed? I’m generally all for sleep training but the point is to teach baby to sleep independently, not to ignore feeling hungry.

Also, there’s going to be a maximum amount of sleep that she needs in a 24 hour period and no sleep training method can force past this. How much sleep is she currently having cumulatively? I could be way off but 14 months is pretty much bang on when you’d expect them to drop the 2nd nap so I’m wondering if you’ve got caught in a vicious circle- night time is a disaster, so she’s making up sleep in the day, then she doesn’t need as much sleep at night… and so it continues. You might have more success distracting her with super fun and busy mornings and be prepared to bring bedtime forward for a bit if necessary. Or if she really really can’t manage without it then cap the first nap at 15 minutes and wake her up. Daycare should be able to accommodate by keeping her busy with activities. DD’s daycare moved them from the baby wing to the young toddler class at 15 months and there was no option for a morning nap there; they all slept after lunch. So it wouldn’t be a huge ask of them.

@FlounderingFruitcake weaning has also been a huge stress. I let her eat until she signals she decides she's finished, but it's hard to track actual portions and if she's getting enough. I definitely don't want to deprive her if she's hungry but I wish I could just know for certain if it's that or for comfort.

Her nap at daycare is almost always 30-40 minutes so not very long in that environment. She's then so knackered by the time she gets home she has a long 1.5-2hr nap. Which she needs to make it to her 7/730 bedtime, then up between 630/7 the next day. So all in all about 13-14 hrs sleep a day. Does that seem about right?

Total amount of sleep seems about right! It may still be though that they’re making up the time lost at night in the morning nap but you’re not miles out or anything. The food could be it, maybe keep a closer eye on what is actually being consumed, you can google age appropriate portion sizes to see if it roughly aligns, and think about ways to add calories. I don’t think your wrong to consider cry based sleep training at all, I did it with mine at 22 months and it worked a treat, but if your baby can go to sleep on their own at the start of the night with no ‘bad’ associations then I don’t know how likely it is to be a fix because they already have the very skill that sleep training is designed to teach. Good luck though - it’s so exhausting isn’t it!

The later CIO is done the harder it gets. I started from about 6 months for sleep training. Though there are instances outside ST where CIO is needed.

I think it's important to start with day time naps. My DC is 7months and sleeps from 7pm to 5pm. At they are metabolically able to fast through the night.

Sleep training /CIO may seem cruel to some but its actually being cruel to be kind. The sleep is very much helpful to their development and their moods. With you getting more sleep that also inadvertently helps DC too. Sleep training doesn't mean you love then any less.

Try ferber method and adapt to your style. Have the parent who is able to stomach cries enforce and the parent who is struggling go for a walk or listen to music with earphones.

@BabyOnBoard90 thanks -- what about in future when she starts teething again? What do we do then? Continue CIO?

Or does comfort/meds/milk set us right back to square one again?

Cry it out means just leaving them alone to cry which I wouldn't do. But at 14 months she doesn't need to have milk at night. We successfully night weaned then after a spate of illnesses reverted back to multiple breastfeeds in the night and before we knew it it was pure habit again. This had the knock-on effect of him looking for more milk in the day and skipping meals to breastfeed at 15 months old. Not good.

We've now stopped the night feeds for good and everyone is happier again. He sleeps well, he's happier in the day, he has 2-3 breastfeeds in the day and his appetite is much better.

We cuddled and soothed him through the night weaning. He has a dummy which helped and we offered water every time. It took less than a week. Make sure she's had something filling before bed- porridge and banana is ideal.

We used the book 'the happy sleeper' from 10 months. I really recommend you follow a method from a book rather than trying to piece together a method from different articles online. We bought the book, prepared for a week or so, then implemented it. She cried for 45 mins the first night, with us going in as per the method every 5 minutes, then she slept through and has done ever since, except if ill. We sack it off if she's ill or if she has a nightmare. She's now 3 and a half and we've all benefitted from having unbroken sleep for all that time.

Those are disrupted events CIO may not be helpful. But I've found in the periods where DC has been ill and or teething it has been productive to anticipate the pain.

So I'd give Capol for example right before sleep. Or wake up in middle of night to give capol preparing for previous dose to wear off.

We both just recovered from the flu few weeks ago, and she slept 7pm-6am which is more than when she's not ill.

Can you post roughly what she eats in a day including milk intake?

If she’s hungry, have you tried porridge before bed or a dream feed when you go up?

@LittleLillie yesterday for example...

Breakfast: weetabix (with milk) and cows milk
Lunch: apple, fish pie
Afternoon nap: 150 ml formula
Afternoon snack: cows milk, half banana, cheerios
Dinner: butter pasta, carrots, mash and mince, yogurt
Bedtime: 180 ml formula
Night feed: 100 ml formula
2nd night feed: 80 ml formula

I think this is plenty of food. But I'd offer a supper and see if she'll take it.

What she’s eating is great (I’m jealous, wish mine would have fish pie!) but that is an awful lot of milk, especially as it also seems to feature a lot in the food. It’s on the cereal and is she also drinking it at breakfast? Then presuming it’s in the fish pie for lunch? At nap time she has formula. Then more milk again for a snack after nap. Yoghurt after dinner and IDK if you put it in your mash. Then it’s more formula at bedtime and again twice overnight. The advice for 1 year olds is around 350ml of full fat cows milk a day, no need for formula, and servings in food in count. So I’m guessing she’s having at least twice that since I count over 500ml of formula alone.

So just wondering if the food portions are really small, maybe because she’s so full of milk, but then at her age the milk won’t sustain her for long enough so that’s why she’s getting so hungry overnight.

Please research the proven negative effects CIO methods can have on tiny developing brains. It's so so unnatural for young infants to sleep alone, and the instinct to call/cry for their guardians is instinctual and to protect them and keep them safe. Leaving them to cry alone, causes a huge physical stress, and can contribute to a feeling of abandonment and insecurity, which can negatively affect their mental health for life. Obviously you'll get the parents who say "I did it and mine were fine", but it is cruel, that is the bottom line of it, and brain development and mental wellbeing, is so important, and needs to be nurtured from birth. Having babies does mean a huge lack of sleep, and I'm not trying to undermine how tired and exhausted you must be feeling right now to consider this, but for the sake of your childs mental health, please look at other options. I know how awful it is, functioning on little sleep, but there are many alternatives to going down this route. Co-sleeping can take a big adjustment, and may seem to make matters worse before they become better, but think of the long term goal, of raising a child into a happy, healthy, mentally secure adult. Finding a solution that protects the future mental health of your precious child will be worth it. Have you got a partner you can take turns with, so you both get two or three decent night's sleep a week?

@FlounderingFruitcake her portion sizes seem appropriate - one toddler sized plate of food that she pretty much cleans up. Could it be growth spurt?

@bluecandelabra are you the OP with a name change fail? Maybe I’m wrong but I didn’t think she was eating it all since OP (you?) said previously weaning has also been a huge stress. I let her eat until she signals she decides she's finished, but it's hard to track actual portions and if she's getting enough.

Regardless though it sounds like great food but an awful lot of milk, way over the recommended for age. So there could be something there. Or not! Baby/toddler sleep can be tricky. And just my opinion but whilst I would (and have successfully) used cry based sleep training, I just don’t think it’s fair if there’s a chance that LO is genuinely hungry overnight because they’re not getting enough in the day. So it’s worth thinking about.

@FlounderingFruitcake yes name change :) thanks for your advice! I may discuss with HV if it continues and start a diary of her intake/meals to help

Ha thought so. HV seems like a good shout. Good luck and hope sleep improves soon!