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!!!

Re CIO working - our DD did figure out how to go to sleep by herself pretty early but we had significant problems with naps and then a big issue with sleep around 3.5yrs. We realized pretty early on that all of the "gentle" methods were not effective with her and resulted in a lot of crying over a long time and very grumpy parents. I did CIO for her for her nap training - she was only sleeping 40 minutes 4x a day at 5 months and was very tired and grumpy. It took 2 days and a total of 3 naps. I dealt with it by going on our roof deck where I couldn't hear and turning the sound off the monitor. I could see she was fine, and I was committed to seeing it out. She cried for 10 minutes, grumbled for 5 minutes and spent 5 minutes blinking slowly and going back to sleep. So 20 minutes total. Second nap/second day, less. Then she consistently took 1.5-2 hour naps 2x a day for the next year and has had no issues with long naps since (4.5 and still napping).

When she was 3.5, she got into a habit of leaving her room at bedtime and in the middle of the night if she woke up for the potty or whatever, she was coming out 10+ times, waking us up and everyone was really tired and grumpy. We tried the walking her back to the bed, talking about etc, for 6 weeks with no luck. Finally told her that if she came out of her room, we'd have to lock her door. She came out again one nap time, locked the door. She cried for 20 minutes and fell asleep on the floor holding a tissue box and we haven't had any further issues. So in total, two separate sleeping training cry it out required maybe 45 minutes of crying? I honestly don't know how long I would've left it, but the key is to go somewhere that you can't hear the crying, and before you're in the moment, make a plan of what you're going to do, stick to it and be consistent over whatever period of sleep training you've decided to do.

Side note - ask most of our generation's parents, we were all "sleep trained" only they didn't bother to call it that, most of them just had the attitude that kids are supposed to sleep at night and let us get on with us. I don't know ANY adults who are "damaged" by cry it out.

Came in here looking for advice as my 12mo still wakes 2-3 times most nights. I still BF to sleep as she's never taken a bottle and usually BF on wakes. After a year of being constantly exhausted I'm now back at work and cannot continue to be this tired, or keep being the one who does all the night wakes. Sounds like I might need to tackle the feeding to sleep first? I have no idea how to go about stopping it - feed her as soon as we go upstairs then have a bath afterwards? I tried a book after feed before her nap today and ended up having to go back in.