Crying it out

Wanfamily, both our kids took a long time to CIO...like you, it would be torture for us but we stuck with it. We started back in Oct and our now 9mth old didn't really stop crying before bed until very very recently and some nights we still have 5-15mins of crying but no more 1hr marathons. The thing with him was, he would cry on and off for 1hr but after that he would sleep through for 12-13hrs, now we are back to 12hrs. But in your case, since he is not sleeping through, do you know why? is he hungry? growth spurt? how do you get him back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night?

hang in there...hubby and i used to sit there and bitch at each other over silly things when the baby was crying. i know how stressful and upsetting it is...took us 4mths but we are happy we stuck with it.
 
sorry forgot to mention that we would have good nights or even the week we were in singapore - absolutely no crying and then relapse over and over again...not sure why but it was a very very gradual process for our 2nd son to stop crying to sleep.
 
That's good to know. No, I know he's not hungry - he's well over 10kg and eats like anything during the day. He just likes 'mummy comfort' (bless him) Stops crying the moment I put a hand on him. (and starts the moment I take it off) He loves co - sleeping (which I did for a few months), but then he'd wake up every few hours and just nurse for comfort. I didn't sleep properly when he was with us either. I'll stick at it....must be light at the end of the tunnel at some point!
 
the fact that your son cries when you leave and stops when you are with him was similar to us. he would stop as soon as we picked him up. this was a sign for us that our son definitely needed to cry it down as nothing was bothering him except he just wanted the comfort of us. it's definitely a work in progress, but his sleeping habits are 99% better and i would say once or twice every 2 weeks he will wake up, but it's usually due to teething or a really wet nappy. we just stay consistent as best we can and for the most part it's worked.
 
How do you strike a balance when your child is ill? I'm trying to keep something of the sleep training as we'd got my daughter to the point of sleeping through the night but now she has an ear infection and is waking up screaming for up to 3 hours. So far, I can't say I've handled it particularly well. Stayed out the room for up to an hr, gone in and held her hand for an hr, then worn out, walked out again and let her cry to sleep for around half hour. My only consistency has been my inconsistency! Poor girl doesn't know what the hell I'm doing, and quite frankly, neither do I!
 
Forgot to say, my daughter is also suffering from seperation anxiety which occured at the same time or was triggered by the ear infection, and now suddenly is scared of her bath before bed and won't let me lie her down to dress her etc. She'll feed then hold my hand to go to sleep just fine but then wakes up screaming a couple of hours later. I can't tell if it's an 'i'm in pain' scream or a 'where are you?' scream as her crying style has changed recently and all sounds the same to this worn out mum!
 
Oh no! Sorry I think when they are sick it's normal for them to be clingy. When my son is sick he only wants mommy and will literally sit ontop of me ALL day if i let him...Usually if it's a cold and nothing painful, we try to stick to the CIO but I've never been in a situation where they've had an ear infection...can you give panadol before bedtime so she is not in pain?
 
Milkmonster,

How long did it take you to train your son when he was 10 months old for day time naps and what did you do? I'm going mad and getting increasingly frustrated and miserable at not succeeding in training my daughter for her day time naps. I try sitting in the room and making no eye contact as this is what worked for nighttime sleep. I've had about 50% success over the past week. It sounds better than it is. 50% as in screams for an hour and then falls asleep or gets one nap in the whole day around midday falling asleep after 5 minutes having been up from 6am.

I'm at breaking point and am so,so fed up.
 
have you tried first recording when he begins melting down or getting over-tired? when i trained my son's daytime naps and overall sleeping schedule, i first started to record everytime he would show signs of getting tired. i used my notes to formulate his own schedule. Once you have the approximate times, create a routine and stick with it. when my son goes down for a daytime nap, we walk into his room together, pull his curtains closed, i gave him a little kiss/cuddled and then put him down totally awake. Then I tip toe out and it takes about 5-10 mins for him to put himself to sleep. we have not veered from this routine since 6 months and he is now 13 months.
 
Thanks for your response, Southside852. She sleeps from 6.30pm-6.00/6.20am and then seems to show signs of tiredness 50 minutes after waking. That seems a little early though for a 10mth old, doesn't it? I put her down around 1.5hrs after wake up and today it took her 1hr and 15mins to sleep then she slept for 45 mins. At 12.00 I put her down again as she showed signs of tiredness and then she cried, played, screamed, fiddled and talked alternating for around 1.5hrs and then fell asleep when I walked out in frustration after an hour. She then slept 45 mins again and now she's exhausted. If I don't get a morning nap out of her, she falls asleep around 11.30 and sleeps for 1.5hours. Either way I can only seem to get 1.5hours out of her and she is constantly tired and needing my attention as a result. How did you sleep train your son? I really wanted to take a 'gentle' approach but I'm wondering now is CIO the only option for me at this stage? I'm travelling in 3 weeks time and really need to get this sorted before then. I'm also at breaking point and am getting so agitated and miserable as a result.
 
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