Hellobee Boards

It was me - you can read my posts here. We were in sleep hell.
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-16-month-old-up-for-hours-at-night

Like up for 4 hours in the middle of the night with a screaming baby. We both work full time and LO was a total exhausted wreck during the day.

Anyway, we were pretty anti-CIO and we had tried in the past and it went horribly, so I was not really on board.

However, something had to give -for all of us. I took him to the pediatrician again to just check that he didn't have an ear infection or anything else weird going on. Our ped gave him a really thorough exam and said he seemed healthy, which gave me confidence. She also told me (re: sleep training) that to think of it that you're not doing it for YOUR sleep (the parents' sleep), although that is a benefit. You're doing it for your LO's health and development. They cannot grow and learn like they are supposed to if they are up all night, and he is going to get sick with no sleep.

That gave us the push we needed to try something. We decided to do Ferber CIO (with checks). I cannot tell you how much I did not want to do this. My LO would not sleep in bed with us, will only sleep if we rock him in the glider and lay him down asleep in the crib.

We also implemented a very structured bedtime routine EVERY NIGHT. AND we talked to him about it A LOT.

Anyway, so we did the ferber CIO - I had to have my husband 100% on board because I knew I would not be able to listen to him cry.

Night #1, we did our bedtime routine. Leading up to bedtime, we talked all about how tonight, we were going to have milk, read books, snuggle, say our prayer, then daddy will rock you in the glider, then you're going to lay down in your crib and go to sleep like a big boy, but mama and daddy are just down the hall, and we're going to check on you, mama and daddy always come back.... (we say this every night a few times).

We laid him down, of course he immediately stood up and started SOBBING, like hysterical. It was awful, awful. My husband stayed upstairs with him, I put headphones in and washed dishes so I didn't have to hear it. I think he did 4 checks that first night.

He cried off and on for about an hour before falling asleep, which is WAY better than I anticipated. He woke up at 12 and 4 that night, and at 12 we had to go in and do a check after 5 min of crying, but he went to sleep. At 4 he cried for 5 minutes and went back to sleep.

Night 2 he cried less than 5 minutes and went to sleep.

This was about a week ago and since then we've continued to have success, although he still starts SCREAMING as soon as we put him in his crib for the night - he just only cries a little bit. Honestly it's still hard, but it has been a life saver for us.

@lulabee sleep sack. We've had to be super super consistent. It's so hard.