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It IS hard. I folded laundry, dusted every room in the house and mopped the first 2 nights. I had to do SOMETHING. We eased into it. We weren't cold turkey type of people. If it doesn't feel right, there's nothing wrong with that. Go with your gut and what feels right for you. J was certainly freaking out the first couple of nights but I decided to give it 3 days then if it didn't work we'd go back to rocking every night, by the 3rd night he was much more comfortable with it.

@BelugaBean: I had a timer set on my phone and BOLTED upstairs to his room at 9:59 each time It did work for us and it took a couple of nights, so you might give it another shot, but as I said--it's totally up to you and what you're comfortable with

Here's a good article about it and how to read your babies personality:

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/06/babies_and_cio.html

It is so, so hard. The first time we tried CIO I didn't make it past five minutes. I don't know who was crying harder, me or Chloe.

We gave up the first night. It was way too hard.

The second night, my husband sat in the room with her until she fell asleep. He did that for a few days, and it worked like a charm.

@BelugaBean: I'm so sorry to hear that

It's so hard to give advice when I'm not the one there to see it. The best I can say is to go with your gut. You know your baby better than anyone.

When I decided to sleep train, I was a wreck. I was so nervous about doing it. I mapped out a plan and talked it over with DH. In the end, it didn't even work. I wanted to do a version of CIO where I sit next to her crib and let her cry, but soothe her if she gets too upset, and continue that for a few nights. It made her so much more upset that I couldn't continue. Something told me to leave it for that night, and just let her cry the next night. It hurt so bad to hear her cry, but I gave myself a time limit and never let her cry more than 15 min. If she continued to cry that long, I knew she needed something. After a couple nights, she seemed to figure out how to soothe herself in that 15 min.

Awww, i'm sorry you had a rough night! 1.5 hours is tough!

I agree with @Sammyfab. If you cave and go back to your regular methods of putting her to sleep, it reinforces that crying louder will get her what she wants - mom's boob.

I would try @Mrs. Jump Rope's method of getting DH to stay in the room and pat and soothe her until she falls asleep. It's harder when you go in, because he knows you have the milk! Would DH be okay being the one to go in for the checks? Just keep with it...it will get easier.

@BelugaBean: It doesn't hurt to revisit CIO later. A friend of mine tried it at 5 months but her LO was just not ready for it (was crying so hard he threw up), so they tried it again with success at the 8-9 month mark. Good luck!!!

(ETA: i suggested that DH stay and pat her until she fell asleep as an alternative to the modified CIO checks, especially if you don't feel like it's going well. She's still being reassured by a parent's presence...that's what we did around the 3.5 month mark when we weren't ready to Ferberize just yet.)

We are doing CIO.. here's our story..

1st night
8 p.m. bedtime- went down no issue
woke at 10 p.m. - fed him and he cried for 40 mins
woke at 2 a.m. - he refused feed, cried for 5 mins
7 a.m. - wake up

2nd night
8 p.m. bedtime- fussed for 10 mins
1 a.m. - fed him and he fussed for 5 - 10 mins
wake up at 5:30 a.m.

3rd night:
8 p.m. bedtime- fussed for 5 - 10 mins
wake up at 7 a.m.

It will be interesting to see how the weekend goes because during the week he has daycare which tires him out..

@BelugaBean: I used to nurse LO to sleep all the time and I think that became a problem. I now put him to bed after I fed him but while he's still somewhat awake.

@BelugaBean: Our LO loves the pat on the back as well. He was fine laying in his crib if we patted his back, but the minute we stopped and tried to leave the room he cried.

Oh, the other thing we figured out is checking on him made things worse. He would get so worked up, you would be back at step 1.

@BelugaBean: We went through the same thing. C learned to roll onto her belly at the same time we were trying to night wean and it was a mess. It took about 2-3 nights for her to figure out how to roll back over/get used to being on her tummy. We just kind of left her to work it out for herself unless she got hysterical, then I'd go in and flip her over.

@BelugaBean: I'm sorry, mama. It is really hard the first few days. It falls into place quickly though.

@BelugaBean: not really here to offer advice, just going through the same thing! We started CIO Thursday night so last night was night2 for us. The first night we had been trying to get him down with our usual rocking and stay-in-the-room methods but every time I'd put him down he'd cry (which he's been doing for a few weeks now...he used to be super easy!). Finally, after 1 1/2 hours I decided to just leave him crying and 15 minutes later, he was asleep! And slept til 4 am (and I nursed him)

Last night was harder. we started our bedtime routine at 750. I read him changed him, read him 2 books, fed him, rocked him for a bit then put him down and left about 820 At first he was okay and playing with his feet, etc for about 15 min. Then the crying started. I went up for maybe 2 or 3 checks to replace his paci, etc. Finally after an hour was considering giving in and he got quiet and fell asleep. And again stayed asleep until 4 am.

At least mine is staying asleep for longer stretches now. He wasn't doing that last week, but I think it may have been the fact we were on vacation and he wasn't going to daycare, which wears him out!

Sound like things went pretty well for you last night!

We also nap trained today, which is not going as well. So, we started bed time at 6:40 pm. We did bedtime routine, bath, book, bottle. He got disinterested in bottle so we put him in crib at 7:30. He fussed 10 minutes and fell asleep. It's only 9 pm so we will see how the rest of the night goes.

@BelugaBean: that sounds like great improvement!

@littlek: last night, yes! Tonight was a fail though...it's 1015 and I'm just letting LO fall asleep in my arms. We've been trying since 830 and I just can't do it any more tonight. My "checks" only seem to upset him more. So much for tonight