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@ladyfingers: Bee had trouble with hearing Charlie cry during sleep training, so she left the house and I texted her updates!

Honestly, maybe try a night with no checks. Send your DH away if necessary. Put on some music or the TV and tune it out.

He may just hate the PnP. C did. We went cold turkey and put her in her crib in her room because we didn't want to deal with transitioning again. Is moving his real crib into your room an option?

The best thing I read was in ferbers book...he says that you must be consistent and must follow through because that way, your child's cries actually serve a purpose--another words, if you let them cry for 10 min and then you go in and pick them up, feed them, move them, etc, then you might as well have done that from the beginning and saved them the unnecessery crying. But if you're consistent and follow through then it feels like it has more of a purpose, if that makes sense? They're learning something and its hard and they might cry. That's ok--tears aren't the devil! Babies are like smoke alarms, thy may cry the same volume when they're hurt as when they're pissed off.

Okay so I did cry it out and know its not for everyone but what I learned is that you can't half heartedly do it. He has likely already learned you'll put him in the RNP if he cries enough, so it won't get better until you let it get worse.

So you have to choose to let him CIO if that's what you want, or stop if you feel that's what is best.

I would go down and watch tv while he cried once we figured out that J, like your son, didn't get better through checks. So we did the "extinction method". Every minute or so id turn on the monitor to see if he was quieting down yet, but that way I didn't subject myself to 45 minutes of crying. I personally wouldn't ever let my child go much longer than tha (an hour) crying without a check and soothing. You can be gentle but firm at the same time. If you feel he needs you. Don't be afraid to break the "rules".

Good luck!!

Hearing them cry is so hard! It took us a week (4 nights of hour long crying), with no check-ins (made him cry harder) and lots of hand wringing on our end. After a few nights I figured out the best way for me to deal - I would put him down and immediately put in earphones with music blasting and only check the video monitor every ten minutes. And to check that he didn't cry to the point of throwing up, which he did twice. He was a little older though, at 5.5 months when we trained. Hope some of these ideas work for you. Stay strong, the result is worth it!

@ladyfingers: This is going to be us. We have to hold R to get her to sleep. For the last month we have been nursing to sleep, cause this way she doesn't fight it as much. But we still have to hold her for a while before we can put her down. Last night I put her down after 10 mins for the first time and she was ok. Which is an improvement from the 30 we use to have to do. But I am not sure how long she is asleep on my boob. She is so tired too from not napping at day care, since they can't hold her to sleep like we do at home.
We have let her cry in her crib before and she keeps going full force for 20 mins. Then we pick her up and she is asleep within 5 mins. I don't think CIO it is going to work for her, it seems to just make her more mad. I have heard it doesn't work on every baby.
We haven't figured out what we are going to do to sleep train yet. We are going to wait till we get through the dreaded 4 month sleep regression and then deal with it.

@ladyfingers: Yeah DH and I got into one night when after 2 hours she still wasn't asleep and he just left her in the crib. I was like you can't just decided at 10 at night to sleep train her. I told him if he wants to do it then he needs to do some research and not just leave it up to me to do.

And I totally get justifying putting it off, I am dreading it, which is why I am still nursing to sleep, cause it is already a battle with her. And with her adjusting to day care, I don't want to add another change for her to handle. That is my justification. Plus I don't think she is ready for it.

@ladyfingers: I don't have any advice but we attempted sleep training 3 different times, finally success at 11 months. If you feel like it's not working or maybe you're not ready for it, try again next month! But don't wait until he's 11 months

At that age we were still rocking to sleep. It wasn't until closer to 8 months I think that I finally had enough. I didn't use any one method, we just did what worked for us. We laid LO in the crib and gently rubbed or patted her while we said our good nights. Then as far as "CIO", we did the 5-10-15 minute interval crying. When I would go back in her room, I would re-settle her, and repeat the rubbing/patting and good nights. I tried to be out of her room in a minute. We never went past 15 minutes of crying. We have a video monitor, I don't know that I could have done it without being able to see her.

If you are going to put it off for a reason, I would recommend getting a video monitor before you get really serious. Also, I'm the bad guy in the house. I had to send DH to the other floor without the monitor and be the strong one.

@ladyfingers: I hear ya. I'm guessing the transition from both movement to sleep and RNP to crib is making it harder for your little guy to figure it out We started out having to rock to sleep (in a glider) - so when I'd pick him up, we'd go back to that until he was 99% asleep, no matter how long it took. If he started crying when he was transferred/put down, I'd walk out and down the hall - if he was still crying when I walked back, I went in and repeated. A lot of the time, in the beginning, he'd cry hard to protest being put back down but it was only for 30 seconds. Then I just lowered the percentage he was asleep slowly but surely he gave up crying at all and figured it out.

That sounds overly simplistic.. it was exhausting at first and I worried I was teaching him if he cried, I'd pick him up, but I told DH I'd try it for 7 nights and if there wasn't any progress, I'd try something else... and it worked!

Regardless of sleep training method, I'll also say that our middle of the night wakings were when he first started being able to fully put himself back to sleep after (like after his night feed), and then his going to bed put down, and then his naps. Have you ever tried transferring him in the middle of the night (if he wakes in the middle of the night) instead of at first?

Once he figured out rolling, he became a tummy sleeper quickly which also helped a lot, as did an a+a security blanket.

Lastly, and sorry this is a novel, GET A VIDEO MONITOR! Seriously. Made such a big difference, I learned some of his "tells" of when he was about to settle or I could see if he had a leg caught, etc.

I think we've commiserated before about having non-sleepy babies... I hope your LO's sleep gets better ASAP! Sleep is so hard!

I have no experience with this, but just want to wish you luck. You can do this!

@ladyfingers: good luck!! stay strong and be consistent. You guys will all make it through

@ladyfingers: stay strong Mom!! Hugs. I know this is going to be us when we sleep train.