I am wondering if CIO isn't quite the right approach for us... At least for bedtime... Today is day 10 of sleep training and the baby is now sleeping from roughly 7ish (depending on how long she cried) to 5ish. She's taking her naps, short but no problems. Even when she wakes up middle of the night she can usually get herself back to sleep within 2-5 minutes. BUT, even at day 10, it's taking her over 30 minutes of crying before she falls asleep!! And this is pretty much the only time she cries when I put her in the crib!! Is it time to try a different method? I don't think I can take her crying much longer.... What's your experience with CIO? How many nights before the baby stop crying? Thanks!
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Could you maybe try putting her to bed a little later? Sometimes changing the bedtime around a little makes a world of difference. Also, I've found that a consistent bedtime routine helps, too. We do potty, brush teeth, diaper, pjs, book. Then he chooses a binky and i plop him into bed.
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@Mamatang: For me, I ditch anything that doesn't feel comfortable to me or that doesn't seem to work for my kids. Hopefully some people with experience with CIO will chime in to let you know what their experience was for how long it took; but if I were in your shoes and wasn't seeing improvement and didn't want to continue I'd just quit.
Since you've already put in that many days of effort it might be worth a try to move her bedtime a little to see if that makes a difference.
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I third the moving bedtime suggestion!
Also, how old is your lo?
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@bunnylovesbear: I'd like to think we have a pretty good bedtime routine. We start with bath, breastfeed, read a book than bed. She has her lovey with her when I put her down. My sleep consultant actually suggested that I moved her bedtime earlier to 6:30. She said the baby might be too tired. So I tried that and it didn't work. We moved it later too and it didn't work. The sleep consultant says it's already getting better ( we came down from 1 hour 45 minutes) and the baby won't always cry to sleep...
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@Mrs. Twine: I can't say that it's not moving at all consider before sleep training she was a co-sleeping, fell asleep on breast, wake up every other hour. So there is a huge improvement. Also, prior to sleep training she can't even stay in her crib for more than 5 seconds! I just don't understand why she has no trouble falling asleep for naps (we take 3-4 30 min/day) and only cry at night.
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@googly-eyes: She has no trouble falling asleep for naps (no cry at all), only cries at night (no trouble falling back asleep if she does wake middle of the night). She is currently 5 month 16 days.
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@Mamatang: Hmmm. Would you be willing to table it and try again later? Is lo teething? I think my final decision would rest on whether you are still making progress or it seems to have stalled. I will admit that ten days does seem long for cio if you're doing extinction. Also, some kids burn off energy by crying, so there's that too. My lo finds reading books to be very engaging and so we don't do that at bedtime. Maybe you could move the books to before bath and replace that part with a little rocking or a lullaby or something else she finds very calm in the dark before putting lo down awake? Just something that will bring on the drowsy feelings for her.
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@googly-eyes: I am of course ok with tabling it till later. But we were co-sleeping before and I don't want to continue it because she's moving more than my liking. So I have no idea how else to let her fall asleep in her crib except CIO. I'll try moving bedtime later and move reading a book around tomorrow and hoping for better result!
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@Mamatang: Good luck! Perhaps you will also get more suggestions from other users as hb gets a little more active in the morning!
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@Mamatang: we did CIO with our 7month old and it took 8 days til we saw a real difference in crying-before-sleeping at bedtime - and we're now almost three weeks in and it's still a bit of a crapshoot...
sunday, monday and tuesday nights, she cried for two-five mins, last night was over an hour 
so i'd try stick with it a bit longer and see how you go. we were also co-sleeping, nursing to sleep etc before and she was waking every hour or so, so it has vastly improved for us. good luck with whatever you decide to do
baby sleep is hard!
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Have you tried staying in the room with her while she falls asleep? What sort of crying is she doing ? Is it hysterical wailing or more like grizzly, tired noises?
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@Kemma: this is exactly what i was going to ask. would you feel comfortable staying in the room until she lays down and stops crying? And what kind of crying is she doing ... is it a full on wail with big fat tears and screaming? Or is crying without tears and more of a "im trying to get your attention here!" kind of cry?
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I have always wondered about this too, I have nannied for 2 kids now who have had to cio at every sleep time unless they were exhausted. Their parents were ok with it so we still did it most of the time. With one I tried on a few occasions to attempt a different method to see if we could get nap time to be calmer (plus it took forever, a 2 hour nap would take 3.5 between the routine, the cio and then the slow wake up). That child was never able to get to sleep even if I rocked, or sang or rubbed his back, he just needed to cry. The other one would be ok with being rocked and sang to and then laid down super drowsy/almost asleep but it took us about 30 minutes to do the bottle, book and rocking but as the youngest of 3 it was hard to do.
So I guess that was kind of a non answer, my advice is to play around with it a bit and see what happens. If cio isn't working for you it might be worth trying something else for a few days.
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@imbali: This is kind of what I am feeling too! I am seeing change and improvements and she's only crying at night. She doesn't even protest when I put her down for naps. You make me feel there's light at the end of the tunnel!
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@Kemma @ Aegie : She'd cry really hard with tears and all for the first 20 minutes. Calms down when I do the checks and start again. Usually after 30 minutes of crying she starts to just moan and starts to drift off. I am gonna try sitting next to her tonight and see if that helps!
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@Cole: According to my sleep consultant naps are usually the hardest for babies to accept. Funny thing my LO has no problems with naps starting day 2 just the night time. I'll start changing it up and see what happens! Good luck to you as well!
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@Mamatang: After sleep training it still took R almost 6 months before she would quietly go to sleep on her own. Just in the last couple weeks, she is quiet and doesn't talk to herself, whin, or cry.
sunday, monday and tuesday nights, she cried for two-five mins, last night was over an hour 
so i'd try stick with it a bit longer and see how you go. we were also co-sleeping, nursing to sleep etc before and she was waking every hour or so, so it has vastly improved for us. 
baby sleep is hard!
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