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i am curious what responses you will get to this question as it is a good one! i can't really help because i don't think i would ever try CIO! i am a believer that babies do cry for a reason and therefore they need us. But you brought up questions I hadn't considered - how to tell if there is a difference?

I just sort of learned to trust my instincts. The traditional 5, 10, 15 minutes checks didn't work for us. He'd get hysterical and angry whenever we went in...his level 3 cry would immediately become a level 8 or 9. So I would let him cry for up to 15 minutes. If he didn't start to calm down within 10 minutes I would go in and check on him (rock him, sing to him, make sure his diaper was still dry, etc). If it was a level 10 cry (seriously hysterical) I'll go in sooner.

Most of the time his cry is just a light, whining, very tired but fighting sleep cry (more fussing than anything). In that case, if he hits 15 minutes and is still crying that cry I'll let him go longer. Most nights he cries for 5-10 minutes and falls asleep. If it's any other cry I know something is wrong and he needs me.

I make sure to burp him after nursing before I put him down but he can burp himself. As for teething, I give him a small (half) dose of Tylenol. We tried teething tablets but they didn't work for him. Those nights during teething are very hard. When he wakes up throughout the night I wait a minute or two to see if he falls back asleep (rare) and then go to him (usually to nurse).

I did two nights of controlled CIO (with checks) and I think I'm done with it because I thought his screaming was because he was tired and angry, and it turns out that he was probably teething at the time (he now has a tooth poking through) in addition to coming down with a cold. So now I really feel like if he's screaming like that, there's a reason...so I'm with you!

I know my sons cried so that's how I know.
Also- it is kind of hard to take it seriously when you walk in and their eyes are drooping closed and their half asleep yet they are still crying.
If your hold is fed, clothed and in a clean diaper..usually they are ok is my personal motto. Of course they may need some cuddling but I give my babe that before I kiss him goodnight.

We didn't do much CIO for a number of reasons. One was that he was in pain for so long and we would just leave him (for our sanity) he had negative sleep associations. Then we started co-sleeping so I could get some sleep. So we have been very selfish. BUT we have started (at about 18 months) doing some training. It does involve crying. He is given two choices usually quiet down and sleep with us or go sleep in your room. If he doesn't quiet down we put him in his room. He cries because he is angry (angry he can't have boob). Before this choice, we have offered him both water and food and he isn't thirsty or hungry enough for them. He cries for up to 15 minutes (remember he is 18 months or older) and usually he goes to sleep within 10 or we go and get him and give him the option again.

This is working for us and being older he can do some extra communicating (pee and poop and wahta and eat eat).

their cries are definitely different to me. for instance olive woke up at midnight last night crying (unusual for her since she's been consistently sttn for a while). i watched her on the video monitor and she would stand and then lay back down over and over again in between crying, so i knew she was ok. she cried off and on for a couple minutes then quickly fell back asleep.

another time when she woke up in the middle of the night she was crying frantically -- she had pooped! she definitely has different cries when she really needs me and i go to her depending on how frantic her cries are. but honestly they rarely really need me in the middle of the night once they're consistently sleeping through the night.

all bets are off when she's sick though. she's super duper needy and i just get her at every wake up. luckily she gets back on track really easily once she's better.

they're always going to be teething so i never worried about teething as a cause for disturbing sleep.

we sleep trained charlie at 4.5 months and by that age they can usually burp themselves i think. once charlie started sleeping through the night then after sleep training, i don't think he woke up ever until a year when he had a sleep regression after we traveled.

I can certainly tell the difference between her cries. She has a very distinct "I am tired but I don't want to sleep" cry that is so different than her hungry, wet, hurt cries.

I absolutely agree that the cries are different. I can always tell if shes crying because she needs something or just crying/whining because shes angry or tired.

I agree that the cries sound different. I can tell if she needs something or if she's scared for some reason but I can also tell when she's just crying because she's angry or overly tired.

funny you should ask, we just went through this last night. we dont do CIO, but we definately let her fuss a bit before getting her and she usually falls asleep on her own. however, last night she woke up at 10pm which is unusual for her, and was making an Eh Eh Eh sound, which I know is the sound she makes when she needs to burp. I go in pick her up and burp her and she lets out a huge burp, then I put her right back in the crib. her fussing/tired cry sounds different than that, so i knew something was going on.

ETA: the video Mr. Bee posted is where i learned the diff cries babies have, and i noticed mine did the same thing!

reading the responses here, I realize that I can tell my baby has different cries too and I am starting to learn them. I guess the thing I don't get about CIO is that I still think every cry means something. I can't imagine any type of cry not needing a response for me. And like pps have mentioned, if my baby is fussing a bit, I leave him to see what happens and he is sometimes ok, or just needs the paci. But if he starts to cry, then I know I need to do something.

I've been an infant nanny in the past, and I was always a big believer in CIO. Now that I'm a mom, I just don't think I can do it! LO is only 6 weeks old, so we're not even close to that stage yet, thank goodness. But yeah, I feel you -- it's a really tough decision for some!

@PurpleUnicorn: i'm in the camp of every cry doesn't mean something. for instance, olive used to wake up all night long crying because she wasn't used to putting herself to sleep, knew that i would come running if she cried, and wanted me to nurse/rock her back to sleep. i let her cry for 10 minutes one night, and she started sleeping through the night shortly after that. she went from waking up 5+ times a night (at a year old) to sttn.

sleep training with olive was so mild i don't know if i could even call it crying it out. i just let her work it out on her own for a couple of minutes. if she gets frantic, i get her. but letting her work it out on her own makes her sleep so much better. it's much healthier for her to get long stretches of uninterrupted sleep than to wake up every hour or two. she is happier, healthier, and so is mama.

@PurpleUnicorn: well we sleep trained charlie at 4.5 months because his sleep was so bad. he was up for hours in the middle of the night, and would wake up every hour or more often when he was sleeping. he was so exhausted and unhappy in the day and he was truly suffering. when babies wake up that often, it is usually because they are waking up after every sleep cycle and need an external sleep prop to get them back to sleep (nursing, rocking, movement, etc.). once they are able to soothe themselves back to sleep, then when they wake up from a sleep cycle, they don't need an external prop to fall back asleep. even adults wake up many times during the middle of the night but we know how to put ourselves back to sleep so we don't even remember it.

charlie cried on and off for less than 20 minutes the first night, and the second night he went to sleep without any crying. night training him was pretty easy luckily, and he slept through the night i think without ever waking up from 4.5 months - 1 year. he was much happier and healthier, and i have no regrets.

every parent, baby and situation is different, and it's tough to really understand what another parent is going through. maybe waking up 13 times a night is manageable for some parents, and maybe it isn't for others. for us it was always a balance between our child's health/happiness, and the decisions we felt comfortable with to achieve that. so even at a young age, crying doesn't necessarily mean that they need you every single time. charlie went from waking up more than 10 times a night to sleeping through the night in a matter of days after all, and he became one of the happiest babies around.

@Mrs. Bee: i do acknowledge that I can't know what i might do in a given situation unless I am in it. L has never had to wake up 10+ a night and I can't even imagine what that is like. He started STTN at 8 weeks, but also has some nights where he wakes up once for a feeding or a few times and we give him the paci and he goes back to sleep. We always wait to see if he will go back to sleep on his own first though. Honestly, I want to start cutting out giving the paci every time he fusses because I think we partly do that so we can go back to sleep too. He still sleeps in our room in the bassinet and we hear everything. I think once we move him to his room in the crib, I will see what happens if I don't run to give him the paci everytime.

@fatkid: Yah but once I knew that the cries meant something, I was able to figure out what they meant past the reflex stage?

Now when Olive is crying, I usually have a pretty good sense what she is trying to communicate to us... and how upset she is over something (versus just kind of fussing or expressing irritation). It's just a general sense, but it's been pretty helpful!

Just a note to add that when babies cry, they gulp in lots of air so that can cause them to get gassy and burp when you do finally go in once a night!

Just like @Mrs. Bee and her family, we had one sleeper who needed to be sleep trained (Wagon Jr.) and became a phenomenal sleeper after that, and one who we never needed to sleep train (LMW). She only woke once a night and eventually dropped that waking as well. She once cried for 13 mins (Wagon Sr. was home alone with both kids and was putting Wagon Jr. to bed) and other than that we've never let her cry for more than 5 minutes or so. As soon as she was able to self-soothe with her lovey at about 6 months, she would rub her face on it and go back to sleep on her own. (sometimes she's out of reach of her lovey so we go in and give it back to her, but don't touch her or pick her up.)

The cries are definitely different, and I really think that once I felt comfortable in knowing what they were, I was able to use CIO effectively. It has completely changed life for us and for DD. She is so much better rested now, and waaaay happier in the morning.

I agree with @Beebug: I don't see how baby needs mama 10+ times at night, especially at 6+ months. Now that my LO knows how to put herself to sleep, bedtime is on of teh best times in our household. It is so peaceful and sweet and we all wake up together at 6.30am. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Just to chime in with others, I think it is the difference in the cries - and sometimes it can take a while to figure that out as a parent. My LO is sleep trained and it's extremely rare for her to wake up in the night, so I almost always go to her when that happens. It's usually because of teething, the beast that seemingly will never go away!

@PurpleUnicorn: We CIO sleep-trained at likt 5-6 months old and she NEVER cried for an hour. I would say the absolutely longest she ever went was 30 minutes (with checks). Most of the time, she was asleep in less than 10 and I never even had to check on her. When we had to re-train at 11 months old, she cried 40 minutes the first night (with no checks, they just piss her off) BUT she is definitely at an age now where she knows how to manipulate us to a degree. The second time, she cried that 40 minutes the very first night and then went right back to STTN the very next night.

A lot depends on the child. We trained C at 6 months even though she was only waking once per night. I could tell that she wasn't really hungry or needing anything and was waking from habit, so we went for it. She has really always been a good sleeper also. She was sleeping 6-7 hours at night at 2 weeks old.