Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

DS will be 6 months old on the 19th of this month. He's completely inconsistent with sleeping. He goes down around 7:30 every night after his bath and I nurse him to sleep (bad habit can't break it). Some nights he'll sleep straight through to 4 or 4:30, some nights he's up every 2 hours on the dot, and some nights it's like 3 or hour stretches, but there is no pattern. He won't take a pacifier like DS #1 did and can't self soothe at all it seems.

When he wakes at night I always nurse him back to sleep but lately he's not falling asleep on the boob all the time so he goes back in the crib, fusses and then cries. I keep thinking he's too young to let him CIO but when I go back in to pick him up he just falls asleep right away on my boob, it's when I put him down he cries so clearly he's no hungry he just wants me. I've tried not picking him up just rubbing his back, his butt, yada yada. He has a sound machine, everything else is fine, he's fine, I know he just wants me there, to hold him.

Well last night he woke up at midnight and was up, like completely awake and ready to play. I didn't engage just fed him and he eventually fell asleep on the boob. Put him down, by the time I got back to my room under the covers he was up. I let him fuss, he started crying, so I went back in , fed him. Same thing. This went on, no joke until 3 am. At that point I'd had it. I patted him, rocked him,fed him. He's not teething, he's fine. He just wants me. I'm not going to hold him all night. I made that mistake already with DS#1 and was rocking the kid to sleep until he was 10 months old. I won't do that again. So I put him down, went back to bed and just let him CIO.

Thank god he only cried about 15 minutes but I don't know how I feel about having done it. Was he too young? If not, since I did it last night should I just keep going. Part of me feels like he's so young but another part of me knows that if he's made it till 4 am without waking alot of nights that when he doesn't he's just waking, wanting me and can't put himself back to sleep (which I know is my fault for nursing him to sleep all the time).

So what should I do now? Keep it going with CIO or keep nursing him? Keep in mind I am not against CIO, as a matter of fact I'm all for it under most circumstances,I just want to be sure it's not too soon for him. Any advice would be great!!

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

IMO it's not too young (or I'm a terrible person, because we did CIO with DD at the exact same age). It sounds like the root of your problem is that you haven't broken the nursing to sleep habit. This is where we were at this stage as well. DD could not fall asleep on her own so anytime she woke up, she could not soothe herself back to sleep.

What we ended up doing was switching up her bedtime routine so that instead of bath, book, nurse, fall asleep it was nurse, bath, book, into the crib awake. The first night she screamed her head off for about 15 minutes, but fell asleep and did not wake during the night. The second night she cried for about 5 minutes and same deal. The third night she still kinda looked at me like I was a traitor but did not cry. After that she STTN and fell asleep on her own after being put down awake.

As long as you are sure that he does not need to eat during the night for hunger, I think that might be your best bet. Ped told us DD did not need to eat in the middle of the night at that age but every kid is different so you may want to ask.

I still remember it was a max of 15 mins of crying because we were reading Ferber's book and were timing the first night, all set to go in there after 15 minutes. Just as DH and I were ready to get up, she stopped.

Good luck!!!

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

Not at all too young, IMO. You know he is ready because he falls asleep on the boob, he just doesn't stay asleep there.

DS had the same problem, only with the paci. He was up ten, fifteen times a night. We took it away at five months old and did CIO. It worked in two nights. FM me if you want to ask me any questions

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

IMO, you need to break the nursing to sleep habit. He associates it w?sleep and therefore needs it to get back to sleep when he wakes at night. I don"t think he's too young for CIO, as long as its not too long. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

Thanks guys! I'm going to give it a shot tonight, letting him CIO and also putting him down awake, and we'll see how it goes.

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

Message edited 7/5/2011 6:30:30 PM.

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

I do not think it's too young for CIO. We did it around 5.5 months too. DD always fell asleep while nursing, never took a paci and woke up throughout the night.

I started putting her down awake in her crib and let her CIO. Think the 1st night was 30 minutes, 2nd night was 45 minutes. It was so sad to hear her cry but I think it needed to be done to maintain my sanity!

Now it's so awesome to put her in the crib with no crying and she knows it's bedtime. Trust me it's worth it in the end.

The ferber method wasn't good for us, because when she saw either DH or myself, she started full out crying again. So we did straight CIO. We had to stop a few nights because of teething and a cold but then jumped back on when she got better.

Re: Last night was ROUGH! Is 5.5 months too young for CIO? (long- need advice)

Have you considered formula before bed or pumping? if you are using a bottle, you can feed more at night and warm it up, that way it can become a habit to know that the warm bottle is a bedtime bottle