Crying it out to get STTN?

I've read so much about CIO and am so torn.

For those who did it, was it successful for you? How many nights did it take? What was the longest stretch of crying you had to endure?

My heart breaks thinking about it. DS and DD are almost 6 months. They don't know how to fall asleep on their own without being rocked to sleep or a bottle. It's my fault, I know, but I need to teach them and help them be better sleepers. I can't do the rocking for an hour to get a 30 minute nap if I'm lucky. They wake for a bottle - but I think it's because they don't know how to put themselves back to sleep rather than hunger. They're on cereal now and drink plenty of formula throughout the day.

I'm trying to brace myself for this and do it next week. We're going on vacation in August and I go back to work in September. I could use some moral support... my friends who have done it says it took 3 days MAX and no more than 30 min of crying 1st night. If you have twins, how'd that work? Did you do it while they were in the same room?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Crying it out to get STTN?

I had to do this around 6 or 7 months. The girls started having difficulty falling asleep and waking up in the middle of the night. Aubrey was the most difficult one and it was hard to have them CIO when they were both in the room waking each other up.

It did take about three days. The first day was rough. Aubrey cried for about 45 minutes. She was hysterical. The next day was maybe 20 min. Then the third day I think ten minutes. She did cry for the next two weeks about 5 mins or so.

Naps I went for a walk with them the same time for about two weeks. They woudl fall asleep. Then I transitioned it to their beds. I seperated them during the day for naps. The first couple of days was hard with them crying, but after a couple of days they were falling asleep on their own.

Re: Crying it out to get STTN?

Crying it out to get STTN?

We did it with our twins and if we have to do it with this one as well, we would absolutely do CIO. We did it with DD at 8 months (6 months adjusted). She cried for 48 minutes the first night. It was torture! we felt horrible. We wanted to go up there so many times but did not. We just straight let her CIO. The next night she cried for about 20 minutes and the third night for 10 minutes. After that, she went right to sleep from the moment we put her down. At 19 months, she still goes right down and STTN. DS we didn't have to do CIO until he was about 17 months. He was a great sleeper up until then. Then he would cry, we'd go in and pick him up and he would just stop crying and want to play or just wanted to be held. So we did CIO and it was pretty much the same as DD. Now he goes right down again. When we did CIO with DD, we kept DS downstairs with us until she fell asleep. When we did CIO with DS, we left DD in the room with him and she slept right through it.

Re: Crying it out to get STTN?

Re: Crying it out to get STTN?

I did CIO with my DS when he was 10 months old. He would wake up every 2-3 hours, so this was the last resort for us. It took him about a week to STTN. He would cry for about 3 hours straight the first few nights. But it does get better and im so glad we tried it. (we did CIO without going into his room-he would cry even more if we went in). HTH

Re: Crying it out to get STTN?

We did cio at 1 yr. First night cried 10 mins. I didnt go in bc i was gunna go in by 10-12 mins and she was asleep. I tried at 7m.and it didn't work....she cried so hard she threw up and I couldnt handle it although the pediatrican said it was fine ...wipe the vomit up and leave the room....ummmmm no lol. Im glad i did finally by 1 yr bc dd is a great sleeper and plays in crib in morning for a good amount of time and puts herself to sleep at night. We play music. She will b 3 in September. My ds is almost 3 months. We r trying to put him in crib now awake but drowsy n pat him a little so he learns now. Gl. Its hard but try to not listen to the crying. Turn the tv up or shut yhe monitor off ....i know its very hard but ur teaching them a great skill

Crying it out to get STTN?

i waited until almost 9m. it was the easiest thing ever. i was never going to do CIO but DH did it one night when i was out. he said that first night took 10 minutes. so i tried it the next night and didnt last 2 minutes before getting her and rocking her. i made DH do it with me the next night and it took 2 minutes. that was all it took. i still never really let her CIO because she doesn't need it. if she cries shes not sleepy enough so we wait longer and try again. if shes tired enough to sleep she wont cry for more than a minute or two.
honestly what helps for us is that shes a thumb sucker so its like an automatic self soothing mechanism for her. as soon as we leave she cries for a second and then sucks her thumb. same reason she STTN, when she wakes up her thumb goes in the mouth and shes out again, doesn't even cry.
it may not be as bad as you think. i never ever wanted to do it but doing it when we did it worked really perfectly for us.