CIO success!

I have been against the CIO philosophy since Brodie was born and even before because of what I had learned in my child development classes. But, after several very sleepless nights and a month or 2 of Brodie screaming every time we set him in his crib awake we knew we had to do something for all of our sanity. As a last resort (and with a lot of coaching and encouragement from my mom) we decided to finally just try CIO for 1 week tops and if it wasn't working we'd go back to rocking Brodie to sleep.

Well, I am so amazed at how fast it worked and how good Brodie is doing now! Here is the breakdown of how long it took:

1st night- cried from 9:26pm-9:56pm (30 min)

2nd night- fell asleep nursing and stayed asleep during transfer to crib

3rd night- cried for 16 minutes

4th night- cried from 7:40-7:43pm (only 3 minutes) and slept (minus a 1/2 asleep diaper change/back pat at midnight) until 8am!

5th night- cried from 10:00-10:02pm (only 2 minutes!) and he had just taken a 2.5 hr nap and woken up at 8:15pm

This is an amazing change from the up to 2 hour cuddle/fight to get him to sleep in our arms. I feel like I have the nights back with my hubby.

The only thing I am trying to figure out is how to handle middle of the night nursing sessions if he doesn't fall back to sleep when I put him back in his crib. I've gotten good advice from several different people and am trying to decide what we want to do. My mom said that if he wakes up after nursing and it's near the morning (like 5am or something) not to leave him crying in his crib because he is too awake to cry himself to sleep again and just bring him in bed and let him cuddle and fall asleep with us until we want to wake up. I like the cuddling aspect of that but we don't sleep well when he's in bed with us and sometimes he doesn't fall back asleep for 30 minutes or so so he's tossing and turning and whining for a long time. Another one of the people I talked to said he has the physical capability to sleep for 11+ hrs without eating so I should just forgo the middle of the night nursing and give him several minutes to cry himself back to sleep without going in. The last person said to go nurse him and then let him CIO again in his crib. Trying to figure out what is best in that regard but I'll take him going to sleep in a few minutes for now! :)

~Heather