u/DilemmaKingdom

If you did Ferber/CIO when did your baby stop crying at bedtime?
If you used other methods - what was it?

We had started ST 7 nights ago, and from what I’m reading here it’s going relatively well - baby is 6.5 MO and has been falling asleep relatively fast and progressing. Night sleep is also much better.
However we did seem to hit the extinction burst today at night 7 (schedule was more or less the same as previous days).

He was “only” crying for 32 minutes, but he was crying so horribly while also trying to soothe himself and fall asleep from about minute 5. He also cuddled into me so tightly when I was singing his goodnight song - he was ready to fall asleep in my arms and then I had to put him down and leave the room. It broke my heart because he was immediately so sad.
I know this is still relatively short time but I ended up crying for almost just as long as he did.
Please don’t advise me to “leave the house and not watch” because my goal is not limiting my suffering, but his.

If you ST’d when or how did your baby stop crying (I read parents saying here that now their kids are happy for bedtime)?
I want to help him as much as possible, and I don’t think I can just accept that he would cry himself to sleep every night for the foreseeable future..

The previous nights went like this:
1 - 21 min
2 - 20 min;
3 - 23 min;
4 - 12 min;
5 - 11 min;
6 - 7 min;
7 - 32 min.

I will just preface with the fact that I never intended to do CIO (although I understand the ones who do).
I actually just decided to do the “experiment” suggested in Precious Little Sleep and give baby 15-20 min and see what happens.

Baby is 6 MO now. I knew that he never did well with check ins and would actually escalate in response go trials of soothing and physical reassurance in the crib until he was picked up and rocked. So I knew Ferber would most likely not work.

And so we gave it a go today. Did the nighttime routine, put him in bed, said goodnight and left. It was BRUTAL. After 2 mins of trying to figure out what’s going on, we went off and was absolutely hysterical. He turned around 180 degrees in his crib while crying and kicking.
I had a timer set for 15 min and by the end od it I saw brief moments of him trying to calm down. But after a few secs he would cry terribly again.
I decided to give him 5 more min. More moments of trying to fall asleep. I set up the timer for another 5, and the next minute he was asleep. It took the total of 21 min and I was already praying that he falls asleep and is peaceful again because I couldn’t stand him being in this state 🫠
(I was also REALLY fighting the urge to run in the moment he was asleep to give him the biggest hug and a kiss..)

As much as I hated myself these 21 min, I also wanted to give him a chance after the initial 15 min, telling myself that if I go in now, he would have been suffering in vain.

In any case - what do we do now?? He has had false starts like 90% of the time the last months. If he wakes up, do we go in?
What about night wakings? He would eat at least 2 a night still and I am happy (for now) to feed him, but if he wakes up earlier would you help him fall asleep (he falls asleep in 1 min when picked up) or leave him (he would escalate).

Not really relevant I guess but his schedule now is roughly 2.5/2.5/2.5/3.

My baby is 6 months old. I almost exclusively breastfeed, baby would occasionally get a bottle of formula a day.

He used to sleep 8+ hours at 8 weeks and then between sleep regression and rolling his nights would just get worse and worse.

Part of his night wake ups are due to him rolling to his belly, waking up like that and panicking (he doesn’t roll belly->back).
But we used to be able to do the first feed around 4-5am, then 3am, then 2 and now we’re at between midnight and 1 🫠
He won’t go to sleep otherwise, despite long rocking, singing and soothing. He would just cry. And then he does eat the whole boob.

At the moment he wakes up between 3 and 7 times for feeding, majority of which happens in early morning when he would get on the boob every 60-90 min.. I started taking him to bed with me around 3am now because I am exhausted.

During the day I offer him boob every 2-3 hours, extra feeding before sleep (daytime feeds are much shorter than night ones). He has also been on solids for 2 months now and can eat quite a lot for his age.

I read that the milk recommendation for his age is about 1000ml+ a day. There is no way he would be able to eat that much (the biggest bottle of BM he would take is like 130-140 ml) and also that I would be able to produce that much milk during the day.

I know it’s normal for him to wake for feedings at this age and I would be totally fine with 1-2 feeds. But I miss sleep, I don’t have family to help where I live so I am with him most of the time and I’m tired..

PS I would totally be open to combo feed during the day, but baby has CMPA and only formula he can have ATM causes him to spit up a lot. It also is very thin and known to not keep the baby full for a long time, so that option is kind of out the window for us.