“We never wanted to do CIO but a gentle approach backfired”

Jenny and Rusty came to me for sleep support for their two-year-old daughter, Ariella. Here’s how they described their bedtime routine to me:

“Ariella has always been a challenging sleeper. We shared our bed with her for the first 18 months, then gradually transitioned her to a crib, starting out sitting next to the crib while she fell asleep, then gradually moving further away until Dad was sitting in a chair by the door every day while she fell asleep. We live in a small apartment and we couldn’t move outside the door because then light from the rest of the apartment would flood her bedroom with light (with the door open).

Then about 6 months ago, she started climbing out of the crib so we transitioned her to a toddler bed. The issue is that recently she seems really revved up at bedtime. Sometimes she stands on the lower railing of the toddler bed. It’s taking longer and longer to get her to fall asleep.

Previously she was going to bed at 7:45 but now it’s more like 8:30-8:45. The bedtime routine has gotten progressively longer (it used to be 45 minutes and now it is 1.5-2 hours) and now Rusty has to rock her to sleep instead of just sitting in the chair by the door."

Simultaneously with these bedtime challenges, Rusy’s job has gotten really busy and he often has to work in the evenings, while Jenny is 2 months away from delivering their second child.

Rusty and Jenny said they would like an easier bedtime routine that takes less time because Rusty needs time to work and with a newborn, they won’t be able to manage a 2 hour bedtime routine for Ariella. “We want Ariella to feel confident in her abilities to sleep independently, and for us to have time to get things done and also reconnect in the evenings.”

Rusty and Jenny had never done any sort of formal sleep training, and felt strongly that they were “not CIO people,” so after reviewing the options, they decided to go with the most gradual approach, the Chair Method. With that method, the parent sits in a chair in the room, in this case starting by the door since that’s where they had already been, and gradually moves further away every 3rd night.

Things were going pretty well until Rusty moved the chair outside the room. That’s when all hell broke loose. Ariella wouldn’t stay in her room, and was up for hours. She took off her diaper, and emptied the contents of her dresser. It seemed like having Rusty outside the door, even with the door open and where Ariella could see him, was making her increasingly upset.

The next few nights got progressively worse. She started waking up repeatedly during the night, increasingly anxious and upset. Her parents were getting more and more tired, and so, of course, was Ariella.

One night things came to a head. Rusty was working late and Jenny had already been up multiple times with Ariella and was at her wits end. Ariella was waking up screaming every 45-90 minutes. Jenny made a spur of the moment decision because she felt like all the check-ins were actually making Ariella progressively more anxious.

Jenny stopped responding and within half an hour, Ariella fell asleep… and slept 6 consecutive hours, the most she had slept in days. Best of all, she woke up in a better mood and less clingy than she had in a week. We spoke that day and they decided to sit with Ariella only at bedtime that night, and stay out of her room the rest of the night. That night, Ariella cried 25 minutes at bedtime and then slept the rest of the night! And then last night, they left her room after 5 minutes, with her still awake, and she had her best night yet and slept through the entire night! She woke up relaxed and happy.

This is an interesting case because it became so clear that a more involved approach was actually making this child more anxious. As parents, we assume that a gentler, more gradual approach is a kinder one but in Ariella’s case, we can see that in this case, the opposite was true.

If you’d like to see your child sleep through the night independently, set up a free consult to find out more about what the process might look like for your family. There’s no obligation to buy and I promise you’ll come away with a few things to try, free of charge. And there's zero pressure to try an approach that doesn't feel right for your family. 

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