At the risk of controversy, is there a CC support thread?

[vezzie]

Anyone else struggling with this and want to join?

Anyone who is not totally against all CC per se know when you should reasonably give up? I have not had the magic results with DD I was promised and I am pretty much broken. I was so sure she was ready before I started (had medical check up too, to be safe) and now we are not getting anywhere (or not very far anyway) in a week I am wondering whether a. I am doing it wrongly or b. I shouldn't be attempting it at all.

Reasons for carrying on now:
she is fit and well with no other upheaval in her life and I have to go back to work in Jan - I can't do it when she is dealing with that too, or if she picks up one of these awful bugs going around;
she has slept through without feeding or stirring (once) and all the signs show she is physically ready;
I have started and so to give up now means I have put us through a week of misery for nothing.

Reasons to stop:

it is bloody awful, relationship with DP cracking under the strain, I have a once in a blue moon girls' night out planned tonight and if I go out I can pretty much be sure all my efforts so far will be for nothing as I will come back at midnight and find dd out of her cot in DP's arms, all the lights on, bottles of expressed milk all around and she'll be beaming and kicking her legs while he says "I just couldn't settle her and I was sure she was hungry."

Please someone come and tell me to either stick to my guns or throw the towel in and make me feel ok about either. DD is 7 months, 50th centile for weight, eating food and breast fed, cheerful and active in the day, goes down well to sleep at first but doesn't want to stay there.

[vezzie]

Bump

Please come and talk to me about this if anyone has a clue!

thank you

[iloveholidays]

Hiya

I sympathise with it - it is really hard. Luckily we had really really positive results within a couple of days with our DD so I can't imagine how you're feeling after a week. We used CC to get our DD to settle herself rather than sleep through the night, however I believe it's all similar.

Are you doing it to get her to sleep through at night?

How often does she wake? Did she used to sleep through often?

My DD is 8 months next week and we've just had quite a bad month of her waking in the night which is similar to a lot of my friends babies... I think they go through developmental stages where they're learning new things (e.g. sitting up, rolling etc) and sleep a lot lighter.

[nannynz]

I am maternity nurse and have supported some families through controlled crying and have done it myself with a few children. First thing I do is make sure the daytime routine is working eg make sure she has enough food/milk, and check sleep. Second I make sure they are able to go to sleep by themselves - depending on baby I've done different things. Thirdly will do controlled crying(last resort though), none of the children I've worked for have cried for longer than 45 minutes(that was one child only and only one time) and by the end of the week they were falling asleep and staying mostly staying asleep.

If you want any help or ideas let me know the questions and also what you have being doing for controlled crying. Also it will not work if you or your husband are not confident in it. One family I worked with I slept trained their 4,2 and 9 month old at the same time, the parents went away for two nights on the second night only the baby woke. When parents came back they all started waking again as the children knew the parents would let them sleep with them, give bottles, sit by bed etc. So even now if I have them they sleep, but they still wake for parents.

[Bababa]

Hey there yes I'm up for a cc support thread. Even if it's just 4 folk who cares

No time to write much now but wanted to say stick with it still and see how it goes for another few days..

Are you doing it to help DD settle or to get her to sleep through the night, can I ask?

We did it with Ds as he needed carried&jiggled to sleep, at 6 months he weighed 8kg, our backs were buckling! It took us longer than just one week. Long story but it worked in the end, now we put him in his cot and he burbles a bit to himself and sleeps within 15 minutes. Honestly, if someone had told us then how great our evenings would be now we'd have thought they were being cruel and taking the mickey.

Hope girls night out goes ok...support support support!

[vezzie]

Oh thanks for coming to the thread! 4 people SO much better than one.

Nannynz: Our dd can go to sleep by herself, she has 2 day time naps and I put her down awake for both and at night time as well. Our problem is she has been waking 2 / 3 times a night and I had been in the habit of feeding her, which I think I should now stop as she has slept through before she got into this waking habit and I really want her not to expect feeding at night.

In the day she has 3 food meals and 3 breast feeds. She naps at 9.30 ish and 1 ish and goes to bed at about 7 after a very consistent routine.

I will go in at 5 minute intervals, stroke her head, say "shh it's sleepy time". Sometimes I pick her up and put her down again after a cuddle; sometimes I offer her water but last night I did neither of these as I have just found out they might not be helping. What do you think?

Bababa - girls' night out was great, thanks! It was lovely to get away and talk to childless women and have a lovely dinner and wear jewellery. DP had STRICT instructions as to what to do if dd cried, but she did not; and so far, not a peep since I have been back either.

iloveholidays - i know what you mean about developmental stages, it's like the 4 month thing isn't it.

Right I feel reinvigorated at the thought of getting great advice from all you gurus.

Will let you know tomorrow how we get on tonight. good luck everyone

[nigelslaterfan]

vezzie, hope it went well for you tonight!

My dd is 14 months and is now in a good routine of going down to get herself off after her usual bedtime cues,
Story on my lap
Feed
bath or wash,
brush teeth
Big light off
Lullaby music on (on the baby monitor goes for about 5 mins, always the same rotation of songs)
And I'm out the door.

I think routine is part of the picture but so is readiness, it's finding a balance between all of them. we did some cc (Ican't remember when that was) and it was excruciatingly hard to leave her! It's counter intuitive isn't it?
But you know best, you need to do what keeps you sane, that thought should stiffen your resolve. Sane mother - better for baby. Demented mother - bad for baby. You need to do what keeps you sane. good luck!

[vezzie]

We're doing well - last night the first I heard from her was 6 am!

Such a relief - I feel like a different person. Even if it was a one -off, I feel better for that one night.

How are you guys?