Difficult bedtime, Cry it out guilt :(

[igirisu]

Evening all, here with my but wish it was

I have a 6 month old son who is on the whole a happy boy, he isnt clingy but likes to have me in seeing distance at all times.

The bed times in my house have become a bit tricky, we have a bath when he starts to become dispondent at around 5:00 (hes not a big napper, daylight savings have knocked him about and he likes to rise at 5am so he likes to start his bedtime routine early) and then we have a book and a cuddle, bit of a light massage not too much stimulus, dim lighting ect.... he is BF so i fell into the trap of feeding him to sleep or my partner (if he was home which is rare) would rock him to sleep but now neither of these things work.

My partner feels that when i stay in the room with him when he is crying it agitates him more because if i go in but dont pick him up he gets upset and when i walk out of the room the crying becomes more intense, i have tried sitting with him until he falls asleep but he just looks at me and wont settle, the only way he settles eventually is if we leave him to cry :(

i guess my question is If i keep going to check him, telling him he is ok but its time for bed and that i cant pick him up does he have the capacity to learn that he is not being abandoned but that during bedtime hours i wont pick him up? or does he just feel like i have left him alone?

I know its silly but all i can hear is Peaches Geldof telling me im a bad mother and my child will become a monster if i leave him to cry it out, my life is devoted to my son and i love him so much, i just wish there was another way to deal with this that wasnt so horrible for us both. Has anyone else experienced this?

[tinkertaylor1]

Is he going in to full in scream mode ? I couldn't bear that.

I did the baby whisper and it really worked. Dd (7m) goes to sleep on own after a bit if a moan . I leave the room other wise she sits up and laughs!

[crochetcircle]

Might not be the same but our first daughter would only cry herself to sleep at around that age. She was stimulated by cuddles, not relaxed, and needed to be left on her own to get on with it. I think I learned to guess which kind of crying it was, and whether she needed anything or not. Not always an easy call.

Our second daughter has been very different. She has always liked a cuddle, and could be rocked to sleep.

I think having a long bedtime routine helped our first get into the mood for sleeping.

Does that help? How long does yours take to settle?

[crochetcircle]

FWIW I don't think it's cry it out when that's the only way they can get themselves to sleep.

[cleoowen]

I wonder if your routine is too long and too much for him. my ds cries and moans a lot while i am getting him ready for bed so i distract him best i can and get him ready super quick before he gets to the totally distort stage where there is no putting him down.

Or perhaps a routine that early means he's not tired enough. i would experiment with times.

I second the baby whisper i used it too and did the pick up put down method.

[Overcooked]

Agree with Crochet, sometimes babies cry to get themselves to sleep, if that's how they do it then leaving them to it to a certain extent will help reduce the time it takes for them to self-settle.

That's my opinion but they don't like babies crying on here, you should go down the route of a five hour bed time instead, that's kinder

[cantthinkofagoodone]

Can you try a 4.30-5 nap? Then bed at 7.30-8? This might break the witching hour, early wakings combo.

[igirisu]

this is all brilliant advice thanks! I do go to him and he laughs and smiles so im going to try the whispering thing, tonight i tried stroking his hand like that bit at the beginning of the bedtime hour on cbeebees and he just looked at me like what the hell?

i know hes tired when i start the routine and sometimes i delay it if he seems bit lively, like he will fall asleep on my breast two or three times but when i transfer him to cot he cries so i know hes ready for sleep and i dont want it to get to screaming while hes in the bath because he wont enjoy it, i guess id just like it if every day didnt have to end on a sad note when the rest is so lovely.

[tinkertaylor1]

Op don't give up , I felt l

[tinkertaylor1]

You too . Ending the day

[tinkertaylor1]

Bloody phone!!
Ending the day in a sad note is not nice for both of you. The baby whisper does not advocate cry it out. But there is a difference to having a moan than thinking they have been abandoned .

It's a great app. I got both books baby whispers and baby whisper sleep ---- which was better. Honestly it really changed things for us. She is now a much better sleeper during the day now too . Good luck ,

[tinkertaylor1]

Bloody phone!!
Ending the day in a sad note is not nice for both of you. The baby whisper does not advocate cry it out. But there is a difference to having a moan than thinking they have been abandoned .

It's a great app. I got both books baby whispers and baby whisper sleep ---- which was better. Honestly it really changed things for us. She is now a much better sleeper during the day now too . Good luck ,

[tricot39]

i didnt get on with the baby whisperer and i can't listen to angry crying for long (pre sleep grumping sounds different but it takes a while to get your ear in). 6 months is a good time to start sleep training but i found that took a long time to settle down.

i used the no cry sleep solution book. lots of good ideas for transitioning so that you move the behaviour along in small steps rather than #1 big leap. but it depends on how you feel about it and how much time you feel able to put in. and also how your baby feels about it as they are all different. good luck

[ZuleikaD]

I wouldn't be doing any crying solution with a six month old - there's a reason that healthcare professionals are no longer supposed to recommend CC/CIO for under-1s and that is that it's bad for them. However, I do agree that a bit of pre-sleep grumbling is different from distress and once you're accustomed to it you can tell the difference. Crying that goes on longer than about 5 minutes, to my mind, is usually distress.

Also, don't think of feeding to sleep as a trap - and if it still works, go with it. I feed my 8mo to sleep about 50% of the time, cuddles the rest of the time. When it's what they need, it's what they need, and pushing them to do something else before they're ready only results in heartache for both of you. You won't still be cuddling him to sleep when he's 18.