CC making baby clingy

[mummyshambles123]

So my 6 month-old baby has always bed shared with us and slept pretty soundly through the night from very early on.

I used a sleepyhead pod placed on our mattress to keep her safe from falling etc and I would breast feed her to sleep at 7pm and leave her alone until 10pm.

She knew I would leave after the feed and didn't mind being alone but would sometimes wake for more feeds until around 8-8.30 and I could be up and down multiple times.

She has recently become more mobile and four nights ago I found her almost completely out of her pod and getting dangerously close to the edge of the bed. I moved her and her pod to her own cot in her room for her safety. She immediately started crying. I sat with her for two hours but she was inconsolable. She did not want to be in the cot. In the end my partner took over and she quickly fell asleep.

Despite saying I'd never do controlled crying, I decided my presence had made her worse so the next night we started her routine in her own room. Feed-story-kiss. Again she cried when I left the room so I asked my boyfriend to check on her every few minutes, gradually increasing up to 10mins. The second night it was half an hour before she slept and has been like that since.

She now sleeps through til 4am when I bring her in bed with us to feed and she goes back to sleep.

My problem is that she has now become very clingy in the day and cries whenever I leave the room. She never cried before and I'm afraid I'm damaging her and changing her personality.

I'd really appreciate any advice.

[Freezingwinter]

I wouldn't do CC. There's a wealth of info available that says it may be damaging and that risk alone is enough for me. They're little for so long, I just can't imagine leaving a baby to cry themselves to sleep. Why don't you try rocking or cuddling to sleep and seeing if it makes a difference? It could be that she's clingy because she hates being left alone, how else will she communicate this with you? Of course someone will probably be along to say 'I did CC and it never did my kids any harm' and that's fine. But if you're feeling it IS doing harm I definitely think you need a new approach.

[mummyshambles123]

I've only just seen this message **Freezing, thanks for your reply! Yes she did just want comfort and in the end we started to cuddle her and stay with her for reassurance.

She now goes straight down after a feed and just wakes a couple of times during the night for small feeds. I guess tackling the feeding to sleep will be the next step but for now we are all happy!