In what way is this more humane than controlled crying?

[jumpjockey]

Nurse at the sleep clinic told me that by feeding dd to a very drowsy state when she wakes up at night, I'm encouraging her to be reliant on that prop for ever. "She'll never give it up unless you make her, it's time to get tough". DD is 8 months old... and usually only wakes up once at which point I'm happy to feed her, she's quite possibly hungry...

Anyway, she recommended putting her down awake then waiting outside the door, and if she cries wait a minute, go in, stroke her face 3 times with no eye contact and no talking. Leave the room again quickly, wait outside and if she cries again, wait a minute, go in, etc etc. Repeat until baby falls asleep. The example she gave was of a lady who had to do this 135 times on the first night.

So effectively she's saying, your baby may have to cry for 2 hours without any actual comforting. At least with CC the baby gets cuddled until they calm down, as far as I can see this means just letting them cry it out. Am I missing something important about this that makes it not as awful as it sounds to me?

[nickytwotimes]

Hmm. At eight months, waking once is not a problem ime. You are clearly happy enough with the situation too, so why change it? As you say, she probably is hungry. Most kids wake for a feed until they are about one from my unscientific survey of my friends. The going back nd forth thing is fine for an older child, but not a wee one.

[dorisbonkers]

That's controlled crying in another form, surely?

I'm sure it won't destroy their lives, but it still sounds a little rich for my tastes.

[jumpjockey]

I should have said that I went in more asking about getting her to sleep in the daytime, and nurse insisted that solving the one night waking would solve all the daytime problems. I'm not bothered by one night waking, it's sooo much better than it was a few months ago!

[cornsillk]

I thought that was controlled crying?

[Horton]

When you say you are feeding DD to a drowsy state, do you mean you put her down awake? If so, I can't really see what the problem is. If not, then actually I also can't see what the problem is - IM (admittedly limited) E, what happens is that one day, feeding to sleep just stops working and at that point the baby is ready to settle him or herself. At eight months, I can't see that one night feed is any kind of problem at all.

I didn't stop night feeds until DD was 14 months old, btw, and she sleeps through the night just fine.

[PortAndLemon]

That is controlled crying, isn't it? The cuddle-them-until-they-stop-crying is Pick Up-Put Down (PU/PD) and the just-letting-them-get-on-with-crying-and-not-going-in-at-all is Cry It Out (CIO). Or at least that's what I've always understood.

[PortAndLemon]

I'm just stopping night feeds now and DD is 16 months. It's proving remarkably painless.

[edam]

Horrible nurse. It's one thing if a parent decides to do this sort of thing to their own child, who they know (although I'm definitely on the soft side, myself) but for a nurse to be telling people to leave babies in distress is appalling. 'It's time to get tough' indeed. With an eight month old baby, FFS?

[jumpjockey]

Glad it's not just me then. I think she got a bad impression as I was v upset but that was because we'd had an unusually bad night (up three times then up for the day from 6, clinic was at 10.30 and I felt like death with a non-napping baby) so she was giving us advice that would solve the 'problem' really fast.

horton - she goes down pretty dopy, rolls around a bit then conks out. Not in the fully asleep floppy limbs stage when she goes down. We're in Phase 2 of the NCSS "get your baby to settle themself in their own cot" chapter...!

[pixsix]

jumpjockey Sympathies from me. As edam says, it's hard to understand how HCPs can be so glib about these things and how they often seem to want to give un-asked-for advice about night wakings.

I was told by a dietician that I had to stop feeding my ds at night because he needed to get his nutrition from food instead of breast milk. She said (with fixed smile) 'Mums never like to hear this but you've just got to leave baby to scream until he realises that there's not going to be any boob in the night.' ds was only 7.5 months and was BLW just fine IMO. She was supposed to be advising us about how to introduce foods that he might be allergic to.

He's 8.5 months now and usually waking for 1 night feed too. I'm encouraged to read on this thread that he might grow out of it himself. Fingers crossed for both of us!