AIBU to do controlled crying

[BergamotMouse]

I consider myself quite a 'gentle parent'. Controlled crying is something I said I wouldn't do as I don't want my daughter to learn that I don't respond to her cries but I feel like I'm on my knees.

DD is 8 months. Got through the 4 month sleep regression and was on about 2/3 wake ups. I breastfeed her back to sleep every time. For the past month or so she's been waking much more, could be every hour, she can be awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night and I no longer get an evening as keep trying to get her down until I give up and go to bed with her.

I'm just so tired. Will this pass soon or is my only option sleep training? Is there a gentler way?

gammaraystar
'Always unreasonable to do this to a child! Still shocked how many times this comes up on here. Just show your child some love ffs.'

Clearly it's NOT 'always unreasonable' to do this otherwise so many decent, loving, but bloody exhausted parents wouldn't do it? And who made you the Maternal God anyway with such solid declarations, confusing your view with fact.

As for 'Just show your child some love FFS' - are you for real? Of course OP loves her baby - WTF do you think OP is doing by posting??! She's hardly demonstrating a lack of care for her child by doing so is she?

I can only sincerely hope you're capable of the other parental fundamentals such as compassion, empathy etc as right now you're demonstrating none of them

OP Another here who thought CC was a 'bad thing' and another for whom it took precisely 3 nights to work when I got desperate enough to try it having been guilt-tripped by sanctimonious other mums for far too long and I would not change a thing. It was literally like a miracle had descended upon our house and I would never have believed it could be so bloody effective nor so swift (nor that I had been actually harming my much loved baby by interfering with his need for sleep and his ability to self-settle/soothe...)

Said DC is now 16, has slept fantastically since he was 18 weeks old, and well capable of self-soothing - a vital skill that an alarming number of children are deprived of via their 'look at me I'm so fucking great compared to you' parents (you only have to glance through thread to see how horribly real this breed are).

Truly, this is a support forum for parents, not a 'let's lay into someone when they are already on their knees' forum - calling CC (& by extension OP for considering it) 'cruel'. It's as nasty as it is ill-informed.

shakingandshocked right on. I demand you run for PM immediately

OP only skim read but you asked for a summary of the no cry sleep solution - it's not one of those one method books. Instead it gives you loads of suggestions and tools to use to stretch out sleep chunks, to make them less dependent on you when they wake and to make their night wakings less disturbing. None of them are going to solve the whole issue but might improve things little by little. It's not a quick fix, but it can be useful.

Shaking, I agree with your post entirely except for the point that babies "need" to learn to self soothe and that it's cruel if you don't sleep train. Can you think about what you're saying? It's just as bad as saying nobody should ever sleep train as it's cruel. There isn't one right way for everyone and while a bit of controlled crying is really NOT the end of the world, awful cruelty, or even (I'd argue) "un-gentle", it's also okay if you don't want to do it, if you're happier taking a slower route, or you don't mind waking up at night. It's just an individual choice and trying to paint it that one or the other is right or wrong just doesn't make sense.

I don't think that CC or other sleep training methods are completely pain free for the baby - they are usually too little to understand why you're not coming immediately (or for other situations, why you're not feeding them, why you're not picking them up even though you're there) and crying is of course stressful, but as others pointed out, when they can't sleep, they are often crying anyway, and being confused/upset for a little while and then comforted, or comforted in a different way, might be worth the trade off for better sleep for everyone, or you may feel it might be too high a price to pay. It's really just down to the individual parents to look at their own situation and their own baby to decide where the balance lies.

You can always try gradually moving away from her at night love, I did it with my son. I would give him his bottle and story then put him in his cot, for the first few nights I sat beside his cot, then I sat by the door, then on the landing, then the stairs and so on. He now happily (most of the time) goes to bed alone. I wish you the best of luck love xxxxx

This realy pisses me off this argument. Some mum's do and some mum's don't, I didn't with my first, she has always been a terrible sleeper, and still now cries for my attention at age 6. My second, I tried controlled crying for three nights when he was 4 months old, again he was a terrible sleeper and I had severe PHD I was at my wits end. 3 days it took and he has pretty much been the perfect sleeper ever since. You can tell the difference between a baby crying for attention and crying in pain/hunger. Go for it and good luck !!

Boils down to op what YOU think is right for YOUR dc.
So many dp's don't use there natural instincts anymore. Every mother in the world has them. We relay way too much on books, professional and forums. You don't see dogs, cats and goats ect reading mn or talking to hvs' but they all no what to do and what is best for their young.